Priest: No communion for Obama supporters

[bliss_eternal]

Priest says it's because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion

updated 3:45 p.m. PT, Thurs., Nov. 13, 2008

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.

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excerpted from:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27705755/?gt1=43001

"Pro-abortion?"

:wtf:

Why is it that they believe pro-choice is the same as "pro-abortion?" It's so insulting.
I heard Obama's comments on abortion, and I heard nothing radical. I certainly heard nothing pro-abortion.
I heard a man saying he trusts women to decide for themselves. That he didn't want his daughter's to ever have to be punished or forced to give birth, if that was not their choice.

I guess presuming we are human beings with brains that function, is radical. :eyes:

At least Catholic priests like this are showing what they are really about, "control over women's bodies and rights."
Holy men, my ass.

[ismnotwasm]

1. It's disgusting

Not only is forced birth a violation of human rights, In this case it puts people in spiritual prison. I'm agnostic, closer to atheist. I do have a sense of the spiritual, or what I consider spiritual.

The place the Catholic church is coming from seems to me from a sense of loss. They controlled damn near everything in the Western world at one point. Their own policies, as well as economics and politics caused break after break in the church.

If I really believed that this priest gave a shit about life itself, I'd respect that. Kinda. Ok, not really.

But he comes from a place of internalized dogma and a spiritual sickness that eats him up from the inside. He doesn't care about life. He cares about power and control. He can't allow true spiritual growth much less a true sense of respect for life in his congregation. Oh no. Threatens 'em with hell.

Hell means forever and ever and it's one of the most heinous religious concepts people have ever come up with.

As far as women being human, the "great minds" of the past weren't sure about women's humanity at all, at best considered them "failed males"

Evidently they still aren't.

[bliss_eternal]

2. They pulled this shit before the 2004 election...

....(some Catholic priests)--threatening their parishes and telling them who "god" wanted them to vote for. Yet the 'w' administration threatenend a progressive church (w/stripping them of tax-emempt status), and had them investigated by the irs for daring to say something negative about them--just prior to the 2004 election.

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/24/local/me-allsaints24

I'm really NOT understanding how these churches that impose their personal political will upon people aren't challenged, and stripped of their non-profit status. There doesn't seem to be a separation of church and state anymore, (unless it serves the powers that be--like this mormon stuff with prop 8). I'm still seeing ads on television from the LDS, and wondering when EXACTLY did churches get into advertising?!?

:puke:

[Kerrytravelers]

3. And this is why so many of us, including the kerrytravelers family, have left the Catholic church.

We have no intention of ever returning.

[ThomCat]

4. I hope that kind of hard-line grandstanding makes more families

examine their support for their churches, and the political positions their churches have been pushing. It's long past time we reinstated the separation of church and state, and it's going to have to be rebuilt from the ground up.

[bliss_eternal]

6. KT....

...it's so nice to see you! :hi: How are you?
I'm sorry to read this, and know it was a difficult decision for you. I don't understand the church's choice to attempt to coerce and bully on so many issues, that are personal and separate from issues of faith and religion.

If you feel like talking about it, feel free...if not, I'll understand.
:hug: Take care.

[ThomCat]

5. We seriously need to overhaul whatever division of the IRS

deals with the tax exempt status of churches. That one, and a whole lot of others, need to lose their tax exempt status. Clearly their religion is inseparable from politics. So let them pay taxes for meddling in politics.

[ismnotwasm]

7. I don't understand it

I just attended a lecture with a presenter who used to work with grieving women who had miscarriages. She posed the right answer after the right question. "When is a pregnancy a child to a mother? When she says it is" (Paraphrased a bit there)

Why would a church, any church, make that decision? What gives them the right to influence legislation? Why shouldn't they be taxed for what is politics and law?

Where, for that matter, is the biblical justification of "when life begins"? There are many instances in the bible where there was wholesale slaughter sanctioned by God himself, without consideration of pregnancy status.
Consider these verses from the Skeptic Annotated bible (An admittedly biased source, but what they don't do, is change ONE WORD of what the bible actually says)

What the Bible says about Abortion
Abortion is not murder. A fetus is not considered a human life.

If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life. -- Exodus 21:22-23

The Bible places no value on fetuses or infants less than one month old.

And if it be from a month old even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver. -- Leviticus 27:6

Fetuses and infants less than one month old are not considered persons.

Number the children of Levi after the house of their fathers, by their families: every male from a month old and upward shalt thou number them. And Moses numbered them according to the word of the LORD. -- Numbers 3:15-16

God sometimes approves of killing fetuses.

And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? ... Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. -- Numbers 31:15-17
(Some of the non-virgin women must have been pregnant. They would have been killed along with their unborn fetuses.)

Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. -- Hosea 9:14

Yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb. -- Hosea 9:16

Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up. -- Hosea 13:16

God sometimes kills newborn babies to punish their parents.

Because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. -- 2 Samuel 12:14

God sometimes causes abortions by cursing unfaithful wives.

The priest shall say unto the woman, The LORD make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the LORD doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell. And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen. ...
And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people. And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed. -- Numbers 5:21-21, 27-28

God's law sometimes requires the execution (by burning to death) of pregnant women.

Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt. -- Genesis 38:24

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/abortion.html

They leave this shit out of Sunday school don't they?

[bliss_eternal]

8. I'm impressed...

...by your biblical knowledge. That's got to come in handy in discussions with fundy anti-choice types. I'm bookmarking, for possible future reference. Thank you. :thumbsup:

Unfortunately, there seems to be a great deal of selective reasoning that comes into play with religious factions and their followers (not all of course, just those incapable of critical thought).

I've seen and heard them claim that transgendered people are just 'lying' and seek sex changes as some means to attention (and other nonsense). The argument being that the big dude in the sky is infallible, and children just could not be born "wrong."

"We're made in god's image...perfect...who are we to change what he gave us...?" blah, blah.

But aren't babies born everyday with birth defects? Frequently even in cases where the parents did everything right? Infants are bon with cleft palate, lacking a digit, with an extra digit, conjoined twins and other physical abnormalities. Don't parents with the means to do so usually have such defects corrected surgically?

[ismnotwasm]

9. Mind control

I'm not really knowledgeable, I'm a compulsive reader. Leviticus has a few horrid laws about "blemishes" which would probably include birth defects.

Religion is in many ways a very sad social and spiritual near failure. I don't mean that many or even most people don't have faith, but they tend to have a very narrow idea of history. A few facts, a lot of nonsense, deliberately obtuse (stupid on purpose)And always looking for an enemy.

So very, very sad, because even though I'm agnostic, I feel the very best ideas of religion--the ones that embrace humanity and the human experience with love and honor, are very admirable. To twist these best of the best ideals for the purposes of subjugation and oppression--which has been done time and time again though out history-- to fit an personal crusade or agenda is heinously cruel and evil.