{"id":673,"date":"2008-06-04T13:45:56","date_gmt":"2008-06-04T13:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/more-priests-and-politics.html"},"modified":"2008-06-04T13:45:56","modified_gmt":"2008-06-04T13:45:56","slug":"more-priests-and-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/more-priests-and-politics.html","title":{"rendered":"More priests and politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Msgr. Lisante has apologized…<\/a><\/p>\n

Yesterday, Lisante said he had been endorsing McCain, adding his only mistake was the moment he chose to do it. “In hindsight I would have separated out the invocation, the prayer, from my commentary,” said Lisante, pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle Church.
\nBut he added he saw nothing wrong with offering an endorsement of McCain during another part of the fundraiser or at other events – as long as he did not do so from the church pulpit.
\n“I do not as a priest forfeit my right as a citizen to a point of view, even when it comes to standing by a particular candidate,” he said. “Yes, I am a supporter of John McCain and I believe in him very much as a man of character and strength for our country.”
\nSome church experts and fellow priests said Lisante went over the line with his endorsement. They said church tradition and practice prohibits priests from endorsing candidates or parties, although the church can be and is active in pursuing causes that align with Gospel values.
\n“He went over the top,” said the Rev. Bill Brisotti, himself a well-known, left-leaning social activist and pastor of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Church in Wyandanch. “It was improper for him to do that.”
\nBrisotti said the Diocese of Rockville Centre issues a communication every year reminding priests of the prohibition against publicly backing candidates or parties, and noted parishes are not even permitted to host meet-the-candidates nights.
\nThe Rev. Thomas Reese, former editor of the Jesuit weekly America, said Lisante was within his constitutional rights to endorse a candidate, but that the church clearly frowns on it. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Msgr. Lisante has apologized… Yesterday, Lisante said he had been endorsing McCain, adding his only mistake was the moment he chose to do it. “In hindsight I would have separated out the invocation, the prayer, from my commentary,” said Lisante, pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle Church. But he added he saw nothing wrong with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nMore priests and politics - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/more-priests-and-politics.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"More priests and politics - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Msgr. Lisante has apologized… Yesterday, Lisante said he had been endorsing McCain, adding his only mistake was the moment he chose to do it. “In hindsight I would have separated out the invocation, the prayer, from my commentary,” said Lisante, pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle Church. 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Lisante has apologized… Yesterday, Lisante said he had been endorsing McCain, adding his only mistake was the moment he chose to do it. “In hindsight I would have separated out the invocation, the prayer, from my commentary,” said Lisante, pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle Church. But he added he saw nothing wrong with…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/more-priests-and-politics.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2008-06-04T13:45:56+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/more-priests-and-politics.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/more-priests-and-politics.html","name":"More priests and politics - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-06-04T13:45:56+00:00","dateModified":"2008-06-04T13:45:56+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/more-priests-and-politics.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/more-priests-and-politics.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/more-priests-and-politics.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"More priests and politics"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}