It appears Republican Tea Party (GOTP) presidential runner-up John Rick Santorum has declared himself Pope, and according to the Huffington Post has declared to Catholics that supporting ObamaCare is an abomination in the eyes of the Catholic Church.

“We have a president who, for the first time in American history, is directly assaulting the First Amendment and freedom of religion,” Pope Ricky declared, presumably referring to the provision in the President’s Health Care Act requiring most employers to offer insurance covering contraception. “He is going to tell you what to do in the practice of your faith. He is forcing business people right now to do things that are against their conscience that they will have to — if you’re a Catholic — you’ll have to go to confession … to confess that you are complying with a government program that is a sin in the Catholic Church.”

Of course this worn out argument claiming President Barack Obama’s forcing Catholics to violate their faith by paying for birth control, is the commonest GOTP talking point, almost as common as is Pope Ricky.

Data shows somewhere around 98 percent of Catholic women who have had sex and who could have children are using – or have used – some form of birth control, and we’re not talking the “rhythm method”, all against the teachings of the church.

And from a purely hypocritical standard, many Catholic universities, including Wheaton College, which are suing the Obama Administration over the new law, were already covering contraception before the law was announced. But now the big bad government will be forcing them to do something they were already doing so it’s against their rights?

Everyone with an ounce of intelligence already knows, and understands, Churches are exempt from the new health care law’s contraception rule and any entirely and faith-based organizations claiming moral opposition are offered an accommodation in which the third-party insurance company, not the organization itself, absorbs the cost of the contraceptive coverage.

But of course who ever accused Pope Ricky of having an ounce of intelligence or of being able to understand complex laws? If we were to take Santorum’s logic to its logical conclusion then clearly supporting vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s budget would also be a sin in the Catholic Church. Especially since his budget slashes assistance programs for the poor in order to financially offset tax cuts for the wealthy. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has already lambasted Ryan’s budget and a network of nuns has organized a bus tour to protest the budget, saying that it “doesn’t pass the moral test.”

“Catholic teaching is based on solidarity,” Sister Simone Campbell, leader of the bus tour, told the Daily Beast. “Ryan doesn’t understand that all decisions need to be made with the common good in mind.”

It would appear Pope Ricky also doesn’t understand Sister.