And Now, from the GOP's Incense-Burning Division

[Content note: this post contains reference to anti-gay bigotry, misogyny, sexual abuse, religious discrimination, and Christian Dominionism.]

Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas John Paprocki, of Springfield, Illinois, doesn't want to tell you who to vote for. Nope. He just wants you to know that the Democrats' platform is full of "intrinsic evil," but the GOP's is basically okay. Gee, thanks Your Excellency! Thanks for totally telling your diocese how to vote not telling anybody how to vote, but letting Catholics know they will PROBABLY GO TO HELL if they vote for Democrats. How nonpartisan!:

"There are many positive and beneficial planks in the Democratic Party Platform, but I am pointing out those that explicitly endorse intrinsic evils," the bishop explained. "My job is not to tell you for whom you should vote. But I do have a duty to speak out on moral issues..."

"So what about the Republicans? I have read the Republican Party Platform and there is nothing in it that supports or promotes an intrinsic evil or a serious sin," Paprocki added. "One might argue for different methods in the platform to address the needs of the poor, to feed the hungry and to solve the challenges of immigration, but these are prudential judgments about the most effective means of achieving morally desirable ends, not intrinsic evils."

Definitely! Addressing the needs of the poor by trying to feed and clothe those most in need and trying to create jobs for them vs. letting them fend for themselves in the Randian world of Romney-Ryan, where they will be armed with only their bootstraps, a pocket knife, and some pocket lint? Those are definitely just "different methods" to handle "the needs of the poor."

But the bishop is certainly NOT TELLING YOU HOW TO VOTE! Just what kind of vote will condemn your eternal soul:

"Again, I am not telling you which party or which candidates to vote for or against," he concluded, "but I am saying that you need to think and pray very carefully about your vote, because a vote for a candidate who promotes actions or behaviors that are intrinsically evil and gravely sinful makes you morally complicit and places the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy."

Apparently the Right Reverend Bishop is under the impression that his flock is made up of especially sleepy tree sloths, because to anyone even slightly more discerning, it's clear he is, in fact, telling them EXACTLY how to vote.

Three points:

1. For perspective, Saprocki also has no problem with racial/religious profiling in airports and as part of immigration policy, as long as it is aimed at Muslims.

So: gay marriage = bad, discrimination against minorities = okay. (Extra irony points for fearmongering about a religious takeover of the United States! We wouldn't want that, now would we?)

2. Saprocki once suggested that survivors of sexual abuse who sued the Church were in league with the Devil.

So: survivors of sexual abuse = Devil abettors, slashers of the social safety network = just doing God's work in a different way. Cool! Very cool cosmology ya got there!

3. After making such garbage-brained discriminatory remarks, Saprocki was elevated to lead the Diocese of Springfield anyway.

The Vatican has made it pretty clear what sort of person it wants to see leading the Church as its "authentic teachers." They are men who are perfectly comfortable defending the priorities of the GOP plutocrats. I just wonder how they reconcile that with the priorities of the dirty hippy construction worker they claim to follow.