Bishop Thomas Tobin!

The Most Reverend Thomas J. Tobin, Bishop of Providence, addresses the Myth of the Cuddly, Sweet, and Always Nice No Matter What Jesus:

Inspiring healthy dialogue in the Church is one of the goals of my columns. I hope, though, that critics can always distinguish between my personal opinions and the essential teachings of the Church which, as Catholics they are obliged to accept.

I do find it intriguing, though, that the critics of the Obama column were more offended by my writing than the fact that the President is using their tax dollars to destroy unborn children. (And now to engage in the destruction of human embryos in stem cell research.) But it still seems to me that if the President’s anti-life actions don’t stir up moral outrage in you, nothing will; if they don’t offend your conscience, you need a conscience transplant, my friend.

The other premise of my critics seems to be that because we are Christians we should never be angry or challenge others. We should always be charitable, tolerant, kind and nice, they suggest. After all, isn’t that what Jesus would do?

Well, in fact, no. The Gospels are very clear that in confronting moral evil Jesus wasn’t at all nice or kind. We usually think of Jesus as a prophet of peace, and indeed He was. But His preaching also created bitter controversy and division. “I have come to set the earth on fire . . . Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” (Lk 12: 49, 51)

Bishop Tobin wrote his column after getting a wide range of feedback—much of it very angry in nature—concerning his February 12, 2009, column, "My Interview with President Obama," which was a fictional dialogue between himself and the newly elected President:

TOBIN: Is it safe to assume that you consider the use of tax dollars to pay for abortions overseas to be good foreign policy?

OBAMA: I believe that people overseas should have the same rights we Americans have – the right to kill their children and use abortion as a form of birth control.

TOBIN: But shouldn’t we be using foreign aid for more positive reasons – for example, to provide food, clothing, shelter and medicine to impoverished children?

OBAMA: Bishop, obviously you’re missing the point. If you control the population and eliminate the children, you don’t have to worry about giving them food, clothing, shelter and medicine now do you?

Read that entire piece. Back to the most recent column:

Sometimes as Catholics we’re hesitant to challenge the immoral behavior of others, including public officials, because we don’t want to appear judgmental or uncharitable. Our society urges us to be “tolerant” of other people and their behavior, even if it’s objectively wrong. But it’s precisely because we love others that we should never tolerate immoral behavior. As Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver has written so well, “Tolerance is not an end in itself, and tolerating or excusing grave evil in a society is itself a grave evil . . . And it is not a Christian virtue.” (Render Unto Caesar, p. 145-146)

In the words of another great bishop, Fulton Sheen:

Tolerance and intolerance apply to two totally different things. Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to principles; intolerance applies only to principles but never to persons. We must be absolutely intolerant about the truths of mathematics, but we must be tolerant to the mathematician.  ... Nothing is so fearfully exclusive as truth. We must be intolerant about truth, for that is God's making and not ours. We must be tolerant to persons, for they are human and liable to error. (The Mystical Body of Christ)

This highlights, I think, one of the issues with President Obama: legitimate criticism of his actions, words, and principles are sometimes interpreted as attacks on his person precisely because for some ardent Obama supporters the person is the principle. Put another way, it seems to me that quite a few people voted for and support Obama not because he believes in Principles A, B, and C, but because he is Barack Obama. This cult of personality has little or no interest in gauging principles; it is rooted in a nearly religious adherence to a personality. Thus, any criticism of Obama's principles (i.e., support of "reproductive justice") is interpreted as a hatred of the man. Thank goodness for shepherds such as Bishop Tobin who are willing to clearly and firmly describe reality rather than letting reality be bulldozed by false cries of "Intolerance!"

Comments

[Jackson]

"If the language in my article about President Obama’s funding of abortions seemed harsh and offensive, so be it."

No apologies. Very refreshing.

[Clare]

Well, it seems to me that the observation that "the person is the principle" sums up the American left in a nutshell: despise the principle [or principles], despise the person [who is the living "symbol" of the despicable principle{s}]. The left's rabid hatred of, say, Pope Benedict or George Bush and its worshipful adoration of Obama testify to the principle=person theory.

