The Internal Revenue Service should investigate the Catholic Diocese of Peoria for illegal electioneering after Bishop Daniel R. Jenky compared Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin as part of an election-year appeal, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Americans United today filed a formal complaint with the IRS over Jenky’s intervention in the presidential campaign. Federal law prohibits churches and other tax-exempt nonprofits from endorsing or opposing candidates, said AU, and the bishop’s April 14 sermon amounts to an order to vote against Obama.

“Bishop Jenky’s intervention in the election wasn’t just extreme and mean-spirited, it also seems to be a clear violation of federal law,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director. “Churches are tax-exempt institutions, and they aren’t allowed to intervene in partisan politics.”

Jenky delivered the homily during a religious service for Catholic men at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Peoria. He said in part, “Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services, and health care. In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama – with his radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path.”

Jenky later said, “This fall, every practicing Catholic must vote, and must vote their Catholic consciences, or by the following fall our Catholic schools, our Catholic hospitals, our Catholic Newman Centers, all our public ministries -- only excepting our church buildings – could easily be shut down.”

Jenky’s homily was posted in full on the website of The Catholic Post, the official newspaper of the diocese.

In the complaint to the IRS, Lynn wrote, “Bishop Jenky compared Obama to Hitler and Stalin and accused him of pursuing policies that will close Catholic institutions. Moments later, he exhorted members of his flock not to vote for candidates who fail to uphold Catholic values. It is impossible to interpret this as anything but a command to vote against Obama.”

An IRS document on political activity warns non-profit groups not to engage in any issue advocacy that “functions as political campaign intervention.”

The document goes on to say, “Even if a statement does not expressly tell an audience to vote for or against a specific candidate, an organization delivering the statement is at risk of violating the political campaign intervention prohibition if there is any message favoring or opposing a candidate.”

Jenky’s comments, Lynn told the IRS, were obviously designed to express opposition to Obama’s candidacy.