Obama's NEW PASTOR: OTIS MOSS III

[obamian]

Jeremiah Wright delivered his last sermon in February. Here's a video of Obama's new pastor Otis Moss III delivering a sermon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RLX_dmYKQk

[jlake]

1. Why did Obama stay a member of the church and not renounce the idiocy

shown? It doesn't matter if he has a new pastor -- a clip of the previous one is all that is needed to lose about 60% of the national vote.
That is some scary and radical shit.... and America is not going to put up with it.
Obama is a member of an extremely racist church..... not acceptable.

[angie_love]

3. faux outrage alert!

[ampad]

11. You called it

Because many of them were here tonight defending Geraldine and Hillary but now want to behave as if they are shocked and outraged with this pastor. All racism is nasty and ugly no matter the color of those being victimized.

[scheming daemons]

5. Some people take their religion more seriously than others. I'm a Roman Catholic who disagrees with

...the pope more than 50% of the time.


But I haven't quit the church.


Obama's church has 8,000 members and is one of the largest churches in the country. It is ridiculous to expect someone to quit their church every time they disagree with the church elders on an issue.


There'd be no such thing as a pro-Choice Catholic in that case.


John Kerry is Pro-Choice... and his pastor is Pro-Life... should he quit his church?

[jlake]

8. The Catholic Church came very close to excommunicating Kerry.....

I don't take religion very seriously, but judging by Mr. Obama's rhetoric it is clearly a large part of his life.... and this is his main influence.

[SoxFan]

12. That's flat-out false, jlake

At no point was Kerry close to excommunication. A couple of right wing bishops in Missouri and Colorado shot off their mouths, but that was the end of it. Kerry continues to receive Communion in his home diocese (Archdiocese of Boston), and attends services at the Paulist chapel near his home.

[MADem]

24. "A couple of bishops" ain't like two altarboys smoking behind the rectory.

And then, there's THIS, from CATHOLIC WORLD NEWS: http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=32830

Kerry said to be excommunicated

Los Angeles, Oct. 18, 2004 (CWNews.com) - A consultant to the Vatican has said Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has incurred the penalty of excommunication from the Catholic Church.

The consultant made his statement in a highly unusual letter to Marc Balestrieri...Balestrieri, who launched his case earlier this year by filing a heresy complaint in Kerry's home archdiocese of Boston, told EWTN's "World Over" program on Friday that he had received an unusual, indirect communication from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding the pro-abortion stance.

That communication provides a basis, he said, to declare that any Catholic politician who says he is "personally opposed to abortion, but supports a woman's right to choose," incurs automatic excommunication. It also provided a basis for Balestrieri to broaden his canonical actions and file additional complaints against four more pro-abortion Catholic politicians: Democrat Senators Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Tom Harkin of Iowa; Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine; and former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, a Democrat.

The current action could be significant as it could undercut the entire debate over denying Communion to pro-abortion politicians. An excommunicated Catholic may not receive any of the sacraments of the Church, including the Eucharist, marriage, and even Christian burial. The type of excommunication outlined in the new information is called latae sententiae, which means that it occurs automatically and does not require a formal pronouncement by any Church official.

Balestrieri said he went to Rome in late August to discuss his canonical case with experts, including an official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Less than 10 days later, he received a letter from Father Basil Cole, a Dominican theologian and consultant to the congregation based in Washington, DC, who said he had been "delegated" by Father Augustine DiNoia, undersecretary of the congregation, to give an unofficial response to the question that Balestrieri had submitted.

"I went to Rome in person to submit two critical questions to the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith," said Balestrieri. "The first: Whether or not the Church's teaching condemning any direct abortion is a dogma of Divine and Catholic Faith, and if the denial and doubt of the same constitutes heresy. The second: Whether or not a denial of the Church's teaching condemning every right to abortion also constitutes heresy. Father Cole, an expert theologian who studied the matter carefully, responded in the affirmative on both counts."

Father Cole wrote, "If a Catholic publicly and obstinately supports the civil right to abortion, knowing that the Church teaches officially against that legislation, he or she commits that heresy envisioned by Can. 751 of the Code . Provided that the presumptions of knowledge of the law and penalty and imputability are not rebutted in the external forum, one is automatically excommunicated ...."

