Posted on 11/17/2008 7:46:29 PM PST by littlehouse36
Commentary by Sharon Howey, parishioner at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville, S.C.
GREENVILLE, S.C., November 17, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - “I don’t know about you guys, but I had an interesting week,” began Fr. Jay Scott Newman’s Saturday night homily, after a week of national and international attention gained from last Sunday’s ‘Letter from the Pastor,’ printed in the parish bulletin. In that letter Fr. Newman had said that persons who voted for a pro-abortion politician should not receive Holy Communion until they are reconciled to God, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation.
Prior to the 5:00 Saturday mass, a group of parishioners had gathered to pray the rosary in support of their beloved Fr. Newman outside the church, with a sign reading “this church is pro-life,” until the priest requested that they go inside to pray.
The congregation laughed at his “interesting week” statement and the clapping quickly turned into a spontaneous standing ovation. Fr. Newman turned toward the Blessed Sacrament and genuflected.
This was a homily to remember - one on unity and humility that was lived out. (You can listen to it by podcast at http://www.stmarysgvl.org/discipleship/audio-homilies where it should be available by Tuesday.) Indeed, what stood out most to me was this remarkable man’s humility.
Fr. Newman’s initial Letter did not address the fact that a person needs to “have full knowledge” in order for a sin to be mortal for them. This technicality, as well as the political nature of the address, led the Diocese to intervene and make a statement repudiating Fr. Newman’s letter, while also calling for the protection of unborn life.
In his homily Fr. Newman shared that his ‘Letter from the Pastor’ is written on a deadline and he was writing for his congregation (who, if they were listening the last two months, were fully informed). He never imagined the letter would spark national, and even international debates on the separation of church and state. He graciously conceded that he did not adequately reflect church teaching on this complex issue and said that he “joyfully submits” to Diocesan input in the matter.
Fr. Newman quoted from Philippians 2 on preserving unity in humility. “If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. ... Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped, rather He emptied Himself.”
Fr. Newman also mentioned his regret that the larger part of his letter, which asked for prayers for Obama, was completely ignored by the media. It is very beautifully stated and I will reproduce it here as it is no longer available online:
“Barack Obama, although we must always and everywhere disagree with him over abortion, has been duly elected the next President of the United States, and after he takes the Oath of Office next January 20th, he will hold legitimate authority in this nation. For this reason, we are obliged by Scriptural precept to pray for him and to cooperate with him whenever conscience does not bind us otherwise. Let us hope and pray that the responsibilities of the presidency and the grace of God will awaken in the conscience of this extraordinarily gifted man an awareness that the unholy slaughter of children in this nation is the greatest threat to the peace and security of the United States and constitutes a clear and present danger to the common good. In the time of President Obama’s service to our country, let us pray for him.”
Listening to Fr. Newman’s gracious words, I was reminded of the conversion of the woman who was Roe in Roe vs. Wade. The thing that always struck me about the conversion story of Norma McCorvey, was that it was Flip Benham’s humility and love that won her over.
Flip worked next door to the abortion clinic Norma worked at and he yelled out to her one day, “You should be ashamed of yourself. How do you sleep at night?” and he saw in the look in her eyes that he had really hurt her. So the next chance he got, he apologized (not for being pro-life, of course, but for hurting her) and asked, “Will you forgive me?” It was this personal concern for her well-being, not his initial (though true) statements that won her over to the truth.
In his Saturday night homily Fr. Newman chose to follow a long line of saints down the road of obedience and humility, showing the signs of a truly holy man. And in due form, I’m sure his attitude will bear tremendous fruit for the Glory of God.
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Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment
Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
Guess I’m clueless about the details.
If the Diocese is criticizing his stand, then his superiors are in error before God, imho.
What grounds do they criticize him on? Hollow ones?
I posted his letter on my myspace blog. I have Catholic family members who voted for Obama even though they knew better. Instead of calling them out on it personally (it’s my husband’s brothers and I don’t want to cause a rift in his family), I added that letter to my page.
As Catholics, we know the rules. That’s one of the things that I love about our church. Even non-practicing Catholics aren’t so ignorant as to think it’s okay to vote for a pro-choice candidate when there is a pro-life alternative. It’s sad and, imho, disgusting that so many Catholics voted for Obama.
This priest deserves the standing O that he received. My mother’s priest has been on a rampage since the election.
His parishioners clapped in support and approval and then leapt to their feet in respect, and this good priest’s natural reaction was to immediately turn AWAY from the accolades and give the glory to God in a genuflection to the Blessed Sacrament, a spontaneous response that shows his true humility and faith.
i have a question for the group. I go to our town message boards and there was a bunch of CINO’s there saying that the United States cousil of bishops have a differeing opinion than this priest and that in a nut shell are saying you can vote obama.
