COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him “constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil.”
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 exits 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. . . .”
[See my earlier post on about Father Newman on this weblog: “Good Times in Greenville.”] Say some prayers for this good priest. He’s going to be pummled for this. Treasure in heaven.
Whew. After a lengthy diagnostic, trouble-shooting phonecall with my personal tech-support amigo (a.k.a. Father Bud — God bless him), we figured out what the problem seems to be with this blog not showing comments.
In fact, your comments are there — or at least the capability for you to post them is there — but because I’m using an “enhanced” template, comments don’t show up on the main page. Why, I don’t know. But, hopefully, Blogger will soon fix that odd lacuna in the software.
So . . . to see the comments and/or to post comments of your own, you have to click the title of the post, and voilá! They appear.
I’m sorry for the nuisance. At least we do have comments, and in due time, if the fix ever comes in, you’ll soon be able to see them on the main page. For now, though, just click the post headlines and we’re in business.
Mark Mallettasks the intriguing question, “What if?” in the wake of the dire result of the most recent U.S. Presidential election. His answer is equally intriguing, and I think I agree with his conclusions.
“[W]hat if Obama begins to bring stability to the world? What if foreign tensions began to ease? What if the war in Iraq seems to conclude? What if racial tensions ease? What if the stock markets begin to appear more stable? What if there appears to be a new peace in the world?
“Then I would tell you it is a false peace. For there can be no real and lasting peace when death in the womb is enshrined as a universal ‘right.’ . . . ”
I sincerely appreciate the interest that you’ve show in my site, especially those of you who have signed up to “follow” it. And I’ve enjoyed visiting each of your blogs and getting to know a bit about all of you.
I’ve added all the readers of this blog to my daily prayer intentions, especially in my daily rosary. Please pray for me, too.
I grew up in Mission Viejo, a great town in sunny Southern California. My younger sister Mary still lives there with her husband Joe and their three kiddos. This morning, she sent our family members this video, which provides a glimpse of the seething rage among many of the foes of Proposition 8.
Mary wrote, “I am sure you are all aware that California had Prop. 8 on the ballot during this past election.‘Yes’ on 8 meant a ban on same-sex marriage. This was an ugly battle this year, and we saw many demonstrations for and against Prop. 8. Personally, Joe and I had two ‘Yes on 8’ signs stolen from our front yard.Thank God it passed but, unfortunately, over a week later there are still many violent and destructive protests occurring. This news video is not uncommon to what we have seen out here in the past few weeks.These are scary times.”
Watch the hatred from these men as they scream and rage at an elderly woman who calmly defies them. Then ask yourself what planet the news anchor dude has been living on for him to be able to ludicrously pronounce at the end of the clip that there is “a lot of hate on both sides.” Both sides? I saw plenty of hatred in this video, but it was coming from one side in particular. You be the judges.
Does anyone have any good ideas as to how I can force Blogger to allow comments on my posts? I’ve tried everything, followed their directions, have set and reset the comments permissions, and still . . . nothing.
I want you to be able to leave comments, but the software won’t let me. I’ve tried researching this through their help section, but there’s no way to reach a live tech person who can fix the problem. This is a real frustration for me.
Any suggestions? Please send to: patrick [at] patrickmadrid [dot] com.
I wrote this article awhile back, but I reference it now because of the new challenges we face after the election. Now more than ever, I believe our mission as Catholics to evangelize and recatechize our culture will be all the more difficult and perhaps even perilous. As I point out in this article, if we want to make converts, we must begin by converting our own hearts. The former always follows the latter, not vice versa.
Of course, we all know that things seem to be sliding in the direction of a “New World Order” in which a global leader could arise and exert control (Hmm. I seem to have read something about that in Scripture somewhere.), but I have never seen anything like this. Not even John F. Kennedy received international adulation on this level. He was popular in some places, for sure, but he didn’t stir emotions or cause people to swoon with desire to follow him the way our new Lider Maximo does.
I’ve been asking myself why he does. I don’t understand it. But this strange phenomenon is real, and who can tell where it will lead.
A little over a week ago, Nancy and I treated our children Jonathon (oldest son) and Kelly (dear daughter-in-law) to a “Rain” concert at the Palace Theater in Columbus. It was MAGNIFICENT.
Did I mention that their concert was MAGNIFICENT?
Rain is a very tight, very spot-on Beatles tribute band. And I know from Beatles tribute bands. Over the years, I’ve seen live a few different Beatlemania casts (that’s going back awile, as the first Beatlemania concert I saw was in 1979), as well as another cool tribute band called “1964” (very well done), and a few others, and most recently, Rain.
The Rain show was impressive in several ways. First, the musicians, especially Joey Curatolo, who plays Paul quite convincingly, really nail the personae of Ringo, George, Paul, and John, even if none of the cast are dead ringers for the Beatles they portray. That actually makes their performance all the more interesting.
Second (and this is coming from a kid who [I kid you not] spent countless hours with a bass guitar, mini-amp, and a phonograph in his suburban Southerm California bedroom, discerning and then memorizing, note-for-note, all of Paul McCartney’s bass lines), the cast of Rain can, forgive the blasphemy, but it’s true, play the Beatles’ music as well as the Beatles ever did, note-for-note perfectly, with absolute fidelity to the original studio quality of the arrangememts, as well as the band members’ personal mannerisms. The musical sets ranged from the main early hits (“She Loves You,” “Tiwst and Shout,” “Help”), all the way to the group’s swan-song masterpieces, like “Hey Jude” and “Get Back.” All delivered in note-for-note precision, just as you remember them.
And third, the Rain show blended an historically relevant montage of video clips from the 1960s, as well as many faux shots especially fabricated to meld the cast into the historical spectacle, so that, sitting in the theater, it wasn’t difficult at all to suspend one’s awareness of “reality” and pretend being really at a real Beatle’s concert.
Although my son Jon (and his siblings) grew up listening to the Beatles music, it was a great experience for him to actually see what it would have been like to witness the Beatles in concert. And it was a joy for me to see him see that.
If Rain comes to your town, do yourself a favor (don’t let me down), and go see them.
