There shouldn’t be any such thing as a ‘GOP priest’

May 30, 2008

I was going through Ben Smith’s blog and noticed this headline: “GOP priest attacks Obama in invocation.” This struck me as problematic for a couple of reasons. First, there shouldn’t be any such thing as a “GOP priest,” just as there shouldn’t be a “Dem priest.” Priests are not supposed to serve one party or the other; it’s just not in their job descriptions.

Second, an “invocation” is a prayer. I don’t claim to be a theologian, but for a priest to use a prayer to level a partisan attack against a party rival (and fellow Christian) strikes me as bordering on sacrilege.

And yet, Ben’s headline was, unfortunately, spot-on. Pay particular attention in this clip to the fact that the priest, Jim Lisante, seems to revel in his blurring the line between piety and partisanship.

“One more thing, Lord,” Lisante said to wrap up his invocation. “Please tell Sen. Obama that maybe change is a good thing and maybe he should think about changing his favorite preacher. I know a lot more of us would be comfortable with his judgment skills if he hadn’t sat for 20 years through those words offered by his preacher of division, bigotry, and — honestly — half truths without a word of objection from [the] senator until the media brought it up, and now he doesn’t want any part of the guy.”

This was a prayer. Cheap shots at a presidential candidate are now kosher in an official prayer from a priest? Who did this clown study under in seminary, Karl Rove?

I can only hope some Catholic parishioner who takes his or her faith seriously takes a moment to send Lisante this astute item from the Rev. Chuck Currie.

A Newsweek reporter called yesterday. She wanted to know about prayers that I’ve offered for Senator Obama. What I told her was that prayers should never be partisan. That when I pray for Senator Obama I don’t ever lay claim that God wants one candidate or another to serve in office and that I often pray for all those running for office. I pray that we all listen for the still speaking God and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us as we try and follow the teachings of Jesus.

That is not to say that I don’t have a favorite in this race. Clearly, I support Senator Obama because of his values, judgment and experience.

However, we shouldn’t ever misuse religion for partisan political gain — a line Father Michael Pfleger crossed this weekend (Senator Obama denounced those remarks, rightly)….

But if a seminary is ever looking for a Class A example of how not to pray the video above from Republican Roman Catholic priest Jim Lisante provides it.

Note to Lisante: that collar is supposed to mean something — something that has nothing to do with the Republican Party and cheap campaign slurs. It’s time to reevaluate those spiritual priorities….

Will John McCain be forced to denounce this one? We all know Father Phlaeger is now a big problem…a very big problem…for Barack Obama (I’m still not sure why?)

  • but barack hussein obama x isn’t a “fellow xtian,” remember. he’s a secret muslim terrorist. (or has that talking point changed?)

  • Why is it that people are surprised by the fact that fundamentalists are stupid??????

    People: being a moron is a requirement for being a fundie.

  • I may have nuver fully understood “seperation of church and state” until now. I kind of miss Kucinich’s aliens. Let’s see what they/it has to say.

  • Call this priest’s bishop. This is waaaaay over the line, and his diocese should crack down on it.

  • “O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that with it Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits, in Thy mercy. And the Lord did grin and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats and large chu…

  • Don’t worry folks. There is not one documented, tested example that the god of any religion has ever responded to anyone’s prayer, at least on this planet. We are so fortunate.

    We got ourselves into this jam and only we can get ourselves out of it. But you won’t be hearing any of that in this election season. Misanthropic humanism ain’t a winning ticket.

  • What a smug, self-satisfied lout. The word “blasphemy” has been overused for a while now, but he embodies it. I am an atheist, and this made my skin crawl – because even though I don’t believe in God, I do believe in principles. Sickening.

  • does anyone have photos of these hacks wearing Rachel Ray tirrrrrrist scarves?

  • I realize you disagree with this guy’s political opinions, but since when did activist churches become taboo?

    Churches and preachers making statements from the pulpit were behind the abolitionist movement, civil rights, anti-Vietnam war movement, supporting immigrants (whether illegal or not), etc. When did all that become wrong?

    The problem with Obama’s Rev is that he said something that embarrassed him by negating his image as a kinder-gentler kumbaya kind of candidate. It isn’t surprising you wouldn’t see anything wrong with what he said, since you guys say that stuff routinely. Apparently Obama didn’t want anyone to know it.

    Someone better run and tell the Unitarians they can’t save the world any more.

  • Of course there are such things as GOP priests. A good deal of the GOP’s belief system is based on faith (as opposed to fact). (And I’m talking about christianity here. Supply side economics, free trade, militarism, and many other Repub stances are not based on rationality.) They have various texts that are considered ‘holy’. If you don’t obey their commandments, they will at least try to excommunicate you. About the only things the GOP lacks to be considered a major religion are large, fancy buildings exclusively dedicated to housing their meetings.
    In fairness, the same could be said of Democrats (but to a lesser extent.)
    And prayers that include shots at your ideological opponents are an ancient and rich religious tradition.
    The only question is why anybody who belives in a god that knows what it is doing would also believe that the same god would be influenced in any way by begging.

  • Maybe you can kick the party out of God, but you can’t kick God out of the party.

