I grew up Catholic and did go to church quite often some years ago and I never heard any politics mentioned from the pulpit. This is beyond disgraceful, but in today's times it happens every day among the extreme religious right.
C&Ler Jay emailed me the info:
Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome 9 November 2008
Dear Friends in Christ,
We the People have spoken, and the 44th President of the United States will be Barack Hussein Obama. This election ends a political process that started two years ago and which has revealed deep and bitter divisions within the United States and also within the Catholic Church in the United States.
Between these two visions of the use of lethal violence against the unborn there can be no negotiation or conciliation, and now 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. We must also take note of the fact that this election was effectively decided by the votes of self-described (but not practicing) Catholics, the majority of whom cast their ballots for President-elect Obama...
1. 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.
Meg Kinnard writes:
Conservative Catholics criticized Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004 for supporting abortion rights, with a few Catholic bishops saying Kerry should refrain from receiving Holy Communion because his views were contrary to church teachings.
Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said she had not heard of other churches taking this position in reaction to Obama's win. A Boston-based group that supports Catholic Democrats questioned the move, saying it was too extreme.
"Father Newman is off base," said Steve Krueger, national director of Catholic Democrats. "He is acting beyond the authority of a parish priest to say what he did. ... Unfortunately, he is doing so in a manner that will be of great cost to those parishioners who did vote for Sens. Obama and Biden. There will be a spiritual cost to them for his words."
If Obama is successful (and I think he will be), the religious zealots' influence will wane across the country. I predict that this will lead to actual violent acts of aggression in America influenced by the Father Newmans of the Religious Right, and all in the name of the Lord. It's coming. Eric Rudolph, the Atlanta Olympics bomber, is just one of them, but his religious views were never highlighted by the MSM as they were in the blogoshere. (Rudolph pleads guilty in series of bombings. In statement, bomber says ‘abortion on demand’ reason for attacks)
Here's a post I wrote on Apr 13, 2005:
Why isn't the 24/7 cable News playing up the Rudolph conviction?
This seems like the story cable news would be tripping all over each other to cover round the clock. It has everything any producer could want. A mad bomber right out of a Hollywood script that attacked the Olympics. He killed two people and injured 120! That's like almost three football teams.
White Supremacist ties and anti-semitic values. 250 pounds of dynamite just waiting for the fuse to be lit. There should be hundreds of protestors camped outside the Atlanta courtroom lashing out at judges and prosecutors for not seeking the death penalty. James Dobson should be on FOX News declaring that "the whole legal system is out of control and are derailing our judicial system. We have the death penalty for a good reason. How could any civil minded judge go along with this plea bargain anyway?" I can see signs held up amid the gaggle of the press that reads: "God said an eye for an eye!" Oh wait, sorry....he's an anti-abortionist. He believes in the culture of life. He hates gays too. Sorry, my mistake.
