Was Voting for Obama a Sin?

Fr Jay Scott  Newman

After the election of 2008, Fr. Jay Scott Newman, the pastor of St Mary's, Greenville wrote a letter to his parishioners stating that if they had voted for Obama knowing fully that abortion was a grave sin, and knowing fully that Obama was going to be the most pro abortion president ever, then they had better get themselves to confession for they had committed a serious sin.



The letter made the national headlines. Fr. Newman was portrayed in the MSM as "South Carolina Pastor"--shorthand for "nose pickin' hick who don't know no better". The hate mail thundered into the parish, jamming the email boxes. I was on the parish staff at the time and the overflow came to me. They wrote their letters spewing hatred and bigotry and ignorance to whomever they could find who's name was associated with the parish.



Some letters were simply full of hatred and blasphemy for Jesus Christ, his Blessed Mother and his holy church. Others were long rants about how wonderful Obama was. The vast majority were crude, violent and some of them so irrationally hateful as to be virtually demonic.



The storm raged. Some of Fr. Newman's friends threw him under the bus and tried to smooth things over. The left wing Catholics who were making obsequious chortling noises to the Obama administration--defending his election and giving him honors at Catholic colleges were tut tutting about priests like Fr. Newman who were obviously "right wing Bible belt extremists". We were called "fundamentalists with incense." Didn't we know that Obama was the president who was going to work for peace and justice and do everything he could for the poor, the immigrants, the blacks the disenfranchised?



Now Catholics from both sides of the political spectrum are united in their condemnation of Obama's blatant attack on religious freedom. The new HHS mandate has done us all a great service in clarifying the situation. The Obama administration are not only the most pro-abortion group of politicians, but they are also the most anti-Catholic. I suspect an increasing number of Catholics who were opposed to Father Newman's statement may now be having second thoughts.



The implications for this country are immense, and it had better be not just Catholics who wake up to reality, but every Christian believer, for once the first step is taken against religious freedom in the name of political correctness, the assault will continue. The feminist abortionists are only the first pack of wolves waiting to attack. The rest of the atheistic, hedonists who hate Christ and his church will sweep down on the fold, and no Christian group will be exempt.