And The Answer Is -- It's A Mortal Sin

From McClatchy:

Parishioners of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Modesto have been told they should consider going to confession if they voted for Barack Obama, because of the president-elect's position condoning abortion.

"If you are one of the 54 percent of Catholics who voted for a pro-abortion candidate, you were clear on his position and you knew the gravity of the question, I urge you to go to confession before receiving communion. Don't risk losing your state of grace by receiving sacrilegiously," the Rev. Joseph Illo, pastor of St. Joseph's, wrote in a letter dated Nov. 21.

The letter was sent to more than 15,000 members of the St. Joseph's parish. It is one of 34 parishes in the Stockton Diocese, which has more than 200,000 members in Stanislaus, San Joaquin and four other counties.

Illo also delivered this message in a homily.

Obama's support of abortion rights angered many Catholics nationally during the campaign, and Illo's letter, while the first in Central California from a priest to his parishioners on the topic, is not the first nationally.

A Greenville, S.C., priest told parishioners earlier this month that those who voted for Obama risked placing themselves "outside of the full communion of Christ's church" by their vote. * * *

I sent that Greenville S.C. priest an e-mail, and I just got done sending Fr. Illo one as well. This is a family blog, so neither e-mail could be fully quoted here, but I did refer to the priest pedophile scandal in both e-mails and I did tell Fr. Illo that I would "see him in hell," given that I voted for Obama.

If you want to let Fr. Illo how you feel, you can contact his parish here. You cannot contact him directly because they took down his e-mail address (imagine that), but the addresses of his associate pastors are still up.

To be fair, the bishop of Stockton does not agree with Fr. Illo:

[T]he Most Rev. Stephen Blaire, bishop of the Stockton, Calif., Diocese, said he disagrees with Illo. He said Catholics should not feel compelled to disclose how they voted to their priest.

Blaire said Catholics who carefully weighed many issues and settled on a candidate, such as Obama, who was supportive of abortion rights, were not in need of confession. He said confession would be necessary "only if someone voted for a pro-abortion or pro-choice candidate -- if that's the reason you voted for them."

"Our position on pro-life is very important, but there are other issues," Blaire said. "No one candidate reflects everything that we stand for. I'm sure that most Catholics who voted were voting on economic issues.

"There were probably many priests, and I suspect many bishops, who voted for Obama."

There are a lot of good, thoughtful Catholics out there, and Bishop Blaire is clearly one of them. And he's right -- I'm sure that many members of the clergy voted for Obama.

And speaking of thoughtfulness, here is an article JTom sent me which examines Obama's victory from a Buddhist point of view.