Abortion: Was voting for Obama a sin?

last updated 8 January 2015

Finally, a religious leader with guts, said Mike Gallagher in Townhall.com. The Rev. Jay Scott Newman, a Catholic priest in Greenville, S.C., wrote a letter asking parishioners who voted for Barack Obama not to take communion. He said they had embraced “intrinsic evil” because their candidate favors abortion rights, and they had a pro-life alternative in John McCain. “If our church leaders don’t fight for the unborn, who will?”

Before you proclaim Newman a hero, said Bruce Tomaso in The Dallas Morning News online, you might note that his letter “doesn’t say anything about whether Obama supporters should continue to put money in the weekly collection plate.” It’s true that Holy Communion is a sacrament and “sponging dollars from church members isn’t,” but it still seems wrong to take money from people involved in an “intrinsic evil.”

What’s really troubling is that Newman isn’t talking about people who have conducted or received an abortion, said David Waters in The Washington Post online. By discouraging communion for people who back a candidate who supports abortion rights, Newman is “saying that freedom of speech and thought is a mortal sin.”