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US: Priest says no communion for Obama supporters

14 Nov 2008 2:51 PM
By Meg Kinnard

COLUMBIA, South Carolina, Nov 13 AP - A Roman Catholic priest has told parishioners they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the US president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil".

Father Jay Scott Newman said in a letter distributed last Sunday to parishioners at St Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville, South Carolina, that theyare 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 alternativeexists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil," he said. "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."

Obama defeated Republican John McCain in the November 4 election to become America's first black president. South Carolina, in the conservative South,was won by McCain.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, many bishops spoke out on abortion more boldly than four years earlier, telling Catholic politicians and votersthat 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 votingfor candidates who support abortion rights.

But bishops differ on whether Catholic politicians - 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 meeting, the nation's Catholic bishops vowed on Tuesday to forcefully confront the Obama administration over its support for abortion rights.

According to national exit polls, 54 per cent of Catholics chose Obama, whois Protestant. In South Carolina, voters in Greenville County - traditionally seen as among the state's most conservative areas - went 61 per cent for the Republican, and 37 per cent for Obama.

"It was not an attempt to make a partisan point," Newman said in a telephone interview today. "In fact, in this election, for the sake of argument, ifthe 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 criticised Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004 for supporting abortion rights, with a few Catholic bishops saying Kerry, a Catholic, should refrain from receiving Holy Communion because his views were contrary to church teachings.

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 saywhat he did ... Unfortunately, he is doing so in a manner that will be of great cost to those parishioners who did vote for Senators Obama and Biden.There will be a spiritual cost to them for his words."

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