Rediscovering Courage and Conviction | Interview with Bishop Thomas J. Tobin by Jim Graves | Catholic World Report
An American bishop with a penchant for plain speech explains how—and why—he has become involved in public controversies.
Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island, was born and reared in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is the youngest of four children from an observant Catholic home, and his father was a manager at Sears, Roebuck & Co.
Tobin was attracted to the priesthood from a young age, and remembers pretending to celebrate Mass at home as a small child. “God was interested in having me be a priest,” he recalled. “And it was nourished by the Catholic faith in our household.”
Tobin has fond memories of the priests and Benedictine nuns who were his teachers at the Catholic schools in which he was enrolled as a child. He attended seminaries both in Pennsylvania and Rome, and was ordained a priest in 1973. In 1992 he was ordained an auxiliary bishop for the Diocese of Pittsburgh, and went on to serve as bishop of the Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio from 1996 to 2005, when he became the eighth bishop of Providence.
Bishop Tobin has been an outspoken defender of Catholic teaching, and has tangled with prominent political figures over such hot-button issues as abortion and same-sex marriage. He regularly pens a column, “Without a Doubt,” for his diocesan newspaper, and has written two books on faith, Without a Doubt: Bringing Faith to Life and Effective Faith: Faith that Makes a Difference. He recently spoke with CWR.
CWR: You have been a leader against the effort to legalize same-sex marriage in your state of Rhode Island. Who is behind this effort, and what arguments do you make in opposition to them?
Bishop Thomas Tobin: Rhode Island is a very liberal state politically. The vast majority of our General Assembly in both houses are Democrats. The question of gay marriage has been on the horizon for many years. Fortunately, in recent years, we had a governor, Governor Donald Carcieri, who promised to veto it. Governor Carcieri is a practicing Catholic. Also, both our previous Speaker of the House and the president of the Senate kept the lid on same-sex marriage in the General Assembly.
That scenario has changed.
Our newly elected governor, Lincoln Chafee, is an Independent. He made promotion of same-sex marriage one of his priorities, even mentioning it in his inaugural address. And the new Speaker of the House, Gordon Fox, is an openly gay man who has also made it one of his priorities.
The arguments we’ve been making against same-sex marriage are well known. While the Catholic Church has respect, love, pastoral care, and compassion for people with homosexual orientation, we believe that homosexual marriage is wrong because it gives state approval of an immoral lifestyle involving immoral sexual activity.
Also, it is an attempt to redefine the institution of marriage as it has been understood since the beginning of time. Marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman and is meant to foster life and love. Homosexual marriage can never do that. It is an ill-advised attempt to redefine something God has given us and what is one of the building blocks of human society.
Additionally, the passage of homosexual marriage presents a challenge to religious freedom and conscience protection, as has been the case in other places in the country. Our neighbors in the Archdiocese of Boston in Massachusetts, for example, had to get out of the adoption business because they were being forced to place children in situations where there were two gay people living in a home in an alleged marriage. The Archdiocese of Washington had to stop giving family medical benefits because they were being forced to provide them to gay couples who tried to get married in civil marriages.
And there are situations where ancillary Catholic facilities such as reception halls must be made available to gay couples as they attempt to marry. All these things are on the radar screen if you go down this road of approving homosexual marriage.
Read the entire interview on www.CatholicWorldReport.com...
Carl,
I am loving your articles on good bishops. Keep it up.
Posted by: Steve Brown | Friday, April 01, 2011 at 03:19 AM
If the Roman Catholic Church wants to run schools and hospitals and other institutions in this country it must abide by the laws of the United States. It does not enjoy a "special pass" to discriminate against gays, blacks, women, or any other minority that is protected from discrimination by law. No institution that will not abide by our laws is entitled to receive federal funds in our country. Catholics must abide by the laws of this country like everybody else. There is no justification at all for Catholics campaigning against civil Same Sex Marriage. The Catholic church doesn't recognize anybody's civil or secular marriage. So what right has it to actively campaign against Americans who are seeking the right to Same Sex Marriage? If you want to preach discrimination and bias in your church, you have a right to do that, but when you come into the secular arena you enjoy no special privilege to impose your religious views on others. If you continue to campaign against Same Sex marriage I think you should lose your tax exempt status.
