

John McCain enlisted Sarah Palin in part to bolster his standing with the Republican party’s religious base. Unfortunately for McCain – and Palin – some Catholic leaders are questioning the Alaska governor’s spiritual tolerance.

Frank L. Cocozzelli, head of CrossLeft, and his peers today released a statement today scrutinizing Palin’s association with the New Apostolic Reformation, a movement Cocozzelli claims has a “long, strong streak of anti-Catholicism.”

…Bishop Thomas Muthee, who has spoken repeatedly at the Wasila Assemblies of God Church and personally blessed and anointed Governor Palin in 2005, engages in what NAR terms “spiritual warfare”– with an aim to de-Catholicize communities and nations. “Brazil is occupied by Catholics,” declared Muthee in a militant sermon he gave on March 14, 2004 at a United Kingdom church, ‘but people are being saved anyway!” C. Peter Wagner says that the Roman Catholic Church is under the sway of a great demon he calls the “Queen of Heaven.” Top NAR leaders go on spiritual warfare expeditions to try to decrease the power of this “demon.”

…

“As a Catholic,” said Cocozzelli, “I am deeply concerned about Governor Palin’s ongoing involvement with Pastor Ed Kalnins and Bishop Thomas Muthee, both of whom are engaged in the anti-Catholic New Apostolic Reformation movement.” In fairness, we do not know what Governor Palin believes. But her involvement with this movement requires us to ask, Does Sarah Palin share this view of Catholicism? Does she view Catholicism as demonic or anything other than a legitimate, international faith?

CrossLeft goes on to demand that Palin either make clear she doesn’t agree with NAR’s beliefs and to explain why she associates with the “religious bigots of the NAR movement.” That can’t be good….