Leaving church on Sunday, I noticed a car parked in the church lot with an "Obama - Biden" sticker on the back. I hope they were attending to repent....
"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," wrote Fr. Joseph Illo.
Fr. Illo's kind but firm letter, dated November 21, mapped out at length the complex but grave moral situation, and took pains to outline the extent to which his admonition pertains to any particular Catholic voter.
"I am writing to you because I love you and I care about your relationship with God," said the letter. "I am also writing because God requires this of me as a Catholic priest."
Fr. Illo also addressed the common objection that in demanding that Catholics vote pro-life the Church is promoting “one-issue” voting that oversimplifies a complex choice. He said that "if the issue is grave enough, no one would object to ‘one-issue voting.’" He pointed to support for slavery as another example of a clear "deal-breaker."
Illo affirmed that abortion was an even graver injustice than slavery, as unborn children have become "an entire class of Americans who are targeted for focused attack, a people with no rights, whose very lives are at the whim of judges and politicians."
“We Catholics, and all people of good will and sound reason, must defend the lives of these poorest of the poor," he said.
(To read Fr. Illo's letter in full, click here.
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