Perhaps appalled by a South Carolina priest's fatwa to his parishioners informing them that they should not receive communion if they voted for "Barack Hussein Obama" because of his position on abortion, another priest from Modesto, California cast himself as a more forgiving Ayatollah.

"If you are one of the 54 percent of Catholics who voted for a pro-abortion candidate, you were clear on his position and you knew the gravity of the question, I urge you to go to confession before receiving communion. Don't risk losing your state of grace by receiving sacrilegiously," he wrote in a letter to more than 15,000 parishioners.

A mere seven days after the historic election that apparently made sinners of so many who voted for Obama, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests released a list -- The Ten Most Dangerous US Pedophile Priests. On the honor roll is a priest who secretly fathered triplets seven years ago and molested two of them in recent years. Another, according to SNAP, drugged dozens of boys into unconsciousness and sodomized them. Yet another fathered eight kids with teenagers. All have been accused of sexually molesting children, some have been tried in criminal court, none have been convicted, and each of them walks free.

Run a Google News search for "Catholic Priests Child Molesters," and there are 32 hits from Election Day till today, Nov 30. Among the litany of heinous cases, reports of bishops knowingly sending predators priests to communities without telling parishioners of their criminal past, profiles of children and families destroyed, and their faith dead as dead can be, is one bit of hopeful news. A US appeals court has ruled that the Vatican can be sued for sex abuse committed by US priests. The reason: A Vatican mandate issued in 1962, which became public only in 2003, outlined a policy to treat allegations of sexual abuse by clergy "with the strictest secrecy." According to the Church mandate, anyone who spoke out against the sexual abuse of children by priests would be excommunicated.

Americans who influenced this election by defying so many of their own strongly held beliefs are more than capable of looking at the pro-choice pro-life debate anew, and reach new conclusions about this complex issue, without being bullied into submission by their priests. Women are having this debate every day, just not with their priests. The Founding Fathers in their wisdom called for a separation of State and Church, so we wouldn't one day find ourselves bowing to something like a Taliban.

For the clergy to act like avenging moral authorities on Americans' voting choices, while at the same time disregarding the most reprehensible conduct of their own members, takes a special kind of shamelessness. "You hypocrites! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother's eye." (Matthew 7:5)

Gail Vida Hamburg is the author of The Edge of the World Mirare Press, a novel about the impact of American foreign policy on individual lives. Her novel, Liberty Landing a social novel inspired by John Dos Passos' USA,is scheduled for release by Mirare Press in 2009.