Separation of Church and State – 1776 – 2005 – RIP

It has now come out that prior the 2004 election Pastor Chandler (the preacher who recently excommunicated 9 of his parishioners for being Democrats) told his congregation that anyone planning on voting for Kerry should leave the church. State Baptist Conference officials said that this was proper although legal experts say that this is a “clear violation of Internal Revenue Service rules against political endorsements by churches,” and churches practicing political endorsements should loose their tax exempt status. There is little chance of the Bush Administration Department of Justice or IRS going after these churches, however. Reports of churches across the country endorsing Republican candidates or pressuring members on their voting habits have been pouring in during the past year. There has been no action from this administration to enforce IRS laws concerning this.

Also before the 2004 election in Colorado a Bishop named Sheridan had a letter read at all the parishes in the diocese stating that anyone voting for a candidate supporting abortion, gay rights, or stem cell research will not be allowed to receive communion. Exactly how the priests would know how a communicant voted was not explained. Can you say scare tactic? According to the late Pope John Paul II and the Vatican the Iraq War was an unjust war (and therefore mass murder according to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church). Also the late Holy Father and the Vatican pronounced Capital Punishment as murder and against Church Teachings. So last fall I wrote Bishop Sheridan twice asking if he was also going to inform the parishes of his diocese that those voting for candidates supporting either of these issues should not receive communion either. The Republican leaning Bishop refused to reply to my letters, and failed to inform his flock of this further issue. Surprise surprise. Prior to the 2004 election then Cardinal (now Pope) Joseph Ratzinger in his official capacity as prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith announced that Catholics were free to vote for candidates that supported abortion (and other issues) so long as their position on that issue wasn’t the reason the Catholic was voting for him or her. Meaning a pro-life Catholic could vote for a pro-choice candidate because of his stand on issues such as the treatment of the poor, etc. Not surprising this information was not shared from the pulpits of American Catholic Churches and was hardly reported by the media so most US Catholics were unaware of this. A majority of US Catholics thought they had to vote against pro-choice candidates or not vote at all or they would be violating rules of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church bears the greatest responsibility for perpetuating this misinformation, but some of the blame should be placed upon the media that harped on the claims of local partisan characters like Bishop Sheridan and failed to report the Church’s official stance on the issue. I’m sure the fact that the Bush Administration has allowed rule changes permitting Big Media Corporations to gobble up more and more TV and radio stations that ever before had nothing to do with this. Yeah, right!

Joe