Friday, November 14, 2008

Chalk one up for Fr. J. Scott Newman!

Meg Kinnard, "SC priest: No communion for Obama supporters" (Breibart.com, November, 13, 2008):
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - 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.

... "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."
Unfortunately, we still have Obama's useful Catholic idiots in Grega's corner, for the article goes on to report:
"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."
The fact remains that in terms of the Church's official doctrine, as reiterated by numerous US Catholic bishops prior to the election, there is nothing that should be considered exceptional in principle about Fr. Newman's response to the 54 percent of Catholics who, according to national exit polls, voted for Obama. Our gratituted to Fr. Newman, a priest willing to do what any good and decent priest should be expected to do.

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