Denver Priest Equates Vote for Obama as Murder

I swear, the Catholic Church is lurching towards further lunacy and illegal endorsement of candidates more and more with each passing day. A reader sent me a link to an article in the Denver Post about one rational and thinking Catholic who is calling it quits with the fetus obsessed, gay hating and anti-woman Roman Catholic Church. I continue to find it ironic that the Catholic clergy who are so obsessed with abortion, do not give one wit about the sexual abuse of children. Moreover, they increasingly, like their evangelical counterparts, obsess over making sure that children are born yet endorse candidates who would eliminate or reduce funding for programs required to ensure children have health care and otherwise survive and have a quality life. Likewise, none of them seem to have the moral courage to raise their voice to demand accountability on the part of bishops and cardinals (including Benedict XVI) who enabled or covered up the sexual abuse of minors. The hypocrisy is beyond belief. Here are some story highlight:

*

Maria Orms feels like she is going through a painful breakup — not from her husband but from the church in which she was born and raised. Orms calls herself and her husband "cradle Catholics." Both sides of their families have been Catholic as far back as they can remember. . . . Then the presidential election opened a divide between her and church leaders who teach that opposition to abortion should be the focus of Catholic political life.

*

Orms said she had been disturbed by a videotape of Colorado's three bishops, played during Mass before the election, urging Catholics to vote in opposition to abortion. However, the final wedge between her and Catholicism was a line in the Nov. 9 bulletin of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Northglenn. Pastor Gregory Ames congratulated those who voted "pro-life" rather than for President-elect Barack Obama: "You will never face a victim of abortion with blood on your hands."

Orms said it was confirmation to her that the church is both becoming increasingly political — and in a right-wing fundamentalist direction that doesn't square with her other Catholic values. . . . Catholics across the state and the country have reported feeling pressured from the pulpit to vote for McCain.

*

Orms' husband, Gene Sears said, to him, taking a single issue, even one of such great importance as abortion, to determine a parishioner's value and whether that Catholic can stand before God with pride is "flawed logic." Sears wrote a letter to Ames: "Over 1 million dead in Iraq over failed policy and hubris, Father. Who speaks for them? You speak of the Holocaust, yet point your parishioners toward a political ideology that tacitly supported genocide through inaction."

More Catholic Extremism

It seems that the clergy and hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church are getting increasingly loony. First, there are bishops basically endorsing John McCain from the pulpit - something the IRS truly needs to investigate and perhaps consider revoking some dioceses' tax exempt status - and now there are priest in effect trying to semi-excommunicate Catholics who voted for Barack Obama. Would that such a view become official Church policy: 54% of Catholics voted for Obama. Hence, the expulsion of 54% of the USA laity would not only cripple the Church but also clearly reveal just how out of the mainstream Catholicism is becoming under the Nazi Pope, Benedict XVI. One has to wonder when Benedict XVI will start advocating to bring back the practice of the auto da fe. Here are some highlights from the Greenville News about one priest's actions:

*

The priest at St. Mary's Catholic Church in downtown Greenville has told parishioners that those who voted for Barack Obama placed themselves under divine judgment because of his stance on abortion and shouldn't receive Holy Communion until they've done penance.

*

At issue for the church locally and nationwide are exit polls showing 54 percent of self-described Catholics voted for Obama, as well as a growing rift in the lifestyle and voting patterns between practicing and non-practicing Catholics. In a letter posted on St. Mary's Web site, Newman wrote that "voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil."

*

Catholics who did so should be reconciled to God through penance before receiving communion, "lest they eat and drink their own condemnation," Newman wrote, echoing a I Corinthians admonition for anyone who partakes "without recognizing the body of the Lord."

*

Asked if he would actively deny the sacraments to Obama voters, Newman said he won't because the church teaches that no one is denied communion unless it would cause "grave scandal," such as in the case of a notorious public sinner. However, he said he'll continue to teach the necessity of being in "full, visible communion" with the church before receiving the sacraments.

*

Funny, using Newman's standard, it would seem that the bishops and cardinals who covered up the sexual abuse of children might need to be told they are not fit to receive communion. I keep telling the Lutherans I know that they should start actively recruiting intelligent, rational Catholics who increasingly have no home in today's Catholic Church.