Douglas Kmiec is a pro-life conservative Republican, but he is supporting Barack Obama for president. For this, a Catholic priest has denied him communion.

The California law professor is a leading “Obamacon,” the new term for a conservative who is in favor of Obama. Kmiec says he is voting for him in spite of the candidate’s pro-abortion views, thinking that his call for sexual responsibility will reduce the number of abortions while still keeping them legal. See E. J. Dionne Jr. - For an ‘Obamacon,’ Communion Denied.

Do you think this priest went a little too far? Denying communion to a lawmaker whose actions to legalize abortion contribute to the evil is one thing, but should this extend to someone who votes for that candidate?

According to the official policy of the Catholic bishops, it can be permissible to vote for a pro-choice candidate as long as your “intention” is not to promote abortion. That would seem to rule this priest’s action as being out of line, but is this distinction just an example of Catholic casuistry? On the other hand, would excommunicating voters constitute an impermissible interference of church with state?

When I was growing up in a little Oklahoma town, white people lived on one side of the tracks, literally, and black people lived on the other. The black folks had a dance hall for Saturday nights. Bo Diddley used to play there from time to time. We white kids were scared to go there, but I sure wish I could have heard him in his prime. The rhythm ‘n’ blues man who turned the guitar into a percussion instrument and helped invent rock ‘n’ roll died at age 79.

Here he is from around that time in 1966. Notice that in the crowd whites are one side and blacks are on another, but it is the white teenagers who are really going wild at this sound.

According to this article, Polygamous Sect’s Children Begin to Return to Parents, the polygamists’ kids who spent two months in foster care were plied with pizza, bicycles, and information about space travel in an attempt to make them “normal.” While the children apparently enjoyed some of those perks of modernity, they were glad to return to their parents, who were required to take “parenting classes” as a condition of getting their kids back. (Doesn’t this bother you?) Also, during the two months that the children were kept from their parents, the older boys took on the task of organizing regular prayer meetings for the young refugees. They also exerted religious discipline, going so far as to excommunicate some five-year-olds for not paying attention (making them sit outside).

[What work am I alluding to in the title to this post? And why am I saying Flannery O’Connor should be writing about all of this?]