US election: more on voting for Barack Obama

Following up yesterday's links to Radical Catholic Mom, I have been led to the following (from a post at Young Fogeys).

Associated Press are carrying a news report of a Roman Catholic parish priest in America who has asked his parishioners not to approach to receive Holy Communion, without first receiving the Sacrament of Penance, if they voted for Barack Obama in the recent Presidential election. The parish priest's grounds for this are that a vote for Barack Obama was a material co-operation in grave evil, namely the promotion of abortion.

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."

This position has been repudiated by the administrator of the Diocese concerned.

Statement of Monsignor Martin T. Laughlin
Administrator of the Diocese of Charleston

CHARLESTON, S.C. (November 14, 2008) - This past week, the Catholic Church’s clear, moral teaching on the evil of abortion has been pulled into the partisan political arena. The recent comments of Father Jay Scott Newman, pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Greenville, S.C., have diverted the focus from the Church’s clear position against abortion. As Administrator of the Diocese of Charleston, let me state with clarity that Father Newman’s statements do not adequately reflect the Catholic Church’s teachings. Any comments or statements to the contrary are repudiated.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions." The Catechism goes on to state: "In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path; we must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. We must also examine our conscience before the Lord’s Cross. We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church."

Christ gives us freedom to explore our own conscience and to make our own decisions while adhering to the law of God and the teachings of the faith. Therefore, if a person has formed his or her conscience well, he or she should not be denied Communion, nor be told to go to confession before receiving Communion.

The pulpit is reserved for the Word of God. Sometimes God’s truth, as is the Church’s teaching on abortion, is unpopular. All Catholics must be aware of and follow the teachings of the Church. We should all come together to support the President-elect and all elected officials with a view to influencing policy in favor of the protection
of the unborn child. Let us pray for them and ask God to guide them as they take the mantle of leadership on January 20, 2009.

I ask also for your continued prayers for me and for the Diocese of Charleston.

What I find interesting in the Administrator's statement is the suggestion that we should "examine our consciences before the Lord's Cross". This would seem to me to be quite a reasonable suggestion for a parish priest to make to his parishioners. It should be remembered that, when the Catechism talks about freedom of conscience, it is not presenting an argument that a Catholic conscience is not obliged by the moral teaching of the Church; it is presenting an argument in a broader context.

I am a little uncomfortable with the suggestion that, if you have formed your conscience well there is no requirement to receive the Sacrament of Penance. This will, I suspect, simply communicate a message that "if you think you did the right thing, you do not need to go to Confession", and it can be extrapolated to many other situations. I think there is an entitlement of the Church to say that there are certain actions that constitute grave matter and require reception of the Sacrament of Penance before receiving Holy Communion, so this is not I think a strong argument.

The difficulty of Fr Newman's position is, I think, that it is not absolutely clear that a vote for Barack Obama is a vote for abortion - that may or may not be the case when drilled down to the level of the individual casting their individual vote. However, an examination of conscience by someone who voted for Barack Obama might prompt them to express to him or to the Democratic Party in their locality that they do not support his publicly stated position on abortion. This would be a reasonable suggestion to make to such voters, and would involve a complete dissociation of their vote from support for abortion.

Democrat activists who are Catholics, and who have a publicly recorded pro-abortion position, it would seem to me fall into the category of those of whom "Eucharistic consistency" might be expected. But ordinary voters would not meet this condition. The call to an examination of conscience as suggested in the Diocesan administrator's statment seems sufficient for them.