carandru
Well-known member
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The rest of the article can be found here: Priest: No communion for Obama voters - Faith
WOW. That was all I could say to this article. I guess the priest is within his rights to feel this way, but I find the idea of linking a vote for Obama to "mateiral cooperation w/ intrinsic evil" to be utterly ridiculous. It is 2008 when the rules/needs of the church have to coexist with the world around it. To completely base your vote on whether or not a politician supports abortion would also be ridiculous. Do your parishioners not have live and work? Do they not need to have access to healthcare or be able to obtain a quality education? Are there no military families in your parish? Are all of these issues that they should completely ignore and simply choose the candidate who DOESN'T support abortion? Seriously? I guess it's ok to pick the guy who won't vote yes on abortion but will skyrocket taxes or send half the country into war (just being hypothetical here). A person should vote for the politician they feel has the best ideas for the country on most of the issues, if not all. But, I guess if all you care about is abortion... It just doesn't seem likely or appropriate that one would care about only one issue and base their vote solely on that when there are so many pertinent issues.
Are you not ostracizing a group of your parishioners? I guess if you believe they are jeopardizing their souls, then you probably don't care. But, it seems that pushing your parishioners away from the rituals that are supposed to reaffirm, strengthen, and display their commitment to God and their relationship too would jeopardize the souls that you are trying to save
I am just glad that this is not the sentiment of the entire Catholic church or even this priest's entire parish.
| COLUMBIA, S.C. - A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil."The Rev. Jay Scott Newman said in a letter distributed Sunday to parishioners at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville that they are putting their souls at risk if they take Holy Communion before doing penance for their vote. "Our nation has chosen for its chief executive the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president," Newman wrote, referring to Obama by his full name, including his middle name of Hussein. Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exits constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ's Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation." Risking their immortal soul During the 2008 presidential campaign, many bishops spoke out on abortion more boldly than four years earlier, telling Catholic politicians and voters that the issue should be the most important consideration in setting policy and deciding which candidate to back. A few church leaders said parishioners risked their immortal soul by voting for candidates who support abortion rights. But bishops differ on whether Catholic lawmakers — and voters — should refrain from receiving Communion if they diverge from church teaching on abortion. Each bishop sets policy in his own diocese. In their annual fall meeting, the nation's Catholic bishops vowed Tuesday to forcefully confront the Obama administration over its support for abortion rights. According to national exit polls, 54 percent of Catholics chose Obama, who is Protestant. In South Carolina, which McCain carried, voters in Greenville County — traditionally seen as among the state's most conservative areas — went 61 percent for the Republican, and 37 percent for Obama. "It was not an attempt to make a partisan point," Newman said in a telephone interview Thursday. "In fact, in this election, for the sake of argument, if the Republican candidate had been pro-abortion, and the Democratic candidate had been pro-life, everything that I wrote would have been exactly the same." |
The rest of the article can be found here: Priest: No communion for Obama voters - Faith
Are you not ostracizing a group of your parishioners? I guess if you believe they are jeopardizing their souls, then you probably don't care. But, it seems that pushing your parishioners away from the rituals that are supposed to reaffirm, strengthen, and display their commitment to God and their relationship too would jeopardize the souls that you are trying to save
I am just glad that this is not the sentiment of the entire Catholic church or even this priest's entire parish.
