Add this to the pile of over-the-top reactions to Barack Obama’s election. Sorry. Barack Hussein Obama’s election.

Cardinal James Stafford (former archbishop of Denver; currently head of the Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary, which issues absolutions and indulgences) says the next four years under a President Obama will not be unlike Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemene the night before his crucifixion.

From The Tower, the student newspaper at Catholic University:

“For the next few years, Gethsemane will not be marginal. We will know that garden,” Stafford said, comparing America’s future with Obama as president to Jesus’ agony in the garden. “On November 4, 2008, America suffered a cultural earthquake.”

Cardinal Stafford said Catholics must deal with the “hot, angry tears of betrayal” by beginning a new sentiment where one is “with Jesus, sick because of love.”