Today, I read that some Catholic bishops plan to deny communion to people who vote for politicians who support abortion.
I've been following the Catholic communion controversy, and while I support the Catholic church's upholding of its standards, I don't see how they will be able to do this without becoming very intrusive on its parishioners. Maybe I'm wrong -- I'm a United Methodist and have never been a member of the Catholic church, though my wife was a very long time ago.
On the other hand, I expect any minute now to hear of the Religious Left calling for the Catholic church's tax-exempt status to be taken away. They will say that it's a violation of "separation of church and state" (ignoring their own pro-abortion resolutions, like this one and this one). I also remember the last Unitarian Universalist sermon I heard before the 2000 elections where the parish minister preached a blatantly pro-abortion sermon and exhorted the Unitarian Universalist faithful to go out there and vote to save abortion rights, and later a very emotional woman got into a shouting match with me, telling me I was "destroying the country", when I told her I was going to vote for W. Who's kidding who that the religious left is any different than the religious right when it comes to "separating church and state"?
Now, is it appropriate for the bishops to deny communion to anyone? In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul says:
Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.