Balestrieri said the response was unusual in several respects: that a response was provided to a layman at the request of the undersecretary in only 11 days, that the response was in writing, decisively clarifying the matter, and that it was in far greater detail than a typical official reply. "Normally, only a bishop may request such clarification of doctrine from the CDF, such responses usually take a much longer time to be received, and they are rarely made public," he said.

He also said that the original canonical complaint of heresy against Kerry had received so much response from the public that the tribunal of the Archdiocese of Boston has been deluged with thousands of letters from ordinary Catholics who wish to add their names to the complaint. The head of the archdiocesan tribunal reportedly told him that the case had not been rejected and was "now in the hands of the archbishop," that is, Archbishop Sean O'Malley of Boston.

Balestrieri, a self-identified political independent, says that his actions come as a defender of the faith and Holy Eucharist from sacrilege and scandal, not as one focused on an electoral outcome. "Our victory can come as early as today: It would be for Sen. Kerry, who publicly calls himself a Catholic and yet in violation of Canon Law continues to receive Holy Communion, to repent of his grave sin and publicly recant his abortion advocacy."

The complete text of Father Cole's response as well as other details of the pending cases are available on the DeFide.com web site.

[theredpen]

25. This is a fringe interpretation of canon law

Regarding latae sententiae excommunication.

Furthermore the application of Can. 751 is utterly ludicrous as it requires, "...the total repudiation of the christian faith." Despite the machinations of a vociferous minority, the Christian Faith is not single-minded focused on the abortion issue. In fact, it's the least important right-to-life issue in the agenda. Opposition to unjust wars is #1; I'd like to see how these dickheads come down on that issue.

Finally, Father Cole is entitled to his opinion, but he does not have the authority to excommunicate anyone.

[MADem]

27. I'm not endorsing it, just pointing it out, and noting it was published in CWN, is all.

Obviously, no one gave enough of a shit about it up in the Vatican to stop that clown from sending out letters--which, in itself, is interesting. Pandering, at the least. Playing both ends against the middle, as it were.

Cole isn't saying he's doing it, though, FWIW. He's averring it's an auto-pilot type deal. It IS just his opinion, and opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one.

[theredpen]

28. Yeah, I wasn't criticizing you for posting it...

...just clarifying for non-Catholics that there wasn't any actual substance to what the article made sound like harsh condemnation of Kerry.

[unapatriciated]

31. Funny you bring up pro choice and the church.

My sister left the democratic party years ago in protest of Kerry and the party's stance on pro choice. She has not voted in a primary in a very long time. She does assure me she votes D. It seems most of her parish and many other parishes thought this was a good idea at the time to register R in protest. They will not change back to D until the party disavows pro choice. I didn't understand it than and I don't understand it now. This is a good example of why we have separation of church and state.

Sorry but according to the church there IS no such thing as a "pro-Choice Catholic". Some priest and parishes may avert their eyes and look the other way, but make no mistake they do not approve. Many priests and parishes supported and praised bush because of that, a lot of Catholics embraced him and it started with Kerry's stance on pro choice.

[scheming daemons]

7. No... Obama's pastor had some extremely racist views.. the church itself is not 'extremely racist'.

There's 8,000 members.


Obama's answered the "clip" you were talking about...... and he'll answer it again... just as forcefully.

[jlake]

I didn't see any objections from the church... the leader usually reflects the congregation.

[thevoiceofreason]

32. Not in a UCC church -- learn about us first

[theredpen]

26. What racist views does Obama's pastor have?

He said some rather pointed things about the all-white power elite in this country. Did I miss something or isn't the power elite in this country all white? I mean, isn't that a fact? Are Dick Cheney and George Bush Native American or something, 'cause last I checked, they were rich white men.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Window]

29. Oh, Bullshit.

Talk about fake outrage. Damn.

[cooolandrew]

2. Great debunking keep up the good work. btw HRC supporters TAX RETURNS, LINK...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3qOi_l1RGY

[ossman]

4. Hillbots... Excedrin PM works much better than Unisom

How do you guys sleep at night having to wake up and spew bullshit all day?

