The Catholic Archbishop of Detroit, under the mistaken belief that people have any remaining respect for the moral opinions of pedophile-enablers, said that Catholics who support gay marriage should not receive communion, lest they be perjuring themselves before God. The archbishop was backed up by a local legal adviser to the Vatican, who said pro-gay-marriage Catholics should not take communion.

Raw Story calls this “self-excommunication,” and they’re not far from the truth.

Here’s Detroit’s Archbishop Vigneron:

“For a Catholic to receive holy Communion and still deny the revelation Christ entrusted to the church is to try to say two contradictory things at once: ‘I believe the church offers the saving truth of Jesus, and I reject what the church teaches.’ In effect, they would contradict themselves. This sort of behavior would result in publicly renouncing one’s integrity and logically bring shame for a double-dealing that is not unlike perjury.”

Yeah, that’d be kind of like claiming to be a man of God while having, or enabling those who have, sex with five-year-old kids.

Of course, what the archbishop is really saying is that not only can you not be a good Catholic, but you shouldn’t partake in good-Catholic rituals, if you support gay marriage. So, basically, you should self-excommunicate, at least de facto, from the church.

And to that I can only say, hallelujah. Why any self-respecting Christian would remain a dues-paying member of a church that rapes children and then proceeds to hide the crime, enabling even more child-rape, and then blaming the victims, is beyond me. Not to mention the Catholic church’s bizarre fixation with gay-bashing and oppressing women. It’s a free country, and you’re free not finance hateful predators.

As an aside, I’m sure you’ll be shocked – simply shocked – to hear that the oh-so-moralizing Archbishop Vigneron is yet another pedophile enabler:

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 862 7688) Vigneron fits the mold of recent papal appointees who tend to be extraordinarily conservative yet very media savvy. In public sometimes he says refreshing things but in private, he largely act in the same secretive, hurtful ways, especially regarding clergy sex crimes and cover ups. – Barely a year ago (November 2007), he quietly promoted a priest who masturbated in front of an Oakland police officer at a park frequented by children (according to news sources)…. – He repeatedly did nothing while The Salesians of St. John Bosco played legal hardball and attacked victims in his diocese. (According to a victims attorney in the Oakland area, the Salesians have been the most aggressive church group fighting lawsuits against its priests.) – According to an Oakland newspaper What diocese officials have not done, however, is release complete information about accused priests and the long history of abuse.

The Catholic church self-excommunicated itself from morality and common decency a long time ago. Good riddance.