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A Catholic bishop from Springfield, Illinois is warning that the stakes for the 2012 election are even higher than most people think because voting for President Barack Obama could damn "you own soul" to hell.

In a column and video posted by the official newspaper of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois and obtained by Right Wing Watch on Wednesday, Bishop Thomas John Paprocki called out the Democratic Party for temporarily removing God from their platform, supporting abortion and recognizing that "gay rights are human rights."

"There are many positive and beneficial planks in the Democratic Party Platform, but I am pointing out those that explicitly endorse intrinsic evils," the bishop explained. "My job is not to tell you for whom you should vote. But I do have a duty to speak out on moral issues. I would be abdicating this duty if I remained silent out of fear of sounding 'political' and didn't say anything about the morality of these issues. People of faith object to these platform positions that promote serious sins."

"So what about the Republicans? I have read the Republican Party Platform and there is nothing in it that supports or promotes an intrinsic evil or a serious sin," Paprocki added. "One might argue for different methods in the platform to address the needs of the poor, to feed the hungry and to solve the challenges of immigration, but these are prudential judgments about the most effective means of achieving morally desirable ends, not intrinsic evils."

"Again, I am not telling you which party or which candidates to vote for or against," he concluded, "but I am saying that you need to think and pray very carefully about your vote, because a vote for a candidate who promotes actions or behaviors that are intrinsically evil and gravely sinful makes you morally complicit and places the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy."

(h/t: Pam's House Blend)

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For anyone trying to keep track of all of the lies Mitt Romney has been telling out on the campaign trail, and the list is a long one, one of the best references you're going to find out there is Steve Benen's weekly series, the latest of which you can find here -- Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XIV:

Campaigning in Ohio yesterday, Mitt Romney told supporters, without smirking or sounding sarcastic, "If I'm president of the United States, with your help, I will tell the truth."

Ordinarily, those seeking national leadership positions don't vow to tell the truth if others help them, but since I am nothing if not helpful, I thought I might give the presumptive Republican presidential nominee a few examples of instances in which he fell short of honesty this week.

Indeed, if Romney intends to "tell the truth," he can start by reading the 14th installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity.

1. Speaking to the NRA, Romney said, "The Obama administration has decided that it has the power to mandate what Catholic charities, schools, and hospitals must cover in their insurance plans.... Here we are, just getting started with Obamacare, and the federal government is already dictating to religious groups on matters of doctrine and conscience."

In Massachusetts' governor for one term, Romney took the same position Obama has adopted. He somehow forgot to mention this.

2. Romney also told the NRA audience, "We need a president who will enforce current laws, not create new ones that only serve to burden lawful gun owners. President Obama has not, I will."

The grammar in this sentence makes it hard to understand, but the implication seems to be that Obama has created new restrictions on gun laws. That's a lie.

3. Romney also claims to be a "lifetime" member of the NRA.

In reality, Romney used to oppose the NRA, but became a "lifetime" member fairly recently by buying the honor from the group.

[...]

The Obama campaign, by the way, seems well aware of the fact that Romney lies with unnerving frequency, but seems reluctant to say so in harsh terms, fearing media and voter pushback. Instead, as of yesterday, Team Obama is resorting to an interesting euphemism: "Why does [Romney] have such an aversion to the truth?"

Whether the political mainstream is comfortable using the word "lie" or not, that question seems increasingly unavoidable.

You can read the rest of last Friday's edition at the link above (there is a total of 21 lies he chronicled just last week) and as he noted at the end of the post:

Previous editions of Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity: Vol. I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII.

Steve started the project while he was still writing for The Washington Monthly, before Rachel Maddow hired him. I've included the first couple of examples in a portion of his speech at the NRA earlier this month.

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Chris Matthews just couldn't seem to make it through another segment talking about the Republican's recent overreach with their assault on women's access to affordable contraceptives without bringing on the Catholic bishops favorite water carrier, Melinda Henneberger.

Henneberger's recent piece at The Washington Post attempts to blame Democrats for ginning up the recent debate purely for political and fundraising purposes as though the backlash against the actions of the Catholic bishops and some of the recent statements from presidential candidate Rick Santorum, or the invasive transvaginal ultrasound bill that it appears Virginia Bob McDonnell has now backed off of, was not real or sincere.

Thankfully Salon's Joan Walsh was there to push back at Henneberger's assertions and I'll just lead readers over to her column where she has more on the interview above -- Did crafty Dems make contraception a campaign issue? :

First Rush Limbaugh, now the Washington Post women's blog, claim the GOP was set up by its enemies on birth control

Did you know the GOP doesn’t want to be talking about contraception? That it’s an issue ginned up by opportunistic Democrats? Rush Limbaugh made that case last week (while also insisting Republicans would win an election decided on culture war issues, so I’m not sure what his problem was.) But Wednesday it made its way to the Washington Post’s women’s blog, in a piece by Melinda Henneberger headlined: “It’s Democrats who are putting focus on birth control.”

Now, Henneberger is not a Republican. She’s a sorta-liberal, a veteran of the New York Times, Huffington Post, Slate and Politics Daily, who too often gives Republicans the benefit of the doubt, particularly when it comes to reproductive health issues. She emerged as a leading voice criticizing President Obama’s decision to require all employers, even religiously affiliated ones (though not churches) to provide contraception coverage in health insurance policies. You know my stand on that. But her questionable views on the politics of birth control got my attention a few weeks earlier, when she carried water for Rick Santorum and let him whine in an interview that Salon’s Irin Carmon had been unfair to him in her piece “Rick Santorum is coming for your birth control.”

Much more there where Walsh takes Henneberger's arguments apart, so go read the rest.

Transcript below the fold.

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As I write this on Thursday morning, there is a Congressional hearing called by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Manistan) protesting the intrusion of government into religion, sparked by Kathleen Sebelius' issuance of regulations requiring health insurers to provide contraception with no co-payments. Democratic women walked out on the hearing after their witnesses were not allowed to appear before the committee.

As is true of all congressional hearings, elected officials are posturing and chest-beating over religious freedoms and intrusive government. Their claim: requiring contraception without co-payments is excessive government intrusion into religious freedom.

Yet somehow, insertion of a probe into a woman which is mandatory and required by the government is not considered intrusive government. Rachel Maddow does a great job of explaining this insanity in the video above.

Conservatives are hypocrites. This isn't a surprise. Even so, it's shockingly cynical to hear them quote everyone from Stalin to Martin Luther King with the full nods of their chosen religious leaders sitting before them. This hearing deserves to be put alongside what they fully believe should be allowed to be done to women by the state. Very, very big government.

No birth control, ladies, but if you happen to get pregnant and want an abortion, we're going to shove a transvaginal probe in you before we "let you" have that abortion. There's some liberty for you.

This is 2012, right? Here, let me show you what Issa's panel looks like:

Here's some of the testimony they excluded, from Sandra Fluke, a third-year student at Georgetown Law, a Jesuit school:

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