Posted on 10/02/2012 8:31:56 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross
Bishop Thomas John Paprocki from Springfield, Illinois, is getting attention after making some strongly-worded comments about those Americans who opt to vote for President Barack Obama in November. In a column and video that was posted by Catholic Times, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Springfield, Paprocki targeted portions of the Democratic platform that “explicitly endorse intrinsic evils.” He also warned that supporting certain politicians could place peoples’ “eternal salvation…in jeopardy.”
While he noted that it’s not his job to to tell people who do vote for, the faith leader said that he has a duty to speak out about moral issues. Despite his stated problems with the Democratic Party platform — the initial removal of God, its stance abortion and its support of gay marriage – Paprocki spoke relatively favorably of the Republican platform.
“I have read the Republican Party platform and there is nothing in it that supports or promotes an intrinsic evil or a serious sin,” he proclaimed.
While the bishop didn’t overtly name President Barack Obama as a poor candidate for people of faith to support, he invoked religious themes and warned of spiritual damnation if religious voters stand in support of politicians who “promote actions of behaviors that are intrinsically evil.”
“I am not telling you which party or which candidates to vote for or against. What I am saying is that you need to think and pray very carefully about your vote,” Paprocki said. “Because a vote for a candidate who promotes actions or behaviors that are intrinsically evil and gravely sinful makes you morally complicit and places the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy.”
About d@mn TIME someone said this...
Too bad it is about 50 years too late...but better late than never, I suppose
All the Bishops need to get onboard and deliver the same message to their flocks!
Yes, Bishop, a vote for the devil and his legions will put your soul as well as many other things in jeopardy.
i’ve posted this numerous times- never in my lifetime have i witnessed the Catholic church preach from the pulpit against a candidate or the issues of a POTUS..i am in liberalsville. NY and over the summer, prior to the Catholic sponsored “Forthnight for Freedom” our priest told us during the Homily at 5:30 mass on Saturday, he really feared if things keep going the way they are going Catholic priests will be the first victims and could be summarily imprisoned for not marrying gays, handing out contraceptives, etc...
my sister in law told me in her parish in Florida the priest told them outright, the only way to end this is vote out obama...that’s why i laugh when i see these “polls” showing obama leading amongst Catholics- it ain’t happening...
More Christian leaders should speak up about the responsibility of voting as a Christian. How could any Christian vote for someone who actively voted to kill babies who had miraculously survived abortion, as Obama did? Who promotes homosexuality and mocks God’s idea of marriage by the infamy of homosexual “marriage”? Who calls evil “good” and good “evil”? Obama has done all of this as a servant of ungodliness. He has actively mocked God and the Bible, while defending the “Holy Book” of the Koran.
God will have the last word on that denial of the faith on Judgement Day.
Another bishop who has got his priorities straight & speaks the truth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi_KaZ53eDg&sns=tw
Finally, Catholic Bishops are acting as if they actually were trying to follow doctrine.
If they keep this up, I must might return to the faith.
This message is starting to come to Christians all across the country from nearly every sect.
Wow...this is the bishop in my own town. While I’m Lutheran, I’m very proud of the stance he’s taking. Would that more men of God across all denominations start publicly “speaking truth to power”, to use a phrase.
Excellent! This should be the official Church stance amongst all Diocese.
The message is a little backward, though.
Your acts, ie voting, don’t determine your salvation, but are a reflection of that state of your heart, and your salvation.
Someone truly “blood bought” would seek the will of the Lord and would not seek the advocacy based righteousness of voting for “social justice”.
He`s got my vote!
A Catholic bishop can run for public office because Jesse Jackson, a Baptist minister, ran for the Presidential office in 1983-4.
Mitt Romney is a Mormon bishop.
I don’t know the phraseology the Bishop used but he has to be careful making such unbiblical pronouncements. Nothing you CAN do or NOT do has anything to do with your salvation. The New Testament is crystal clear on that. The Book of James does talk about “Faith without works is dead”. If the Bishop contends that if you vote for Obama knowing he is hostile to life and our Lord than yes your true belief in the Lord Jesus Christ is really up for debate, you have a said faith and not a real faith and you should examine your heart. Obama is the true personification of evil, a thug intent on the murder of innocent unborn human life, he relishes it, smiles at it. The other issues just buttress this, he is opposed to God on just about every other moral issue, theft, lying, murder, idolatry. Obama may win this year, I doubt it but he just may, but in the big picture he is lost as are his legion of selfish, covetous, lying hoards of followers. They cannot make a nirvana on earth it always winds up the same way, Auschwitz or the Gulags
If our parishioners follow his advice, there is no way they could vote for Obama or most every Democrat.
Catholic priests cannot run for public office, they are prevented from doing so by the Church.
I agree with your point but I believe that many Christians in this country are compromised and are teetering on the edge of becoming apostate and God is becoming weary of their condition as it effects the health of the Body of believers. This upcoming election is decision time for them: Life or Death. The vote for evil will affirm that fact and thus they become an unfruitful branch that gets pruned off the vine and then gets burned.
Harvest time is approaching.
The tares have been allowed to grow up with the wheat,
but winnowing time is nigh.
There are several current issues that He is using as winnowing forks to separate the wheat and the chaff.
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