Posts Tagged ‘Catholicism’
Repent, sinners who cast thy votes upon Obama!
The Rev. Jay Scott Newman of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Greenville, S.C., decided parishioners who voted for Barack Obama sinned and should not receive communion until doing penance.
“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,” said Newman. “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.”
Although not all Catholic officials agree with Newman’s stance, there are some who do, according to the Associated Press article.
“I don’t understand anyone who would call themselves a Christian, let alone a Catholic, and could vote for someone who’s a pro-abortion candidate,” said Ted Kelly, 64, who volunteers his time as lector for the church. “You’re talking about the murder of innocent beings.”
Now, I’m no theologian, but I firmly believe church and state should be separate at all times. (This belief, however, excludes obviously benign things, such as crosses on the city of Las Cruces, N.M.’s logo. It’s the city’s name, for crying out loud.) Church members shouldn’t have to feel guilty for voting a certain way.
Newman claimed his position – it’s a sin to vote for a pro-choice candidate when there’s a pro-life one – would have been the same had the Republican candidate been pro-choice and the Democrat been pro-life. That’s a terrible voting philosophy.
Imagine if everyone voted that way, choosing a candidate for a reason that, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t that important: for Obama because he’s black, for McCain because Sarah Palin is hot. Wait, people did that? Dammit, America!
What would happen if we could move to a socially responsible method of voting? Rather than voting for who you like, who you want to see naked, who will do the most for you or your small group or who you feel guilted into voting for, perhaps it’s time we start voting for what we logically believe will do the most good for our city/county/state/nation. I think some Americans – including me – voted for Obama for that reason.
I’m not saying abortion isn’t an important issue, but it had its heyday in the 1970s. There were several issues facing Americans that were more important during this election: the economy, Iraq, and health care easily outranked abortion. There’s simply no way someone could have – or should have – ignored all those issues and simply decided the next president should be the one who leans furthest toward pro-life.
Besides, if Kelly can’t bring himself to vote for Obama because he’s for the “murder of innocent beings,” how could he bring himself to vote for McCain? McCain was far more supportive of continuing a war that has killed nearly 100,000 innocent people, but maybe those people don’t count because they’re on the other side of the planet and predominantly Muslim.
In any case, how many Hail Marys does a parishioner have to do before he or she is forgiven for voting for Obama?
