[Apologetics] Fr. Jay Scott Newman

[Dianne Dawson]

Please see the article/links at the end of this e-mail.

This brave priest is in my diocese.  It really upsets me how the diocese supported him, at first and then "threw him under the bus."  I sent an e-mail to the Diocesan Administrator (Msgr Laughlin).  Since we are currently without a Bishop I will also be sending an e-mail to Archbishop Gregory in Atlanta (our Metropolitan).  If you agree with Fr. Newman I would like to encourage you to voice your support also.  

Msgr Laughlin's e-mail is:mlaughlin at catholic-doc.org
Archbishop Gregory's e-mail is: archbishop at archatl.com

Fr. Newman's letter/bulletin insert can be read at http://wdtprs.com/blog/2008/11/greenville-sc-fr-newmans-post-election-bulletin/

And his response to the Diocesan concerns at http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/nov/08111706.html


http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=92252
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                18-November-2008
                -- Catholic News Agency  
                
                
                
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          South Carolina Priests Support Local Pastor over Misreported Communion Ban
        Charleston,
Nov 17, 2008 (CNA).- Fr. Jay Scott Newman, a South Carolina priest
whose parish bulletin letter gained national attention due to an
inaccurate Associated Press headline “S.C. Priest: No communion for
Obama supporters,” is receiving support from priests in his diocese.
The show of priestly support comes after Fr. Newman was criticized by
the diocesan administrator for pulling the Church’s teaching into the
“partisan political arena.” In
the weekly parish bulletin, Fr. Newman emphasized the need for people
to examine their consciences before receiving Communion and noted that
self-described Catholics had played a role in electing Barack Obama as
president.“Voting for a
pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists
constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those
Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of
Christ’s Church and under the judgment of divine law,” Fr. Newman wrote.He
further added such persons should not receive Holy Communion until they
are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance. The pastor of Saint
Mary’s Church in Greenville, South Carolina also told his parishioners
that they must pray for the president-elect and cooperate with him
“wherever conscience permits.”Fr.
Newman’s letter originally prompted a largely favorable reaction, with
parishioners saying by a 9 to 1 margin that they appreciated his column
on the election.In fact,
sources close to the matter told CNA that after Fr. Newman published
his original column for the parish bulletin and provided responses to
The Greenville News for an article on the column, he received a
supportive email from the Diocese of Charleston Administrator Monsignor
Martin Laughlin. In the email Msgr. Laughlin thanked Fr. Newman for his
statement and said, “I wish the bishops would have been as forthright.
Why did they not speak before the election?”However,
when the Associated Press picked up the story from The Greenville News,
it twisted the facts in its headline, which reads, “S.C. Priest: No
Communion for Obama supporters.”The
original article in The Greenville News correctly noted that Fr. Newman
said that “church teaching doesn't allow him to refuse Holy Communion
to anyone based on political choices, but that he'll continue to
deliver the church's strong teaching on the ‘intrinsic and grave evil
of abortion’ as a hidden form of murder.”According
to a letter from Fr. Newman to his parishioners, the AP reporter who
wrote the misleading article received the same responses from Fr.
Newman that he provided to The Greenville News.Following
the publication of the AP article this past Friday, Monsignor Laughlin
did an about-face and issued a public repudiation of Fr. Newman’s
statements based off of the inaccurate headline that accompanied the AP
story.In his statement, Msgr.
Laughlin wrote that the Catholic Church’s “clear, moral teaching on the
evil of abortion” was “pulled into the partisan political arena” by the
priest’s letter and that Fr. Newman’s actions have “diverted the focus”
from Catholic teaching on abortion and “do not adequately reflect the
Catholic Church’s teachings. Any comments or statements to the contrary
are repudiated.” Fr. Newman
responded to fracas surrounding his original column in this yesterday’s
bulletin from St. Mary’s, saying that he never imagined that his
bulletin would be read outside of the parish and that his comments must
be read in light of “the teaching of the American bishops on ‘Faithful
Citizenship’ which was distributed in the bulletin the week before the
election and explained from the pulpit.”Furthermore,
the South Carolina pastor stated that, “From that document and the
teaching of the Church's Magisterium, no one could conclude that a vote
for Senator Obama is in itself or by itself a mortal sin. But from that
same teaching, though, we must conclude that a vote for a pro-abortion
candidate can be a mortal sin if the intent is to support abortion,
that abortion is not merely one issue among other important issues, and
that no Catholic should endorse a pro-abortion politician if a
plausible pro-life alternative is available.”He
also pointed out that he purposely did not endorse a candidate, “make
myself or any human authority the judge of an individual's conscience”
or “presume to know or determine for others what constitutes being a
"plausible pro-life alternative" to a pro-abortion politician; I
asserted only that there can be such.”Since
the Diocese of Charleston does not have a bishop, Archbishop Gregory
has the final say on diocesan personnel decisions and was likely
consulted on the statement repudiating Fr. Newman’s remarks.
In the wake of the statement from the Diocese of Charleston, a group of
local priests is organizing a public statement of support for Fr.
Newman. The priests’ statement will also criticize the way his words
were distorted by the media, CNA has learned.


        
        
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