Separation of Church and State...really?

Before becoming President, Barack Obama said, "The first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing I’d do." The FOCA is a bill that would take away every restriction on abortion in the U.S. That, to me, was a controversial statement.

I go to church every Sunday, but yesterday wasn't a normal service. The priest talked about FOCA during the homily (the sermon). Actually, he didn't give a lot of information about it, he just encouraged us to sign a petition to stop this bill. There were big stacks of postcards that we could "voluntarily" sign and he gave arguments to why we should sign and send them to our Senator and Representatives in Washington, D.C.

I do understand why the Catholic Church wants to stop it, but I still don't understand why we had to make a decision of whether we signed or not the petitions in that moment. Church and State should be separate entities. I'm not saying that we didn't have enough time to think about our choice; by now, we should all have an idea of what we believe in this matter. Are you "pro-life" or "pro-choice"? What I think is that religious services shouldn't deviate from their original purposes because of political matters. If our religious authorities think we need to have some information, then, what about pamphlets? A quick announcement at the end of the service would have been just enough to convince people to sign the petitions. The Church shouldn't be putting people on the spot like they did on Sunday. It didn't bother me signing it, it just bothered me that I couldn't listen to what I went to listen.