Posted on 11/03/2012 7:58:36 PM PDT by Iam1ru1-2
CHICAGO — Joining the chorus of Roman Catholic clergy in Illinois criticizing President Barack Obama before next week's election, Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky ordered priests to read a letter to parishioners on Sunday before the presidential election, explaining that politicians who support abortion rights also reject Jesus.
"By virtue of your vow of obedience to me as your Bishop, I require that this letter be personally read by each celebrating priest at each Weekend Mass," Jenky wrote in a letter circulated to clergy in the Catholic Diocese of Peoria.
In the letter, Jenky cautions parishioners that Obama and a majority of U.S. senators will not reconsider the mandate that would require employers, including religious groups, to provide free birth control coverage in their health care plans. "This assault upon our religious freedom is simply without precedent in the American political and legal system," Jenky wrote.
"Today, Catholic politicians, bureaucrats, and their electoral supporters who callously enable the destruction of innocent human life in the womb also thereby reject Jesus as their Lord," Jenky added. "They are objectively guilty of grave sin."
Earlier this year, Jenky delivered a controversial homily criticizing the contraception mandate. The bishop included Obama's policies in a list of historic challenges the Catholic Church has overcome in previous centuries, including Hitler and Stalin's campaigns.
Jenky is the third Illinois Catholic leader to offer pointed guidance for Catholic voters in recent weeks. Last month, Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki offered a commentary on the Democratic and Republican parties' platforms that he said wasn't intended as instruction, but guidance.
"There are many positive and beneficial planks in the Democratic Party Platform, but I am pointing out those that explicitly endorse intrinsic evils," Paprocki explained in the Springfield Diocese newspaper.
(Excerpt) Read more at mcclatchydc.com ...
About time!
I am so glad to see the churches finally saying enough is enough and preaching the truth (instead of worrying about their 501(c)3 status!
The Catholic Church is not a Gov’t agency. It has the right to do as it sees fit.
Obama has attacked the Church directly on basic moral issues. Preaching anti-Obama messages from pulpit is the least offensive action they might take.
Personally, I would rather see mass civil disobedience against HHS mandates, wide-scale ignoring of IRS or HHS rules, and organized protests any US Gov’t interference on such basic issues.
Sounds good to me.
I’ll be waiting to hear the letter read at tomorrow’s Mass.
Terrific. It’s about time. If black churches can preach politics from the pulpit without fear of the IRS, then I think Catholic and Evangelical churches need to start doing the same thing—as long as they are truly preaching Christian doctrine according to their beliefs.
Time to name names. If a politician is a baby killer, then priests and ministers have a right to make that fact clear to their parishioners.
I used to think the Church should stay out of politics, and vice-verse as best possible. But considering ODrama and his trying to force the churches to support abortion, then they should respond.
No aspect of life can exist without Faith. Religious people admit they have faith—Atheists lie and say they are just materialists...or naturalists-—but their underlying Faith, that there is no God, is an assumption—never fact.
They force their Faith in the public square when they remove God. This is in a Rule of Law “government” which has to rely on Higher Power-—and the idea that our Rights come from God. This atheist/Marxist idea—that our rights come from the state or other men is unconstitutional. That means they are not inalienable.
It should be unconstitutional to remove God from our system of government since our Natural Rights HAVE to come from God.
By saying Judeo-Christian Faith can not enter politics-—is to state that politics can exist without morality and the concept of a Higher Power—where Rule of Law comes from.
All Laws are moral-—(or should be)-—since Justice is a Virtue—and is moral. To remove our Absolute (God) from Law is to remove the idea of Justice.
Bring it on, Bitches!!!!
It’s an issue based sermon, so it principle it ought not to bring legal trouble. In practice we shall see.
This is not even an answer to an in-your-face to the church by the Obamites. It’s a pure issue based message. Both serious Catholics and serious Protestants/evangelicals believe that you don’t just carry out your faith in a church service. You carry it out wherever you go.
A record number of pastors this past Sunday defied IRS rules and regulations and preached politics from their pulpits as a way to protest the restrictive guidelines placed on churches.
A total of 1,586 pastors participated in Pulpit Freedom Sunday in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. This is the fifth annual event sponsored by Alliance Defending Freedom, a pro-life legal group.
The registered pastors committed to preach sermons that present biblical perspectives on the positions of electoral candidates. In so doing, they exercised their constitutionally protected freedom to engage in religious expression from the pulpit despite an Internal Revenue Service rule known as the Johnson Amendment that activist groups often use to silence churches by threatening their tax-exempt status.
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