Communion aside, there is a Catholic-Obama problem. Many Catholics, beyond Fr. Pfleger, will vote for Obama. It’s not a problem of Communion-denying magnitude, but one they should at least know going into Election Day. McCain may be imperfect, but for me, even if I didn’t have a laundry list of why I’m opposed to abortion, the pope explained why a Catholic cannot vote for a candidate like Obama long before most of us ever thought Obama would be a candidate for the presidency. In a 2006 address, B16 said:
As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable. Among these the following emerge clearly today: the protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death; recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family — as a union between one man and one woman based on marriage…; and the protection of the rights of parents to educate their children.