Make them pay taxes

By Ron Beasley

This is just the most recent reason why the tax exempt status of Churches should be ended.

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.

If organized religion feels obligated to involve itself in politics and government they should be required to pay for the services they receive from the government. 

Comments

[BJ Bjornson]

You'll certainly get no argument from me.

[Richard Hershberger]

Your conclusion doesn't follow. Are you discussing "organized religion" or a religious organization? If you really mean to discuss organized religion in its entirety, you extrapolated from a single data point.

Here's another data point: there was no discussion in my church of politics beyond a petition in the intercessionary prayer the Sunday before the election for good government.

A church quietly going about its business, keeping out of politics and doing stuff like feeding the poor, doesn't make the news. Don't confuse having a high profile with being the norm.