Fans of the popular “Seinfeld Show” will recall an episode entitled “The Bizarro Jerry”.  It is a take-off on Bizarro Superman, Superman’s exact opposite who lives in the backwards bizarro world where up is down, down is up.  He says “Hello” when he leaves and “Good-bye” when he arrives.
 
Events of the last couple of weeks are getting us closer to that bizarre world.  First there was Shirley Nagel of Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan who refused to hand out candy to children whose parents were voting for Barack Obama.  Her antics made national news.
 
And just when her crazed ideology seemed to disappear into the obscurity it so richly deserved,  another wacko has emerged in the person of Roman Catholic priest Jay Scott Newman of St. Mary’s Church in Greenville, South Carolina.  Fr. Newman who must have been separated at birth from Nagel is urging his parishioners who voted for Barack Obama not to present themselves for Communion unless they first purge their souls of “intrinsic evil” by going to confession.  He argues that any candidate who supports abortion rights should automatically lose the votes of Catholics.
 
In a pastoral letter to his flock Fr. Newman states that Catholics who voted for Obama “should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation”.
Perhaps our response to Fr. Newman’s  ill-advised, ill-conceived stance should be “no donations for priests using the pulpit to prostilize politics”.