Do we know what their position is on this. I was always taugh that pro life candidates first unless they were completely unaccpetible, which as much as as dont’ like McCain i couldn’t...not that i would of voted for the Bama anyway.
So does any of you that are smarter than me know the bishops position on this.
Good point. But I reckon the bigger story might be that nobody with a collar backed him up as far as I know.
Freegards
First it’s important to understand there is not any such thing as “the bishop’s position”. Whatever the Church teaching is, that is what any individual bishop’s (or priest’s) position SHOULD be. They are in alliance with and have allegiance to the Holy Father and their Faith is exactly the same as what is in the Catechism.
Also, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is not a governing body, it is not a teaching body, it has no authority over you OR OVER ANY PRIEST. Any statement put out by the bishops does not have the authority of the Magisterium. Each bishop only has jurisdiction in his own diocese. His charter is to Teach, Govern and Sanctify. Any document from the USCCB, including “Faithful Citizenship” is not an “official” Church document and has very little relevance to anything except for Catholic “progressives” and the media to twist the words to their own liking.
OK, so that said, the problem we have is bishops are human and some are almost saints, some are jerks, some are ignorant, and some are downright heretics or apostates. They all get together and try to form a document and it gets watered down my committees and ultimately only confuses the faithful.
The “good” bishops (Chaput, Burke, Bruskewitz, Finn, Vasa, etc) are currently a minority among all the bishops in the country. There are pro-Obama bishops, and they are in error. Many dioceses have been infiltrated with “progressives” who promote global warming over pro-life. This is not Catholic teaching, it is wrong. Frankly, there is corruption and deceit within the Church hierarchy and that’s why you feel you can’t get a clear answer.
Fortunately most of the bad bishops (Mahony, Neiderhauer, Brown) are inching toward retirement, and how they got there is a very complex story going back to Vatican II, John Paul, the nuncio, etc. Benedict and Sambi have eyes more wide open in appointing good guys for the up and coming slots.
To try to keep this short, suffice it to say YOUR understanding is correct. A Catholic cannot support a candidate who deliberately promotes an intrinsic evil, particularly abortion. There is no obfuscation or wiggle room, just lots of fancy rhetoric from CINO’s like “Voice of the Faithful” and other such groups.
Bishop (I forget name, Wilton or something, black guy) who is jumping up and down with glee and saying it’s great Obama was elected is out of line. Yet this humble priest, a lone voice, is right on target.
I heard a priest once say all good reforms in the Church have always come from laity and priests, NOT from bishops. By the time one is a bishop, it’s very easy to become more concerned with power, prestige, or even just “keeping things calm” than really teaching the (controversial) truth, and saving souls.
Yes, even the USCCB spokesperson-nun-sister-lady whatever she is said something like, “We have never heard of any other priest in the country taking this position.” And yet what is the position? What we all know: if you voted for Obama, with an understanding of his position on abortion, you committed a grave sin, which of course makes you ineligible for Communion without Penance. It’s so simple and I don’t believe 50 years ago anyone would have found such a statement controversial.
Although no one is backing him up, I bet many priests are saying to themselves, “Gosh, I wish I had the guts to do that” or even “I would do that if my bishop would not make my life a living hell for it.”
It is a crack in the ice. Remember in 2004 Burke was the only Bishop to speak about pro-abortion politicians and he was almost publicly humiliated live on EWTN by his fellow bishops for doing so. Now look how many bishops spoke out this year, Chaput broke the ice, and others were then inspired, shamed or forced to making statements.
This issue is going to emerge more and more because it’s getting very antagonistic between the “real” Catholics and the leftists. THAT IS GOOD. It will force the matter to be discussed, it will force the bishops to have to account for the millions of dollars they’ve given to ACORN and many leftist causes. Most Catholics are still passively blundering along, like most Americans, but when things start reaching a crisis point maybe people will wake up and start learning what’s really going on.
The bishops’ opinion is, unfortunately, somewhat ambiguous, since the USCCB is basically split on how far to carry their opposition to Obama’s position. It doesn’t help that the USCCB is not really, except in membership, a
church body. It cannot bind individual bishops to its pronouncements. It is reported by Raymond Arroyo that a source told him that probably half the bishops voted for Obama or were in his favor. But at its latest meeting the USCCB for the first time was driven by the minority to make an unequivocal statement of opposition to the likes of FOCA and other pro-abortion policies advertised by Obama. What good this will do is a matter of question unless this wishywashy group is really willing to take further and stronger measures
after Obama assumes office and does act on his promised to the pro-abortion lobby. I may be surprised, since many bishops are now speaking out strongly, but I fear that most will just shrug and say, well we said we didn’t like it. It doesn’t help that so many central offices of diocese are full of pro-choice Catholics, especially nuns and ex-nuns who are crazed on the issue of women’s rights.