Posted by: Anne Rice | Friday, April 01, 2011 at 08:21 AM
Dear Ms. Rice, I would encourage anyone who takes the position you just described above to read Robert George's paper entitled "What is Marriage?". The church is not imposing anything by campaigning against a redefintion of marriage. A redefinition with no basis in reality.
Posted by: Peter M. | Friday, April 01, 2011 at 09:00 AM
Ms. Rice: Being black or a woman is not a lifestyle choice or a violation of natural law. The eternal, divine and natural law trumps perverted positive law.
Posted by: Deacon Harold | Friday, April 01, 2011 at 11:15 AM
Marriage, the union of one man and one woman, is the oldest human institution, predating all forms of government. The government has the right to regulate it, but no created being has any right whatsoever to fundamentally redefine it. The attempt to redefine marriage is an attempt to usurp God's authority, an activity with a long, sad history.
Posted by: Charles E Flynn | Friday, April 01, 2011 at 02:55 PM
"All these things are on the radar . . ." Sadly, there are far worse things on the radar. S/S 'marriage' is a Pandora's box; once opened what won't escape? As we saw with most of the abusive priests, gays don't just want to redefine marriage, they want to lower the age. Already, they are attempting to lower the age of consent; marriage will be next, if NAMBLA has anything to say about it. We must stand firm. If we bow to one perversion there will be no right to complain of any other.
Posted by: Honor | Monday, April 04, 2011 at 06:11 PM
I can see why Ms. Rice is so fed up with you folks. Marriage has been redefined again and again throughout history. People were polygamous for thousands of years and still are in many places. Yet they consider their arrangements marriages just as we do. For hundreds and hundreds of years marriages were arranged for political and/or financial gain. You're going to tell me THAT was God's intention? Marriage, like all parts of society, is constantly changing and will continue to do so. You have no more right to tell consenting adults of the same sex that they cannot marry than you have to tell a male and female atheist couple that does not plan to have children that they cannot marry. You have every right to say you do not approve of such marriages but none whatsoever to interfere in the legal system and the lives of consenting, non-Catholic, adults.
Posted by: Alex | Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 03:51 PM
RE: Biship Tobin's statement "it is an attempt to redefine the institution of marriage as it has been understood since the beginning of time". Might one interpret the "beginning of time" as being inclusive of pre-historic man? The historical religions chronologically form only the tip of the religious iceberg. Historical religion spans less than 4,000 years as compared with the 3,000,000 years or so of the religions that preceded them. Do we know that the primal or tribal religions recognized an "institution of marriage"? Might the word of God, as given and received by prehistoric man indeed have been subjected to "redefinition" by historical religions? Might homosexual unions also have existed since the "beginning"? Indeed, the Church and all other religous institutions are not exempt from the secular laws of government. Rightly so, the secular laws apply to medical benefits, adoption procedures, rental of "reception halls". This separation of Church and State requires us ALL to be team players and abide by the law. I find it very disturbing that the Church insensitively accepts as a main tenet, the belief that only when all religions convert to Catholicism will salvation be possible. Perhaps it is this systemic principle, which ignores the beliefs of others, that is the crux of the problem. There are many children of God in the playground with different beliefs. We need to learn to play fairly, respect each other, and accept that no one team is superior to the other.
Posted by: Regina Sabin | Sunday, April 17, 2011 at 10:18 AM
@Charles E. Flynn RE: "the oldest human institution" please read my comment to Bishop Tobin. "No created being has any right what so ever to fundamentally redefine it"..logically, what can not be "redefined" also can not be defined. Before the advent of historical religions, or perhaps even before non-historical or tribal religions, we simply do not know if mankind lived a totally secular lifestyle. Perhaps it was religion that "redefined" God's authority in originally creating us without organized religion. Why have the Catholic bishops of England, Wales, and Scotland warned their 5,000,000 worshippers that the Bible is "not totally accurate" and is this not "redefinition"? Might it not be religion that "usurps" God by presumptiously pontificating over MANKINDS view of God's will?
Posted by: Regina Sabin | Sunday, April 17, 2011 at 10:40 AM