… a California law school professor and Constitutional scholar, Douglas Kmiec, who is one of the country's most outspoken opponents of abortion, found himself denied Communion because of his public support for Senator Obama. Prof Kmiec was attending a Mass prior to giving a speech to a group of Catholic businessmen, and reported on the website CatholicOnline that he was singled out because of his prominence as an Obama supporter.
And so Professor Kmiec joins the ranks of John Kerry, Democratic governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius, and anyone else who doesn’t tow the Catholic line on abortion or who doesn’t support a Republican someone who does.
From a post by Professor Kmiec:
Having been drawn to Senator Obama’s remarkable “love thy neighbor” style of campaigning, his express aim to transcend partisan divide, and specifically, his appreciation for faith ("secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square"), I did not expect to be clobbered by co-religionists.
On the blogs, I have been declared “self-excommunicated,” and recently at a Mass before a dinner speech to Catholic business leaders, a very angry college chaplain excoriated my Obama-heresy from the pulpit at length and then denied my receipt of communion.
So let me get this straight, this pro-life conservative Republican finds the Democratic Presidential candidate’s “remarkable “love thy neighbor” style of campaigning compelling enough to cross party lines and support him. And some Catholic Priest judged his support for Obama “sufficient cause for a subtle form of excommunication from the Catholic community.”
It wasn’t enough that Pope Benedict XVI played an indirect role in the 2004 U.S. election campaign when he directed Catholic bishops to deny communion to abortion rights supporters such as Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, but we very well may have ended up with this current disaster of a president because of his actions. And what did we get with George W. Bush? We got a man who supports torture and lied us into a war that has taken the lives of 4,000 young Americans. Phew, that’s some other kind of respect for life.
And not to beat a dead horse, but what about all the pedophile priests who raped and molested innocent children for decades? Were these men denied Communion or the right to say Mass and give Communion? Hell no, they were just shuffled off to another parish when they were about to be exposed for their heinous acts. But this was never grounds to excommunicate them from the Church or deny them Communion.
And I gotta wonder, how many of these Catholic Bishops denying Communion to Democrats are registered Republicans? I know the Archbishop who denied Democratic governor Kathleen Sebelius Communion is a registered Republican.
This has got to stop. The Catholic Church needs to stay the hell out of our politics.
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