Yesterday I posted on the remarks of a priest involving Communion and voting for Obama. See Catholic Priest In South Carolina- Advises No Communion Until Penance Over Obama Vote .
Now this has gone national and the controversy will have a shelf life of a few more days. I am seeing a ton of outrage toward this priest by Obama Supporters. In fact I can see that perhaps this priest should have phrased this a tad differently.
However lets pretend this was not Obama but regarded a 1990's version of David Duke that ran for major Office and sadly won.
Lets further say that this Priest said the exact same thing but in the place of "Abortion" put in the intrinsic evil of "racism" and for Obama put David Duke.
I suspect the man would be applauded from all corners!!! What is ironic is this. He would have even less standing to make that homily against a 1990 David Duke type guy. Duke ran as the conservative repentant ex Racist. He was no longer racist or hated Jews (according to him). In fact the ideas he ran on (cutting welfare programs) he proclaimed would help minorities by getting rid of cancer of welfare dependency and so he was PRO -Black. There was , unlike Obama's platform on abortion and repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, nothing that the Bishops of Catholics could point out and scream intrinsic evil. For instance running on a platform of getting rid of Affirmative action is ok to do as a Catholic.
There was no way they(Catholic Bishops , Priests etc,) technically could do to get into this ex Klansman's head and say he was lying. Though it is a safe bet that many Louisiana folks were not buying his full repentance stuff.
In fact Duke, in the 90's elections when he ran for Governor and Senate, had has a back version of "pro -life" Catholic Obama supporter Doug Kmeic . That is James Meredith!!!.
James Meredith is an Civil Rights Icon of course as the first student to integrate Ole Miss and was in the World's eye those fateful days. In the most bizarre political thing I have ever seen he was doing TV COMMERCIALS FOR DAVID DUKES' campaign!!!! People were going "see we are not cooperating with Evil if we vote for Duke. Even Meredith agrees that his policies will help Black people!!!!"
Again a early version of the basic Kmeic reasoning.
Of course I think most people didn't buy that Duke had shed his racist ways. Including the Louisiana Bishops (while not naming DUKE) issued and later reissued on short year later this statement Bishops Oppose Racism1990 and 1989.
We of course now know from Duke's later action that he shed none of his evil. But again I having a hard time seeing the difference between the intrinsic evil of Duke (the man and "possible unstated and unknown evil Legislative Agenda plans" ) and the evil of Obama's policies on abortion. I say this as to the argument of "proportionate reasoning" used to justify a vote for Obama.
As Archbishop Chaput says as to this argument for "proportionate reasoning" and abortion :
I believe that Senator Obama, whatever his other talents, is the most committed ''abortion-rights'' presidential candidate of either major party since the Roe v. Wade abortion decision in 1973. Despite what Prof. Kmiec suggests, the party platform Senator Obama runs on this year is not only aggressively ''pro-choice;'' it has also removed any suggestion that killing an unborn child might be a regrettable thing. On the question of homicide against the unborn child - and let's remember that the great Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer explicitly called abortion ''murder'' - the Democratic platform that emerged from Denver in August 2008 is clearly anti-life. Prof. Kmiec argues that there are defensible motives to support Senator Obama. Speaking for myself, I do not know any proportionate reason that could outweigh more than 40 million unborn children killed by abortion and the many millions of women deeply wounded by the loss and regret abortion creates.
Now as Is stated the Catholic Bishops and clergy were in a much worse technical position with Duke. But everyone with a half a brain knew what was going on.
In that Duke election I found that many of Duke's ideas ( that Republicans and Conservatives actually had been talking about) had merit and in fact in the end could help minorities. I think a case can be made that Welfare Reform Signed by President did this.
However there was no way in Hell I was voting for Duke. I viewed him as evil and no playing around dishonesty with the words "proportionate reasoning" could cause me to vote for him. Also most Catholics that were using that type of argument (please note that phrase I don't recall being in use then but the Theology and reasoning was the same) to vote for DUKE were dishonest with themselves and knew darn well what they are doing. I hate to say it but I think Obama Catholic supporters by large were the same.
What is the difference? If God forbid Duke had been elected Senator of Governor of Louisiana I would be defending a Louisiana version of this South Carolina Priest if hehad given a Penance over Duke vote Homily. Why ?because he would have been dead on .
In the first link I gave on this post Pro-Ecclesia says:
For the record, I've stated many times prior to the election that I did not believe a vote for Obama to be something that is forbidden by Church teaching. I believed it was something Catholics should not do, but I did not and do not consider such a vote something Catholics may not do.
For that reason, I disagree with the presumption that voting for Obama is necessarily something for which the Catholic voter should make Confession and do penance.That said, some of the anonymous commenters (as well as some of the pseudononymous ones) on this post have completely lost their minds as well as their perspective. They seem to take their allegiance to President-elect Obama and/or the Democrat Party more seriously than they take their allegiance to Christ and/or His Church and her teachings.
I basically agree with that. Like in the Louisiana elections there could have been in the most classic sense "ignorant Catholic Duke Voters" and thus their error would not require Confession. However lets live in the real world. Like Duke voters many Obama voters ignored or downplayed big time the intrinsic evils that were involved or tried to ignore it. Human beings are human beings and all of us in our lives try to rationalize our bad choices away in the most intimate and deadly of sins.
I think that is what the good priest in South Carolina is trying to get at.
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