Denying communion based upon how someone votes?

As far as "intrinsic evil" goes, how much evil and suffering can be ignored if you vote for someone who claims the pro-life label?

Were parishoners denied communion if they voted for Shrubby in 2004 after he invaded Iraq and killed thousands of innocent people (including babies and fetuses) in order to get oil and rich reconstruction contracts?

Anyone who still pays any attention to these pedophile protectors seriously needs help.

They can do what they want, but It's odd to me that they feel the need to single out one issue like this. There are so many issues the church has stands on, and I would venture a guess that more of them probably align with the Democrats than the Republicans, but this is the standard trump issue regardless of what else a candidate may stand for

Hmmm...this priest didn't seem too upset about innocent people being killed in Iraq or torture being performed by our own government. He isn't demanding something be done about the suffering in Darfur. He seems to have a very limited view of what is "evil". Why only focus on abortion?

I know that we still have a couple of months before Obama takes office but I really don't want to have to sit and listen to how all these sore loser churches kicked out parishoners for not voting republican. It's time the tax laws were enforced in this country. If they were, this kind of clear electioneering wouldn't even happen. The fact that these churches don't let you make up your own mind is reason enough to walk away from them. Let's hope that's what starts to happen over the next four years as these churhces spend their time trying to undermine everything president Obama does.

Start paying taxes.

His church should indeed lose its tax-exempt status.

If he denied communion to everyone who voted for someone who's done something the church is against, the only people left in his church would be people who don't vote.

constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil

For some Catholics, especially older ones, it's been drummed into their heads that abortion is the only issue. This year I thought I had my 85-year-old mother firmly on the Obama side. She seemed to see all the good reasons to vote for him and against McCain. But in the end, she voted McCain. If you have been convinced and really believe little babies are dying, there's no other issue.

On the other hand, my sister and her family left the Catholic church and became Methodists because they were tired of the constant haranguing.

Fucked-up priorities, sexism, homophobia, pedophilia, and stupidity--raised Catholic, left, and ain't EVER going back.

Although this is not an assertion I often make, it strikes me that there is a little anti-Catholic titillation in this bit of information about one South Carolina priest. What is the point of including this in War Room? Catholics voted significantly for Obama, dealing directly and thoughtfully with the serious moral question at stake even in this priest's objectionable action, which is whether to vote for a politician who takes what you consider an immoral stand on a particular issue. I am reminded reading this of the eagerness with which the media tracked down blue collar voters in western Pennsylvania who were said to be incapable of voting for an African American candidate. What good were those stories of a single elderly person grousing about Obama? In the end, blue collar (and Catholic) western PA went solidly for Obama. So this little tidbit is not really journalism (the article it was taken from is journalism, offering a much broader frame for understanding this priest), and it is not political or cultural analysis. What is it? Again, it seems to me to be a bit of anti-Catholic titillation. By the way, you know the priest in S.C. was getting his directives directly from Rome?

No politician is "pro-abortion." Very few Republican politicians who claim to be "anti-abortion" really want to see abortion vanish.

At the end of the day, self-professed Catholic women have abortions at the same rate as the rest of the population. The Church should concentrate on convincing its own members to follow its teachings, rather than foisting those teachings on the rest of us.

Signed,

An extremely lapsed Catholic who has a great deal of trouble understanding how any reasonably intelligent person can fall for this hogwash

I think it is time to rescind tax exempt status for churches that engage in this sort of transparent politicking, whether it is abortion or gay marriage or stem cell research or whatever.

The loss of the tax exemption should be immediate.

I assume a rebuke from Rome will be coming soon, since the Pope has expressly talked about this and said that this priest's argument is no longer valid? A hasty retraction, apology, and ideally resignation sure to follow? I'm not going to hold my breath.

His nonsense about doing the same were the roles reversed is so laughable and self-serving that it's not worth responding to, of course.

This should absolutely be an act that jeopardizes the tax-exempt status, and it's hilarious (though unsurprising) that he was dumb enough to write it down and distribute it.

This reminds me of something Jesus said...now, what was it?...

@CParis, @Jiggs, you are both right about turning a blind eye to war crimes. However, the way this man thinks goes thusly: abortions kill the innocent and are therefore a deadly sin; the death penalty is okay because the ultimate judgment is meted out by the government on behalf of God; and the Iraq Crusade - whoops, I mean War - is about oil, which belongs to SUV-driving Christians.

The End.

...that this priest has absolutely no calling, authority or business telling parishioners that they cannot or should not participate in mass.

His opinions are his and not that of the church.

If he wants to "get medieval" then I guess he can write the Pope and ask that his parishioners who voted for a certain presidential candidate be excommunicated. I suspect even with the current Pope, the Priest would be the one getting tossed out.

P.S. (If there were ever a more perfect example of why there should be seperateion of church and state than the Catholic Church I don't know what is.

.... melging of the Catholic Church and politics gave us:

-Burning thousands and thousands of innocent men, women and children alive in the name of God.

-Torture of thousands and thousands of innocents on the whims of batshit crazy and evil church officials.

-Accumulation of grotesques fortunes in the hand of the church... a church that claims one of its basic tenants is helping the poor... seems like helping themselves was and is what the Catholic church is about (and by the way the protestant Mega-Churches are even more obscene than the Catholic Church. If Jesus were to walk into on of these glass and steel monstrosities constructed to honor wealth he would smash every window and cast the entire congregation into hell, kinda like that story of Jesus busting up the temple in Jerusalem... I bet that's no longer a very popular story to tell in a Mega-Church.)