Via Steve Benen, another priest urging his Obama-voting congregants to seek confession:
"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. [...]
Illo, in an interview Wednesday, explained his reasoning. "In Catholic teaching, you have to go to confession when you have committed a mortal sin," he said. "Now, what is a mortal sin? It's somewhat complex. No one can say, 'You committed a mortal sin.' I can only say, 'It's a grave matter.' It's my job to look after my parishioners.
You may remember an earlier incident of this just after the election, resulting in the Bishop rebuking the priest, but apparently, you an swat at these flies as much as you want, they just don't go away.
I understand that within the Catholic church, abortion is a big, perhaps the big moral issue. But it is not the only moral issue, and in many cases certainly not the overriding moral issue. And the Church's position on the issue is actually pretty straight forward: It is a sin to vote for a pro-choice candidate, if you intention in voting for that candidate is the support their position on abortion. But, if you vote for a pro-choice candidate, not because of, but despite their approval of abortion, it is not a sin.
But here, we see, as Steve notes, "another priest going considerably further, saying intent is irrelevant, and he wants to punish those who voted for the 'wrong' candidate, regardless of their motivation."
Recall, if you will, that after the 2004 election, the IRS investigated a church in Pasadena, CA, not for supporting a particular candidate, but for preaching a sermon about the Iraq war. This case, I would argue, is not only similar, but more egregious, since the position that the priest appears to be taking is that this is not a moral issue over which you may choose one candidate over another, but in which you must.
It is also worth keeping in mind the discussions in some Catholic circles that it's time for the Church to move away from assume one and only one pro-life option is available for American Catholics. There may, some have argued, be a range of possible pro-life positions that one can take, from seeking a ban on most or all abortions, to favoring efforts to reduce the number of abortions while leaving the law unchanged.
My own position is, as it has been for a long time now: Safe, legal, and rare.