    Lord, spare us from all this god and pastor crap in this campaign, henceforth. Please!

  • I wonder if this “holy man” has ever:
    . . . denounced the unjust Iraq war that has taken so many lives.
    . . . denounced the fact that there are so many people without healthcare in a nation so wealthy.
    . . . denounced the corruption in Washington.
    . . . denounced the decline of our Constitutional rights.
    . . . denounced torture of his fellow man.

    I’m guessing not many, if any.

  • If these religious buffoons want to rave and rant, let them. I suspect that part of the Repugs fall from popularity has been its embrace of and seduction by the right-wing fundamentalist religious community. The smug, self righteous lecturing by these people, their crude authoritarian systems, and their endless whining self pity has driven people away. It’s rather like a person who, finding themselves sitting next to a verbose psychotic, begins to itch and and long for escape. This behavior probably drives away most run-of-the-mill Republicans.

  • Mary, the problem is not churches trying to save the world. The problem is this particular priest couching pointed political rhetoric in “prayer.” You can see from the smug look on the guy’s face that he is only pretending to talk to God. Catholics have a word for taking the name of the Lord in vain: it’s called blasphemy. Unitarians helping the poor is called Christianity.

  • true, and the same goes for a Roman Catholic(Pfegler) priest mocking HRC as being “white and entitled” on a public podium. Save it for the socials and confessional booth.

  • Mary – the question I asked Yvonne yesterday most definitely applies to you – how can you be so full of shit and still breathe? Churches and church officials are not supposed to advocate for or against candidates for elective office – period. This does not in any way imply that churches and church officials can’t have any say or involvement in any of the social justice issues you mention, or even ‘right-to-life’ or anti-gay stuff.

    They can’t argue for any of this on purely religious grounds – i.e., they can’t say that something or the other should be law or against the law only because it offends some religion’s tenets. They have to prove their case in the secular world – that whatever they’re arguing for or against has some material impact that calls for gov’t regulation.

    I imagine that if you looked around somewhere outside the confines of your diseased imagination – try Google maybe – you wouldn’t find many (any?) Obama supporters cheering for the statements of that other priest – most of us recognize that he stepped over the line also. Your attempt to justify the “GOP priest” because he said something you liked to hear, and because you think the other side does it also is truly pathetic. Really, the contents of your moral system as expressed in your posts here are just about as attractive as a nestful of copulating snakes.

  • What a dumbass. It’s obvious that he was entirely disingenuous when he asked his god to tell Obama to change preachers, when he already knows that Obama’s already done so. Forget about the partisan message, is it proper to lie to God in a prayer? It’s almost like he forgot he was supposed to actually be talking to someone.

    On a sidenote, isn’t it odd how often atheists treat religion with more respect than religious people do? Why, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think they were just using God as an excuse to impose their own personal will on us.

  • I am still waiting for all Catholics who support Bush’s war to ‘reject and denounce’ the pope!

    Yeah, that one… The one in Rome who declared the U.S. war on Iraq as being an ‘unjust war’!

    Under our ‘current rules’, if you disagree with anything said or done by your church or its priests, preachers, rabbis or clerics, you must immediately reject and denounce them and leave the church.

    Under the ‘rules’ as now defined by the Corporate News Media, in the future all politicians must reject and denounce their churches and preachers and priests and any visiting clerics. To not do so will result in immediate disqualification for public office.

    And if you know someone who knows someone who knows someone who ever did or said anything offensive to anyone, you are immediately tarred with what was said or done and are permanently disqualified from public office.

    The exception to this rule is if you are an Episcopalian/Baptist who doesn’t attend church. Then, you can chase after the political endorsement of any preacher (who is not black) and selectively reject and denounce – sort of like a line item veto!

  • I’ve always felt that prayer is best defined as: The act of beseeching the Almighty to suspend the laws of physics for the benefit of an individual who, by his or her own admission, is not worthy.

  • Comments weren’t even based on facts. He just admitted he really didn’t believe in God who answers prayers which is why he made such petty requests. He can’t be very bright as he just cheapened his whole prayer process and himself. Illustrates the basic principle of the current republican party…hypocrisy.

  • “I know a lot more of us would be comfortable with his judgment skills if he hadn’t sat for 20 years through those words offered by his preacher…”

    Because every Roman Catholic in the pews agrees 100% with what the Pope says. As if.

    PeteCO #13: “Shouldn’t the IRS be investigating this guy?”

    The tax exemption applies to the church, not the priest. He can say whatever he wants as long as he doesn’t use the church for proscribed activities.

    Also, my standard objection to any prayer that asks God to change someone’s mind. If God is willing & able to change human minds (by granting “wisdom” or “courage”), that obviates the Free Will Defense to the Problem of Evil.

  • Dear, God, please help Mary stop being so stupid. And please make sure she never is in a position to breed and/or educate impresionable minds with her blatant stupidity. Please give her the presence of mind to realize how stupid she is and take the steps to better herself.

    What? I’m not attacking Mary. It’s a PRAYER! Freedom of religion AND freedom of speech! BOOYAH!!!