[The Wielding Truth]

6. Thanks for this.

[MADem]

10. Wright doesn't leave the church until JUNE, per this article

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120511457633523621.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news


Mr. Wright, who will be ending his 36-year tenure as the church's senior pastor in June, has previously been criticized for comments deriding President George Bush and lauding Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam. Now Mr. Wright's and his successor's repeated enthusiastic promotion of their famous parishioner may be running afoul of federal tax law, which says churches can endanger their tax-exempt status by endorsing or opposing candidates for public office.

Sen. Obama's campaign issued a statement saying that he has repeatedly stressed that personal attacks "have no place in this campaign or our politics, whether they're offered from a platform at a rally or the pulpit of a church." The statement also said he "does not think of the pastor of his church in political terms. Like a member of his family, there are things he says with which Senator Obama deeply disagrees.'' Mr. Wright declined to comment.

Trinity's national parent, the United Church of Christ, recently disclosed that it's being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service for a speech Sen. Obama gave to 10,000 people at a church conference in June in Hartford, Conn., in which he mentioned his candidacy and parts of his platform, namely health-care reform.

Scholars and attorneys say that a growing number of congregations are delving into issue advocacy and partisan politics, a trend dating back to the 1980s, when the religious right enlisted churches to fight abortion. An increasing number of complaints to the IRS over church politicking have triggered agency probes into both liberal and conservative religious groups. A Baptist church in California has acknowledged it's under IRS scrutiny after a watchdog group complained that the church backed Republican Mike Huckabee in his recently ended bid for the White House.


"There have never been more audits than in the last three or four years" involving churches, says Marcus Owens, an attorney who represents some congregations and is a former director of the IRS's exempt-organizations division. But while the agency has issued dozens of warning letters aimed at halting advocacy for political candidates, it has only twice revoked a church's tax-exempt status since the tax law was amended in 1954, a spokeswoman said.

Under the law that governs tax-exempt organizations, churches are allowed to support causes or ballot initiatives such as laws to ban same-sex marriage. They also can hold a candidates' night for all office-seekers in a race. But according to guidance provided on the IRS's Web site, churches are "absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office."

[KittyWampus]

13. step away from this McCarthyism, you're better than that. The Clintons aren't worth it

[MADem]

20. Stop saying that crap. I am not engaging in "McCarthyism" by noting that

this church is under investigation. AND that the pastor hasn't left the church yet. AND Obama is still a congregant.

Facts MATTER, you know. I haven't contributed anything to this discussion beyond FACTS.

Your effort to try to STIFLE and CENSOR this discussion are VERY troubling, though. They say something UNSAVORY about you.

If you see something that isn't factual, that misrepresents, you need to pipe the fuck up and correct it. But stop telling people that factual contributions to a thread are "McCartyism."

That's an insult, a personal insult, really--a slur. STOP IT. NOW.

[obamian]

14. He's on sabbatical until May when he retires

[Recursion]

17. In point of fact, the national UCC has very little control over an individual pastor

Some denominations are more centralized than others; the UCC is in the "less" category. As my mom (a UCC pastor) says, UCC is UU with a cross stapled on.

[MADem]

22. Well, they're not after the UCC for that Trinity pastor's sermons

They're after the UCC for a speech Obama gave to them. See the cite above.

They may, or may not, be after Obama's church for the pulpit endorsements. They'd be advised to be even-handed and nab a few wingnut churches too, while they're at it.

[SoxFan]

15. A challenge for jlake

Since you seem to believe that a person's church is a reflection of their character, tell us what church or synagogue you attend on a regular basis.

Here's mine:

http://www.stjosephcathedral.4lpi.com/

[angie_love]

16. I highly doubt jlake goes to church. Just a hunch.

[Straight Shooter]

18. Because only churchgoers are good people.

Riiiiiight.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Drunken Irishman]

21. I want to play!

Here's mine.

http://www.stambroseslc.com/

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

23. Personally, I don't care what church a candidate attends

I don't even want to know their religion. I wish we had attitudes similar to European election candidates, who don't feel they have to invoke the name of God to get elected. We have so many serious problems in this country right now, including the meltdown of the U.S. dollar that I think a person's church and religion are truly small potatoes.

[Window]

30. I like. I like. Thanks for sharing.

Peace:thumbsup: