A Roman Catholic bishop has warned his flock that a vote for President Barack Obama could place 'the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy' because of 'intrinsically evil and gravely sinful' Democratic policies.In a written message and video posted by the official newspaper of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, Bishop Thomas John Paprocki singled out the Democratic party position that 'gay rights are human rights' and support for gay marriage and abortion as sinful.His message came as a Pew Research centre poll found that Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, was losing among Catholic voters by 54 to 39 percentage points despite having chosen Representative Paul Ryan, a devout Catholic, as his vice-presidential running mate

The bishop explained: 'There are many positive and beneficial planks in the Democratic Party Platform, but I am pointing out those that explicitly endorse intrinsic evils.

'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.'