The Internal Revenue Service should investigate the Catholic Diocese of Peoria for illegal electioneering after Bishop Daniel R. Jenky compared Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin as part of an election-year appeal, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Americans United today filed a formal complaint with the IRS over Jenky’s intervention in the presidential campaign. Federal law prohibits churches and other tax-exempt nonprofits from endorsing or opposing candidates, said AU, and the bishop’s April 14 sermon amounts to an order to vote against Obama
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Jenky delivered the homily during a religious service for Catholic men at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Peoria. He said in part, “Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services, and health care. In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama – with his radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path.”
Jenky later said, “This fall, every practicing Catholic must vote, and must vote their Catholic consciences, or by the following fall our Catholic schools, our Catholic hospitals, our Catholic Newman Centers, all our public ministries -- only excepting our church buildings – could easily be shut down.”
IRS Should Investigate Catholic Diocese For Illegal Election Intervention, Says Americans United