Churches should stay out of politics PERIOD. I am a practicing catholic and I used to support the church because it was consistent at least on being anti-death penalty, help the poor and anti-abortion.

However, the catholic church has become blind to all other issues, other than abortion, and the only potential explanation is politics. It saw the alleged political power of the wacko christian fundamentalists and wants to get that same type of alleged political power. So, it is abandoning all of its principles for politics.

Clearly the democratic platform is far more in line with any legitimate religion than the republican platform. If you take abortion out of the equasion, how is the republican party platform in tune with any legitimate religion??? Kill adults, no health care, screw the poor, screw minorities, screw helping people, etc. How is that possibly a pro-religious platform?

The first three post are great. How often do we go 3 for 3?

Oh, voting for a Democrat borders on scandal, while a priest molesting boys and a cardinal covering it up, what does that border on? Divine?

Religions can, and probably should, take political positions. That was one of the driving forces behind the Civil Rights Movement. Under our political system thry can do so as long as they restrict their activity to advocating positions not politicians. When the religions become political advocacy groups they should lose their tax exemption. Anything else is unfair.

If you form a political party you have to pay taxes. If a church acts as a political party distributing voter guides and the like with a slanted set of questions it doesn't? This is a form of establishing religion -- giving it a
preferred place in society.

The churches already have a built in advantage anyway. Their congregants atttend weekly for other reasons and are captive audiences for their leader's political views.

It can, however, backfire. The Wichita preachers who preached anti-abortion 24/7 for 365 days of the year lost their pulpits.

The death of a fertilized egg which is what happens to over 50% of fertilized eggs naturally anyway is not worth any harm whatsoever to an existing human and family.

The biggest moral failing of Rome is not so much the personal failings involved in the rape of the children but rather the millions of deaths caused by their opposition to birth control. This lead to their rejection of condoms both for prevention of unwanted pregnancies and prevention of AIDS.

"The guidelines do give Catholics an escape clause if they want to vote for a pro-choice candidate, saying that it must be despite that position and because of "other morally grave reasons."

Is this the reason behind not holding pedophile priests resposible? In other words...sure raping children is wrong...but if people new about it, then they would be less inclined to go to our church...then they would be damned to hell...isn't that worse than a little raping?

Boston and Massachusetts Catholic voters are clearly sophisticated enough to separate their religious views and their political views. Cardinal O'Malley has already lost that battle.

I found this interesting:

"O'Malley made clear that, despite his differences with the Republican Party over immigration policy, capital punishment, economic issues, and the war in Iraq, he views abortion as the most important moral issue facing policymakers."

"Democratic National Committee spokesman Damien LaVera defended the party, which he called "a big tent party," and he pointed out that there are 104 Catholic Democrats currently serving in Congress, including two who are vocal opponents of abortion rights, Senator Robert P. Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania and Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio."

O'Malley made his comments in an interview just after the US Conference of Catholic Bishops voted overwhelmingly to approve its quadrennial statement offering guidance for Catholic voters, declaring abortion, cloning, and embryonic research to be "intrinsically evil" and warning that support for such acts could endanger a Catholic voter's salvation. The bishops have issued similar documents prior to each presidential election since 1976, but this year decided to place a special emphasis on the importance of opposition to abortion because of concern among some bishops that the issue might get lost in the flurry of statements by the bishops on other topics such as poverty and the environment.

"The direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life is always wrong and is not just one issue among many," the bishops declared in the document, called Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship."

"First you get down on your knees,

fiddle with your rosaries,

bow your head with great respect,

and...

Genuflect! Genuflect! Genuflect!"

God Knows.