Priest advises penance for Obama voters

GREENVILLE, S.C., Nov. 14 (UPI) -- A priest in South Carolina has advised his parishioners to repent if they voted for President-elect Barack Obama before receiving communion.

The Rev. Jay Scott Newman, a priest at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville, S.C., said voting for Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden, both abortion supporters, "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil," The Greenville News reported.

Newman said church teaching doesn't permit him to refuse Holy Communion to anyone because of their political choices, but he also would deliver the church's teaching against abortion.

He alerted his parishioners in a letter posted on St. Mary's Web site, saying, "voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil."

Catholics who voted for the Obama-Biden ticket should do penance before receiving communion "lest they eat and drink their own condemnation," Newman wrote, citing a biblical passage.

Exit polls Nov. 4 indicate 54 percent of self-described Catholics voted for Obama.