"Insight"-ful post. Thanks!

Clare

[joe]

A bishop who knows how to bish!

Ad multos annos!

[Clare Krishan]

may I concur, with one proviso: too many of our Bishops have indulged lax teaching for too long, and I will let this snippet (ellipses = excisions) from a local rag
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/currents/20090329_Head_Strong__Giving_Obama_a_listen_at_Notre_Dame.html
illustrate my point (paradoxically the journalist was trying to make the opposite point).

"So what leads to unruly behavior among the assembled masses ... ? ... Lynn Jamieson, professor and former chair of the department of recreation and park administration at Indiana University ... told me the lack of supervision can foster a combative spirit ... (f)rom there, she said, the feeling goes viral.

"In most cases, this form of behavior occurs because there are no codes of conduct in place, [no] supervision to enforce safe and civil behavior, and a general decline in willingness to confront fans who act in this manner," she said. "It becomes emotional contagion ..."

... I was struck by something else she told me. This type of unruly behavior has escalated as more and more time has passed without any real effort to discourage it, and... across campuses these days" has gone unchecked as well."

We need our Bishops to begin making the 'real effort to discourage' the indifference, that 'emotional contagion' which is at root the real scandal of American Catholicism -- sins against charity -- a far greater "offense" in the eyes of our Lord than harsh speech!

[Clare Krishan]

so sorry on the emphasis, [too lazy to use preview] last 3 paras should have looked like this:
"In most cases, this form of behavior occurs because there are no codes of conduct in place, [no] supervision to enforce safe and civil behavior, and a general decline in willingness to confront fans who act in this manner," she said. "It becomes emotional contagion ..."

... I was struck by something else she told me. This type of unruly behavior has escalated as more and more time has passed without any real effort to discourage it, "and... across campuses these days" has gone unchecked as well."

We need our Bishops to begin making the 'real effort to discourage' the indifference, that 'emotional contagion' which is at root the real scandal of American Catholicism -- sins against charity -- a far greater "offense" in the eyes of our Lord than harsh speech!

[Paul H]

Way to go Bishop Tobin! I was very encouraged to read these columns.

Also, I'm adding the closing HTML tags for bold and italics. Hopefully that will fix the font for any additional comments.

[Nick Milne]

I'm going to try to do my part, here.

That should end the madness.

[Robert Miller]

Bishop Tobin deserves the US Bishop von Galen award.

At the risk of offending the squeamish, I think we see in Obama's first 100 days far more parallels to Hitler's first hundred than to FDR's. Like AH, BO is disarming critics in the business elite by his apparent "reasonableness" -- even to the point of allowing his government to protect some of their laughably inappropriate "compensation". (None of FDR's blue smoke attacks on economic royalists here). At the same time, BO is using his "charisma" relentlessly to break the backs of his Catholic and Evangelical critics by executing a nearly flawless divide-and-conquer strategy. All the while, BO pursues, equally relentlessly his anti-life strategy -- just as AH pursued his during his early, "reasonable" period.

[Dan Deeny]

Carl, Thank you for this information on Catholics and the abortion business. If I'm not mistaken, Catholics voted about 54% for the Obama-Biden ticket. Vice President Biden is a Catholic. Can we expect an imaginary interview with Vice President Biden? Such an interview would surely be as interesting as this one with President Obama.
President Obama, who is not a Catholic, has a consistent record in favor of a woman's right to choose. Secretary of State Clinton, who is not a Catholic, also has a consistent record in favor of a woman's right to choose. And we know this!
What about the Catholics?

[M. L. Hearing]

"[L]egitimate criticism of his actions, words, and principles are sometimes interpreted as attacks on his person precisely because for some ardent Obama supporters the person is the principle." That's true. And the reason for this, I think, is that these folks seem to be capable of using only the ad hominem in their "arguments"--and so they expect the same from their opponents.

M. L. Hearing

[Clare Krishan]

oops mea culpa missing "closeitalic" tag

[Paul H]

The bold is gone, but the italics seems to be stubborn. :-)

Let me try adding the closing tag one more time.