Canadian Prime Minister to Burn in Hell?

The Roman Catholic opposition to gay marriages is intense. No one is expecting such marriages to take place in Catholic churches or under Catholic auspices, but the mere fact that such unions might occur somewhere in society for entirely secular reasons seems enough to send Catholic leaders into fits and conniptions. The condemnations leveled against the Canadian Prime Minister by Bishop Fred Henry seem to be among the worst.

According to Canoe, he has said that Hean Chretien would burn in hell if he allowed the Canadian parliament to even hold a vote on the matter:

"There is the risk of that because of what's at stake here. If you're going to vote and it's going to be considered gravely immoral, imagine the responsibility or the heavier sanction that might fall on the person who introduces such legislation in the first place, and promotes it. I pray for the prime minister because I think his eternal salvation is in jeopardy ... he is making a morally grave error and he's not being accountable to God."

Fortunately Chretien isn't succumbing to this blatant religious blackmail - he sees his primary obligation as being to the Canadian public, not to his church, and so he is going to let the public's legislative representatives vote on the measure regardless of whether his church approves of it or not. It's outrageous, but not at all unexpected, to have religious leaders try to speak in the name of their god and threaten political leaders with divine punishment if those politicians don't toe a line that was only drawn by clergy in the first place.

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