    Back on topic, God responded to the priest who asked for Obama to exercise better judgment with: Excuse me, isn’t this the same religion that hides child molestors from proecution…IN MY NAME?!?! Yeah, I’ll get right on your request. Schmuck.”

  • IlludP:
    Glad to see other people picking up on the Perkins/Phineas Priest link — which is the story I’ve been talking about. But unlike Joey, who went overboard in the wrong direction and lessened the impact of the story, you’ve gone the other way, with similar result.

    “Phineas Priests” are not — as your blog has it — “Archie Bunker/Alf Garnett” types. Rather refer to them as “[Byron de la] Beckwith/[Paul] Hill/[Buford] Furrow” types. (The writer who coined the phrase included the Waffen SS and John Wilkes Booth as well.)

    They don’t have ‘bad ideas’ which is their right. A person ‘earns the right’ to call himself a “Phineas Priest” by taking (violent) action against ‘race mixers,’ abortionists, gays, or the Federal Government. And this is why, while a Dobbs, Buchanan, or Savage is vile, they are merely expressing (hateful) opinions. But Perkins implied that his hearers might ‘get a call from God’ to take action, after initially referencing the Phineas Story — Numbers 25.

    That is, arguably, incitement. Even then, I wouldn’t punish him for it, merely make sure that he is never considered again merely a ‘pro-family’ repectable Conservative, or called on for his opinion about anything.

  • The hunt is on! The leftist media will now scramble to find priests and ministers to cancel out the priests and ministers located by right-wing actiists like Hillary Clinton.. Incredible, but a manifestation of how hard the Democrat-party biased media is willing to work to help its candidate. I do not recall this level of investigation to excuse Trent Lott, or to publicize the Florida Recount (showing Bush did, in fact, win in 2000) or publicizing the three separate congressional investigative reports finding that Bush did not “lie”.
    First, the issue is not the politics of the pulpit , it is ASSOCIATIONS. Who has the candidate’s ear? In Obama’s case, it is clearly radical and racist leftists like Wright, Pfleger and Ayres. Obama disavows one supporter after another on a weekly basis. My question is this…are there enough weeks left until the November election for Obama to disavow everybody?

  • “it is clearly radical and racist leftists like Wright, Pfleger and Ayres.”

    Huh?

    Which is radical?
    Which is racist?
    What is leftist?

  • PeteCO, @13

    He didn’t “pray” in church, but at a RNC dinner. No business of IRS, since there’s no separation of church and state issue involved.

  • Tomato, Tomahto, Potato, PoFrickinTahto… When a priest, pastor, preacher or grand wizard addresses a congregation as clergy, they are implying that the views they express are those of their faith and that their followers should adopt them. Haggling over whether the comments were made in church, a convention hall, or a brothel lobby should have absolutely no weight in the matter. Rev. Wright was wrong, Rev. Haege was wrong, Pastor Parsley was wrong, and this idiot was just as wrong as the rest of them. The GOP is analgous to a college fraternity… public service on a Friday, drunken debauchery and date rape on Saturday night; churches are just money-hungry corporations, no analogy required. The ignorance, hypocricy and narcicism that has propagated throughout this country is appalling.

  • I didn’t have the heart to watch it. Did he say that in a church? If so, will the IRS get on it?

  • I say let the Republicans bring out all the preachers they want. All it did was cost them the 2006 midterms. Yeah, the war was a factor but the economy was still pretty good. I think the amazing result of Straight White Gentile Men splitting 50/50 for the first time in my 46 years was partly caused by a lot of these guys associating the Republican Party with weirded-out preachers and the Democratic Party with common-sense politics and no desire to tell anyone how to live.

    So, please, RNC, more preachers, more! If SWGMs split even 53/47 Republican, Obama wins walking and the Congressional gains could be huge.

    Now, if only, we could trade Pelosi to the Republicans for Ron Paul and maybe make Bob Wexler Speaker Of The House, and trade Reid for Richard Shelby plus a player to be named later and make Russ Feingold Majority Leader, we’d really have something.

    I write this (sniff,sniff) as a permanent resident of a South American country who is still a Democrat in his heart.

  • #14, the issue here isn’t over “activist churches.” The issue is over whether it is appropriate for a person of the cloth to deliver a partisan political attack in the guise of a “prayer.”

    #32: “I do not recall this level of investigation to excuse Trent Lott,…”

    That’s because Trent Lott clearly didn’t have any excuse.

    “…or publicizing the three separate congressional investigative reports finding that Bush did not ‘lie.” ‘

    Did these reports come to that conclusion on a bipartisan basis?

    “First the issue is not the politics of the pulpit, it is ASSOCIATIONS.” Who has the candidate’s ear? In Obama’s case, it is clearly radical and racist leftists like Wright, Phleger, and Ayres.”

    Who has the candidate’s ear? In McCain’s case, it is clearly radical rightists like Liddy, Hagee, and Parsley.

    “Obama disavows one supporter after another on a weekly basis.”

    McCain disavows one supporter after another on a weekly basis (Hagee, Parsley).

  • (I should have put the following in the above post. My apologies): #23, at least Phleger’s obnoxious comments were not under the guise of a “prayer.”

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