The little item that bothered the political pundits back when JFK was running for president is beginning to surface with the election of Barack Obama. What exactly do I mean? Simply this, a priest in South Carolina has told all in his congregation who voted for Mr. Obama that they should refrain from Holy Communion because, "the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil." He stated that, "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." This is an attempt to control the vote along the lines of what the church feels they have the right to do. It hearkens back to the Middle Ages and the way the church used threats of eternal damnation to control both the nobility and the peasants.
This kind of use of power makes me sick, but it is not exclusively the problem for the church, these days. What happened to voting your own conscience freely? This is an act where the parish priest seems to be using threats to get people to give up a basic right - the right to vote according their own principles and instead end up as a puppet for other's interpretation of faith.
Check out the article for yourself at:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081114/ap_on_re_us/obama_catholics;_ylt=AgR52po3fKDvgZ9WukhNz5Ss0NUE.
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