The South Carolina priest who made national headlines by calling on Obama voters to go to confession before receiving communion had more to say on the subject this weekend at mass. And he drew quite a crowd of supporters.

From the Greenville News:

More than 50 people demonstrated outside St. Mary’s Catholic Church in downtown Greenville on Saturday afternoon in support of the priest who told parishioners that those who voted for Barack Obama shouldn’t receive Holy Communion until they’ve done penance because of Obama’s abortion stance.
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A short time later, during a mass inside the church, the Rev. Jay Scott Newman spoke to the congregation about the national controversy stirred by his comments on the church Web site.

“I don’t know what kind of week you had, but I’ve had a pretty interesting week,” Newman said during the 5 p.m. mass.

The roughly 200 parishioners began clapping and then rose to their feet, applauding for more than a minute. When they stopped, Newman said, “I wrote my column in haste. I should have taken my time.”

Had he taken more time, he said, he would have done a better job of explaining his position, though he did not go into further details.

On the church Web site early last week, Newman wrote that “voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil.”

On Friday, Newman said in a message on the church Web site that he had been misunderstood. He said he didn’t intend for his comments to be seen beyond his parish and that he has received more than 3,500 e-mails from across the globe both in support and condemning his comments.

During the 5 p.m. mass Saturday, Newman said he wrote the column “at the last moment and right at the deadline.” He said he regretted the attention his Web posting has drawn.

Newman said all future comments should come from South Carolina’s Roman Catholic Diocese in Charleston.

You’ll find more at the News link. And it appears Fr. Newman has gotten some strong support from his brother priests, as well.