Bossy Bishops

So the Catholic church is instructing it's congregation on how they should vote in the presidential elections - nothing surprising there - they like to dictate all other aspects of life so why not the democratic voting process as well?

Bishops and voting advice

So many things I'd like to say when they come as coherent sentences. Then again I'm no lover of the Catholic Church as an institution.

The part that makes me want to go WTF?
The bishops said that voting for a candidate specifically because he or she supported "an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism" amounted to "formal co-operation in grave evil".

Talk about playing on fear and using such as a means to get your own way and retain control over those who look to you for guidance. In other words, all those devout Catholics who truly believe that their eternal souls can be forfeit, or banished to Hell for eternity if they sin, are being told that the only way to ensure that they don't suffer such a fate is to vote in accordance with the wishes of the bishops of their church.

That's applying a very large stick of fear to all those who truly believe the doctrine of their church - please note I don't have a problem with people who are catholic per se, (I may disagree with them but it's their right to believe whatever they want) just with the Catholic Church and much organized religion generally, as institutions. To stick to the point, for now, so much for the free and democratic process.

If this was being done in any other name than that of religion it'd be called oppression, or interfering with the democratic process or some such. But since it's religion, that's ok. Now there's hypocrisy for you.