Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
No Communion for Obama Supporters
SC priest: No communion for Obama supporters
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 exists 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."
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."
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."
A man who has attended St. Mary's for 18 years said he welcomed Newman's message and anticipated it would inspire further discussion at the church.
"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."
***
My friend who used to be D and has suddenly, and surprisingly turned very conservative posted this on Facebook "Amen Father Joe." I'm sort of offended by her comment...should I say anything or keep the friendship?
Re: No Communion for Obama Supporters
Wow.
I don't have any advice about the friend as I conflicting feelings on what to say to her!
Wow. ?That's disturbing. ?Why is it that of the religious people I know, the Catholics are often the most open minded? ?Yet the official statements their church makes are some of the most close-minded? ?I have such a hard time reconciling that.
I wouldn't respond. ?It's probably not worth getting into.?
I thought individual priests couldn't make this decision... ?
Anyway, I don't like when churches get involved in politics at all, so this bothers me greatly.
I have had the same AND quite a different experience. I have found that younger Catholics tend to be far more open-minded. However, I married into a Catholic family and the family members and their Catholic friends are the most close-minded group of people I've ever met (DH battles them all the way).
I honestly never thought twice about anyone's religion before I got married, but these people with their toxic POVs have warped my views of Catholics, or at least Catholicism. I agreed prior to marriage to raise my children to be Catholic, and now realize that I am going to have to work damn hard to undo any damage that gets done.
ETA: to clarify, I don't associate DH's family's POVs with their Catholicism simply because they happen to be Catholics with such POV. They themselves couch most of their POVs in Catholicism. For them, it always comes back to (their interpretation of) the Bible and what the Church teaches.
That's interesting b/c the more liberal Catholics I know are older. My mom went to parochial school all her life, including up into college, and this was pre-vatican II. ?Apparently she was pretty liberal.
My bf in college was Catholic, mostly lapsed, but it was his mom who was the liberal one. ?When he thought about religion on those rare times, he took a much more literal view of it even though he normally thought it was all bullshit.?
I'm sure it has more to do with people's ages, where the grew up, went to school, familes, etc., than their religion even though religion is of course going to be integrated into all of that.?
I completely agree. Stupidity knows no religious boundaries.