Right or wrong?

CBS News reports on a controversial stance that a South Carolina Roman Catholic Church priest has taken on Catholics in his church who supported Barack Obama:

(CBS) A priest at a South Carolina Roman Catholic church says his parishioners shouldn’t take Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because of the Democrat’s stance on abortion.

The Reverend Jay Scott Newman said Thursday that church law doesn’t allow him to refuse parishioners the sacrament at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Greenville.

But, reports CBS affiliate WSPA, Newman said his congregants shouldn’t take communion until they do penance for supporting the man he called the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president.

“We cannot leave our faith outside the voting booth,” Newman told WSPA.

“It was absolutely inconceivable that a Catholic could say, ‘I could vote for this otherwise extraordinary man and hope that the consequence won’t be a widening of the abortion license and an increase in the number of abortions,'” Newman said.

Newman said that if a voter through his or her political action (“whether intended or not”) contributed to the promotion of abortion, they need to “deal with it in the sacrament of penance.”

Click here to see the letter he wrote to his parishioners.

This is an issue that has gotten prominent Catholic politicians like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Ahhhnold in CA, and former NY mayor Rudy Giuliani in trouble with the Catholic church before.

Now, I’m not a Catholic, so I’ll need to defer to Catholic readers on the subject. But is what this priest is doing something similar to a traditional Christian church informing someone who is interested in being a deacon at their church that they can’t do so unless they repent for their sins and ask the Lord into their hearts? Furthermore, do you think it’s wrong of him to suggest they do penance over their support of Barack Obama before taking communion?

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