#9 What you said!
The 16 pages of single spaced, small type of the Bishop’s treatise on “Faithful Citizenship” that we were enjoined to read each week was off-putting, as well as confusing. I don’t know how they can equate global warming, illegal immigration, and abortion!
I suspect that most of the Bishop’s statement was unread by the people, although they had our best interests at heart. It would put the average person to sleep.
I applaud Fr. Newman’s forthright statement and wish that our Pastor would be so bold.
Yes. Our Pastor and our Bishop can be very forceful about "Stewardship", but nary a word about abortion....
A Catholic cannot support a candidate who deliberately promotes an intrinsic evil, particularly abortion. There is no obfuscation or wiggle room, just lots of fancy rhetoric from CINO’s like “Voice of the Faithful” and other such groups.
Try this: Simply, if the other candidate promoted a worse intrinsic evil, then one could vote for a candidate who promoted an intrinsic evil.
At the other end of the spectrum, if one votes for a candidate BECAUSE he supports an intrinsic evil (and all the conditions about knowing what you are doing are met), one is fer shur committing mortal sin.
The muddy ground, again theoretically, is in the middle. The "arguments" FOR voting for Obama have pretended to maintain that defending the country against her enemies and treating with comparative mercy people who never signed on to the Geneva conventions and who violate them incessantly is somehow a worse intrinsic evil than killing gazillions of innocents.
Personally, I don't see how a person of unimpaired mental faculties could argue that.
I think the priest was correct, and his admonition was pastoral and courageous. I think the Monsignor overreacted badly, and his reproof was misdirected and, probably, not a really good example of the virtue of fortitude.
Well, as you say, if the other candidate promised a worse intrinsic evil, then you could vote for Obama. But, of course, McCain did nothing of the kind.
What is a worse intrinsic evil than killing 50 million babies?
If McCain had promised to nuke all of Canada, maybe, because he didn’t like gay lumberjacks, or something absolutely insane like that, with a similar scale of killings, then OK, vote for the other guy. But I don’t recall hearing anything like that from him.
I am filled with admiration for Fr. Newman.
Apparently the diocesan seat is vacant at the moment, but he still shows respect for the nitwit who is filling in until a bishop is appointed.
Technically it’s true, you don’t commit a mortal sin unless you KNOW it, and do so intentionally. But if this priest had been preaching to his parish earlier, as suggested, then almost all of them DID know it, unless they were sick at home all those weeks. Moreover, if you commit a serious sin just short of being mortal, it’s still a good idea to go to confession and clear it off your conscience.
In other words, he could be faulted on a technicality by someone who hadn’t heard the earlier sermons. But not a serious technicality. After all, it’s the Church’s job to form people’s consciences and instruct them, and part of that instruction should be that voting for a pro-abortion politician is a serious, probably a mortal, sin.
This guy is very smart, and very filled with grace, if you ask me. I love how he apologizes. Read it carefully:
“Barack Obama, although we must always and everywhere disagree with him over abortion, has been duly elected the next President of the United States, and after he takes the Oath of Office next January 20th, he will hold legitimate authority in this nation. For this reason, we are obliged by Scriptural precept to pray for him and to cooperate with him whenever conscience does not bind us otherwise. Let us hope and pray that the responsibilities of the presidency and the grace of God will awaken in the conscience of this extraordinarily gifted man an awareness that the unholy slaughter of children in this nation is the greatest threat to the peace and security of the United States and constitutes a clear and present danger to the common good. In the time of President Obama’s service to our country, let us pray for him.”
More good points from baa39!
Freegards
Yup. A proportionate reason for voting for the pro-baby butchery guy would look like the plot of a sci-fi book. That’s why they never give an example of what such a reason would be, it would almost have to involve being in league with alien slavers or having a policy to start destroying the sun.
Freegards
then his superiors are in error before God
Not really his "superior" ... but yes, definitely in error, and on fairly specious grounds; the critic is one of Bernardin's "seamless garment" disciples. (spit!)
Bishops are appointed by the Pope. It would be nice if BXVI would take care of this matter. Still, no bishop is better than a bad bishop.
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