Dear Mickey:

No, the Catholic Church, nor any other church, should lost its tax-exemption.

The Church has a moral and divine right, duty, and obligation to teach Truth and morals. She has the moral and divine right, duty, and obligation to point out moral evil in the world. As pastors our bishops and priests are shepherds whose job it is includes to protect the flock and warn the flock against wrongdoing. Thus, there is a right, duty, and obligation of our pastors to warn their parishioners to not sin.

Voting for a pro-abortion candidate is sin. It does not matter who the candidate is, what party he belongs to, or how good his other policies might be. For a Catholic, a candidate who supports abortion is ineligible for office. Politicians already elected who support abortion are rightly criticized. Catholic politicians who support abortion are rightly excommunicated by their action, if not by formal declaration.

The Catholic Bishops and priests who warned the faithful that voting for a pro-abortion candidate is sin were doing their job as God requires them to do.

No government entity can tell us how to run our religion or violate our 1st Amendment rights to speak out on sin.

If the IRS is used as an American Gestapo to infringe upon our inalienable right to worship and believe as we please and to preach the truth, then so be it. The Church will survive such persecution.

But, in terms of the technical aspects of the IRS regulations, these bishops did not violate any IRS rule.

The pertinent IRS rules on this are excerpted below:

Political Activities: No substantial part of the activities of the Corporation shall be the carrying on of propaganda, or otherwise attempting to influence legislation, and the Corporation shall not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distribution of statements) any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office.

Individual Activity by Religious Leaders. The political campaign activity prohibition is not intended to restrict free expression on political matters by leaders of churches or religious organizations speaking for themselves, as individuals. Nor are leaders prohibited from speaking about important issues of public policy. However, for their organizations to remain tax exempt under IRC section 501(c)(3), religious leaders cannot make partisan* comments in official organization publications or at official church functions. To avoid potential attribution of their comments outside of church functions and publications, religious leaders who speak or write in their individual capacity are encouraged to clearly indicate that their comments are personal and not intended to represent the views of the organization. (IRS Pub 1828, p7)

*The definition of partisan is:  "A fervent, sometimes militant supporter or proponent of a party, cause, faction, person, or idea."

First, the statements I have read by bishops were made as individuals. Thus, that meets IRS requirements. Second, the statements made by the Bishops that I have read were not partisan, they were morality based. The Bishops were teaching the truth of the morality of voting for any pro-abortion candidate -- regardless of who that candidate is. Thus, they were not preaching against any particular party or any person directly. Obama just happens to be pro-abortion, thus the moral teaching about this applies to voting for him.

There is a great deal of controversy about the over-reaching attempt of the government to muzzle religious speech as it pertains to elections. Christians must follow God, not mammon (secular government) on issues of faith and morality, regardless of consequences.

Should the government try to interpret the IRS rules in such a way that they claim the Catholic Bishops, and thousands of Protestant ministers, violated the rules and thus attempt to strip tax-exempt status from the churches, I imagine there will be a mass uproar from the public and many legal organizations coming to the defense of churches for one "honking" (as my kids generation would say) law suit.

In the end, if churches lost that law suit and tax-examption is terminated, it will mean that churches will have to budget tax payments, and the church will survive. God will provide.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary