Father Jay Scott Newman, my first cousin and pastor of Saint Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Greenville, South Carolina, has caused quite a stir in the mainstream media with his recent message published on the Saint Mary's website. News coverage has thus far extended to, just as a sample, WYFF, WIS, WRDW, The Charleston City Paper, Greenvilleonline, Lifenews, and Free Republic. Interviews with local and national television are on the way...
UPDATE: USAToday, WSPA (with video), Fox News, AP Google, Yahoo!, AP, Drudge Report.
Dear Friends in Christ,
We the People have spoken, and the 44th President of the United States will be Barack Hussein Obama. This election ends a political process that started two years ago and which has revealed deep and bitter divisions within the United States and also within the Catholic Church in the United States. This division is sometimes called a “Culture War,” by which is meant a heated clash between two radically different and incompatible conceptions of how we should order our common life together, the public life that constitutes civil society. And the chief battleground in this culture war for the past 30 years has been abortion, which one side regards as a murderous abomination that cries out to Heaven for vengeance and the other side regards as a fundamental human right that must be protected in laws enforced by the authority of the state. Between these two visions of the use of lethal violence against the unborn there can be no negotiation or conciliation, and now 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. We must also take note of the fact that this election was effectively decided by the votes of self-described (but not practicing) Catholics, the majority of whom cast their ballots for President-elect Obama.
In response to this, I am obliged by my duty as your shepherd to make two observations:
1. 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.
2. 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 in the words of a prayer found in the Roman Missal:
God our Father, all earthly powers must serve you. Help our President-elect, Barack Obama, to fulfill his responsibilities worthily and well. By honoring and striving to please you at all times, may he secure peace and freedom for the people entrusted to him. We ask this through Our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.
Amen.
Father Newman
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3 comments:
Kudos to Fr. Newman for taking a public stand on this issue.
While for many voters the economic problems eclipsed moral issues like abortion and fetal stem cell research, I believe that these remain at the core. I find it disheartening that professing Christians could support Sen. Obama in the face of his public support for abortion on demand and fetal stem-cell research. Let us thank our Lord for priests like Fr. Newman who hold fast to moral teachings of the church.
The financial debacle The financial crisis may prove to be a blessing in that it will very likely occupy enough of the attention of the President and congress to the point that the worst points of Obama's agenda may not be acted upon.
Catholic Christians of all stripes have continued to drop the ball on abortion.
While I am well aware (1) that politics is generally in the bailiwick of the laity -- an office with real responsibilities and duties -- and; (2) that politics is principally about the possible, and not about possible principles; nevertheless, at a certain point politics can become so unprincipled that Christian laymen simply cannot in good conscience participate save by way of protest.
To make the point simply enough for post-mod, nominal Christians, I propose this hypothetical: If the Democrats nominate Stalin, the Republicans nominate Hitler, then who should a faithful Christian vote for?
The answer of course is Ron Paul or Chuck Baldwin, but I'll accept "pass" as a correct answer too. To vote for either of Hitler or Stalin, even as bon fide less-of-two-evils vote, is a kin to offering a grain incense to pagan Gods of antiquity, which no true Christian must ever do, even upon pain of death.
Those who voted for Obama definitely are "lapsi," to use the historically precise Christian term of art. They have made an offering to Ba'al Moloch and are, therefore, apostate. (Arguably, so are those those who voted for McCain -- though the case there is less clear.)
Christ's Peace,
MDN
Good for Fr. Newman!
We need more members of the clergy who are willing to speak out like this, both Catholic and Protestant.
And if the mainstream media has a problem with it, too bad. The mainstream media is half of what's wrong with this country to begin with.
Hopefully, with prayers and God's help, not only will President-elect Obama have a change in heart, but so will the mainstream media as to what and whose values it endorses.
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