RICHMOND, Virginia, September 14, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — The standing ovation that pro-abortion Democratic vice presidential candidate Senator Tim Kaine received at his Catholic parish demonstrates Catholics’ confusion about the Church’s moral teaching and the difference between social ills and intrinsic evils, an area priest explained to his parishioners.

Father Robert Novokowsky, FSSP, the pastor of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Richmond, wrote in his pastor’s column that the “enthusiastic support was given to a ‘devout Catholic’ politician despite his perfect pro-abortion voting record” showed “confusion in the local Church.”

Upon becoming Hillary Clinton’s official running mate, Kaine’s parish, St. Elizabeth Catholic Church, gave him a standing ovation at Mass.

“I know that he’s definitely against capital punishment and works to help defend those who are on death row,” Kaine’s pastor, Father Jim Arsenault, told NPR. “The church has a teaching with regard to we’re pro-life, and we believe in that seamless garment of life. We respect sometimes lawmakers make difficult decisions.”

“[Kaine’s] support for abortion was gladly overlooked for the sake of his other accomplishments,” Novokowsky wrote, but historic Catholic teaching does not back up the “seamless garment” argument that always equates abortion with war and capital punishment.