By G. Wayne Miller
Journal staff writer

On Monday, Oct. 29, Journal staff writer G. Wayne Miller hosted Bishop Tobin and diocese communications director Michael Guilfoyle for a live, hour-long chat. Read the transcript Ordination Day: Watch a clip from a video created by the Diocese of Pittsburgh in 1973 on the ordination day of 25-year-old Thomas J. Tobin and some of his fellow deacons, who talk about the meaning of joining the priesthood. The Diocese of Providence Diocesan newspaper Bishop Tobin’s columns The Vatican Whispers in the Loggia U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Catholic Encyclopedia

1.

Bishop Tobin had a joke for TV reporter Jim Hummel when he arrived at the ABC6 studios in Providence to tape a show that would be broadcast on Easter Sunday.

It was April 5, 2007, Holy Thursday.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” the bishop said.

Hummel laughed. Those were his words recently when he confronted a North Kingstown school official accused of misspending nearly a quarter of a million dollars in federal money. The official was trying to dodge Hummel when, camera rolling, the investigative reporter spoke what had become his signature line, one that radio talk show hosts played repeatedly as the North Kingstown drama unfolded.

Hummel had his own joke when the bishop was taking a seat on a stool behind a desk on the studio set. “Bishop,” he said, “you ever been on a barstool?”

“You think I’m going to admit that?” the bishop said. “I’ve already admitted I go to Foxwoods!” His revelation in the summer of 2006 that he occasionally gambled, at Foxwoods and in office football pools, had drawn harsh criticism, despite his explanation that the Catholic Church did not condemn gambling if it was not abused.

This was the bishop’s sixth appearance on a Sunday-morning TV news show since arriving in Providence in 2005. He did not ask to go on, but he accepted invitations.

The taping began, and after some Pittsburgh Steelers banter, the interview turned to weightier matters. The bishop wished legislators and the governor luck in reaching agreement on a balanced state budget, which he endorsed, provided poor people were not hurt. He spoke about immigration, and the aging population of priests in Rhode Island and the welcome the Church extends to Catholics who attend Mass only on Christmas and Easter.

“It’s always good that they are with us,” he said. “We would certainly encourage them to come to church every Sunday because attendance at church on Sundays and Sunday Mass is such a critical part of our Christian faith. If our faith is authentic, it’s something that has to touch our lives every day, every week, not just in the high season.”

Hummel ran a clip of an earlier piece which closed with a line about the bishop being “out of step” with society on certain issues, abortion rights and same-sex marriage among them. How did he react to that description? Hummel asked.

“The Church does not conform itself to the current age, to the popular culture,” the bishop said. “Saint Paul is very clear about saying that. We have to be the leaven, we have to be the ones to make the change, to improve the world, to make the world a better place — a brighter place — in which to live. If people say we’re not in touch with the times or we’re out of step often, I take that as a compliment.”

Hummel asked the bishop to assess Pope Benedict XVI, whose more somber demeanor stood in contrast to his predecessor, John Paul II, dead now two years.

“Not quite the dramatic personality,” the bishop said. “Nonetheless, he’s keeping a very steady hand on the ship of the Church and producing some beautiful documents.”

Did the bishop disagree with Rome on any issues?

“I’m not asking you to say them,” Hummel said, “but off the record — not off the record — are there things that you struggle with, that you know it’s better not to talk out about, or you can’t?”

“Not really,” the bishop said. “I’m part of the hierarchical nature of the church. My job if I don’t understand something completely is to try to learn more about it, to study it, to pray over it and try to understand why the Holy Spirit has led the church in this direction.”

BISHOP TOBIN was in demand on that Holy Thursday 2007. The diocesan offices were closed, and he returned home, where he called in to the John DePetro radio talk show; his staff, meanwhile, had made arrangements to tape a segment the next day for Dan Yorke’s annual Good Friday program. After lunch, the bishop awaited Channel 10’s Bill Rappleye, who also wanted an interview. Like the bishop, Rappleye had learned about a State House rally that afternoon by advocates of same-sex marriage.

The bishop sat in his living room. Outside, landscapers were grooming the lawn. The bishop didn’t know them, but several looked Hispanic; perhaps, he said, they were undocumented immigrants. The bishop wondered, jokingly, if they would jump the back fence and flee into the cemetery when they saw a TV news van pulling into the driveway. The memory of the March New Bedford factory raid was still fresh.

Rappleye and his cameraman arrived, and Rappleye’s first question was about the State House rally, held to support legislation that would legalize same-sex marriage. Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch’s sister, Margaret, and the woman she had married in Massachusetts in February, were among those at the rally.

“Do you find the timing of that disconcerting or uncomfortable?” Rappleye said.

“It at least leads me to ask some questions, to wonder why they chose today,” the bishop said. “And I don’t know why today was chosen.” The timing, sponsors later told reporters, was coincidental, but the bishop wasn’t sure. “I am a little bit concerned that the announcement that started a lot of this conversation happened on Ash Wednesday and the next big public rally is on Holy Thursday, on the vigil of Good Friday. I hope it’s not intended to insult the Christian community or to inflame the discussion.”

Rappleye switched themes.

Did the bishop think that illegal immigrants should be locked up and deported?

No, the bishop said. “The answer is not to round everybody up and ship them out,” he said. “That smacks of being un-American and really sort of cruel.”

“So if your gardener had a Guatemalan who was not legally with a green card … would you fire your gardener?”

“No, I don’t think so. It’s hard to focus on individual cases. We’ve got a structural, a systemic, question we have to deal with.”

Rappleye said some people believe illegal immigrants help keep the economy running, while others insist that they depress wages for Americans. “Do you think they should be allowed to keep working here?” the reporter said.

“We have to take the broader, the macro, picture of all this,” the bishop said. Immigration laws need revision, he said, and secure borders should be established; the millions of undocumented immigrants already here need some way to become citizens, not be deported. The bishop cited the Gospel passage in which Jesus, on Judgment Day, said he was a stranger and people welcomed him. “He didn’t say a stranger with documents or without documents, legal or illegal. He said, ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me.’ That’s the ethical context, the moral background, I have to work from.”

Rappleye was not satisfied.

“But there are Americans who will say that stranger is an invader — and it threatens the very heart of our country,” he said.

“I think that might be an overstatement,” the bishop said. “A lot of what I’ve been trying to say is we have to turn down the rhetoric on this, on both sides.”

“But some suggest that it’s a cultural invasion — that when you have to press ‘one’ to speak in your native tongue, that is English in this country — when there are lines in the emergency room for people, citizens of this country, and when the schools are flooded with people who are from other countries and sort of not assimilating in the way that some people feel used to take place — if the whole fabric of America is being threatened, that the country’s going to be turned over from within because people who speak another language and come from elsewhere, and they’re not on the books, are swarming into the country.…” Rappleye continued on, never quite getting to an actual question.

The bishop maintained his composure. He had more than public policy on his mind: he was trying to quiet his dog, Molly, who had started whining. She needed to be walked.

“When we use words like ‘invasion,’ that has connotations that are beyond this particular issue, I think,” the bishop said.

“Maybe here in East Providence,” Rappleye said, “but not in Los Angeles or Miami, where the top radio stations are Spanish-language and there are whole neighborhoods where English is not spoken. Is that something that we should be worried about?”

“I don’t know if it’s something we need to worry about. It is an issue we have to deal with and try to enculturate people into our society. That’s a legitimate goal. But to use terms like ‘invasion’ or ‘criminal’ or ‘deportation’ — that’s the kind of rhetoric I just don’t think contributes to solving this problem that we all have to work on, together.”

The interview moved into a discussion of the Easter Bunny and paganism. Of the entire 25-minute session, only the bishop’s comments on gay marriage would make it on air.

2.

The next morning, Bishop Tobin headed to Pawtucket with John Barry III, the diocese’s secretariat for social ministry, which administers the many health, education and related programs subsidized by the annual Catholic Charity Fund appeal, which was well under way.

It was April 6, Good Friday.

Barry, a Pawtucket city councilman for 20 years, drove. He told the bishop that many people in his parish had seen him last night on Channel 10. The most common reaction, he said, was: “I didn’t know the bishop had a dog.”

“Never work with kids or animals,” the bishop said. “They always steal the show.”

Barry said some parishioners had observed that the bishop’s dog, and his living room furniture and carpet, were all beige.

“My personality, I guess,” the bishop said.

Barry and the bishop stopped at St. John the Baptist Church, on Quincy Avenue, where children and adults had assembled for the start of the annual Good Friday Walk, a fundraiser that this year would benefit two charitable agencies. The bishop said a few words, posed for photos and the march began. Bishop Tobin walked about a mile, down Lonsdale Avenue toward Central Falls, and then a Pawtucket policeman returned him to Providence in his cruiser. The bishop, who was fasting, killed a few minutes at the Cathedral of SS. Peter & Paul residence. At 11 a.m., he entered the cathedral.

The bishop went into a closed booth to hear confessions, while retired Bishop George H. Pearce, who was 86 and living in Providence after leading a diocese in Fiji, began to hear confessions more openly in the sanctuary, a modern option. Confession was once a popular sacrament, but, like Sunday Mass, it appeals to diminishing numbers of Catholics. Only a handful of people confided their sins to Bishops Tobin and Pearce on this most solemn of Christian days.

AT 11:45 A.M., confessions ended, and the bishops went to the sacristy to vest. At five past noon, Bishop Tobin returned for the Good Friday service. He and his fellow priests were dressed in red, the color of blood and fire, according to Catholic tradition.

The men lay face-down on a carpet in front of the altar, a symbol of their subservience to Christ. There were no flowers, lit candles or incense, and the crucifix above the high altar was draped in red. In a sign of mourning, the bishop was not wearing his ring, nor was he carrying a crosier. No Mass would be celebrated, though Communion would be distributed. This was a ritual that founding bishop Thomas F. Hendricken, who rested now in his polished granite sarcophagus, had not lived to see performed in the cathedral he built.

The priests rose, and the bishop took his seat on the chair with his coat of arms. The choir sang, two Bible passages were read, and the annual recitation of The Passion According to Saint John began. The congregation had a small response role and there was a narrator. The bishop had the role of Jesus.

The passion, seven pages long, begins with Pontius Pilate releasing Jesus to the mob that wants to kill him. It ends with Christ on the cross.

Narrator: When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. So they said to one another —

Congregation: Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.

Narrator: This was to fulfill what the scripture says, ‘They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.’ And that is what the soldiers did. Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother —

Jesus (Bishop Tobin playing the role): Woman, here is your son.

Narrator: Then he said to his disciple —

Jesus: Here is your mother.

Narrator: And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said —

Jesus: I am thirsty.

Narrator: A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said—

Jesus: It is finished.

In his homily, Bishop Tobin spoke of the practical and spiritual meaning that Christ’s suffering held for Christians almost 2,000 years later.

“We should remember today all the people around the world who are living the mystery of the cross in their lives — people who suffer from poverty, and war, and violence, and persecution, and abuse,” he said. “And who knows, perhaps in your own life you are dealing with suffering and pain, suffering perhaps known only to you.”

The bishop urged the congregation to heed Thomas a Kempis, whose 15th century The Imitation of Christ remains a Christian classic. He read a passage: “Go where you will, seek what you will, you will not find a higher way, nor a less exalted but safer way, than the way of the holy cross….”

The homily over, two draped wooden crucifixes were brought to the front of the cathedral and were uncovered. Tobin bent to kiss Christ’s feet on one, and then he took his seat in his bishop's chair, where he looked down on the congregation. He wore no miter, only a zucchetto, a simple red skullcap, another sign of humility.

As the choir sang, the faithful formed lines for their own venerations. Some kissed the Christ figure’s feet; others brought their fingers to their lips, then gently touched the wood. Some genuflected and made the sign of the cross. When they were done, the larger of the two crosses was laid on a red pillow on the altar steps. Two candles were lit. The cathedral fell silent as congregants closed their eyes in reflection.

THE CATHEDRAL was a different place on Easter morning.

White lilies decorated the high altar. The bishop wore white vestments, a white miter and his ring again, and his homily message was one of resurrection and the promise of eternal life. Incense burned, the Easter Candle was lit, and the choir selections were joyous. The bishop walked through the church sprinkling holy water on the faithful, a reminder of baptism.

Standing near the tomb of Bishop Hendricken, Bishop Tobin greeted churchgoers as they departed the cathedral. After everyone was gone, he changed into his basic priest’s clothes and traveled with his administrative secretary, the Rev. Michael A. Colello, to lunch at a Newport restaurant. Father Colello’s mother and some friends joined them. Then the bishop went home. He was weary.

The Master’s Tournament was on TV, and he watched it, alone but for Molly.

3.

BISHOP TOBIN celebrated his 59th birthday with a few priests over dinner at his home the day after Easter. Lent was done, but another busy period loomed. It was “personnel season,” during which he reviewed his priests’ assignments and decided whom to shuffle. A few priests were retiring. Some had requested new jobs. The bishop himself had plans for strategic moves. It was a sort of jigsaw puzzle every year.

It was also Confirmation season, and with no auxiliary bishop and only the goodwill of retired bishops for help, he was out several nights a week. He looked forward to his July vacation — and also his annual adherence to the Atkins Diet, from Memorial Day to Labor Day. He always lost weight, though not always as much as he wanted. As he sometimes remarked, bishops may never hear the truth — but they always find opportunity for good food. Temptation could be irresistible.

Three weeks after Easter, the bishop gathered his top administrators and advisers for his monthly board of administration meeting at One Cathedral Square. This is the group that oversees the legal, financial, social-ministry and religious operations of the Diocese of Providence — the bishop’s brain trust, as it were, all appointed by him. On matters of personnel, Tobin answers to no one, not even the Pope.

It was Monday, April 23.

Bishop Tobin began with a prayer, and the 10 priests and lay people at the conference-room table each gave a report.

Proposed budgets for the fiscal year that began July 1 were due soon, said Chief Financial Officer Michael Sabatino. The group discussed the number of Sunday-Mass collections, which had risen over the years as national and international Catholic causes sought money. “Everyone would welcome fewer collections,” the bishop said, but was that feasible? He asked for further study.

John Barry III said the Church’s stand on immigration had prompted “some really vile calls” to his office. Nonetheless, he said, his staff had completed plans to provide food, shelter and legal services to immigrants should the federal government conduct a New Bedford-like raid in Rhode Island, as was rumored.

“We’re ready if it happens,” Barry said. “We can react in five hours.”

The condition and future of the diocese’s hundreds of properties was also discussed, with Secretariat for Planning and Financial Services the Rev. Raymond B. Bastia telling the group that the utilization committee the bishop had appointed was deep into its analysis. Already, Bishop Tobin had approved the closure of a church in Central Falls that had fallen into disrepair as the parish’s finances had deteriorated, in part a result of dwindling attendance at Mass. The bishop had visited the church in March to begin the process of “alienation,” which would allow for its sale, if a buyer with the $1 million or more needed for a new roof and other improvements could be found. The deed, however, would restrict its future use; the Church would not allow a strip club, for example, the bishop said on his tour.

The redesign of the diocesan newspaper was on the agenda at the next meeting of the board.

It was Monday, May 14.

?Communications Director Michael K. Guilfoyle said a new printer with improved photo reproduction had been hired, and staff were on schedule to publish the first edition at the end of the month. Then Guilfoyle walked the group through mockups of pages of the new paper. The Rev. Msgr. Paul D. Theroux, vicar general and moderator of the curia — essentially, Bishop Tobin’s chief of staff, who always sat to the bishop’s immediate left — stopped Guilfoyle when he showed the page containing the Diocesan priests’ necrology. A longstanding feature of the old publication, it listed all priests who had died that week over the years. Many weeks it had 10 or more entries, some dating to the 1800s.

“I just don’t see the point of doing the necrology every week,” Msgr. Theroux said.. “I’d be surprised if it were missed if it just disappeared.”

The monsignor suggested a comprehensive necrology once a year, on All Souls Day, Nov. 2. The bishop agreed.

Overall, Bishop Tobin was pleased: the tired, gray newspaper that had irked him from his first days in Rhode Island was about to disappear.

“I’m really excited about this,” he said. “I think it’s a tangible representation of a lot of good things going on in the diocese.”

4.

BISHOP TOBIN stood at a podium in the basement of the Cathedral of SS. Peter & Paul, his back to the crypt, now empty, which had entombed Rhode Island’s first Catholic bishop for more than a century, until Bishop Tobin moved him upstairs. He faced an audience of print and broadcast journalists.

It was Wednesday, May 30.

On the next day, which happened to be the second anniversary of Tobin’s installation as Bishop of Providence, the diocese would publish the first issue of its redesigned weekly newspaper. The new paper had a cleaner, more contemporary appearance. It even had a new name: Rhode Island Catholic. The old name, The Providence Visitor, used since publication began in 1875, seemed more suited to a Chamber of Commerce, Bishop Tobin often said.

The bishop said The Visitor had served the Diocese well. But this was the era of Google and YouTube, of the 24-hour news cycle and short attention spans, of Britney and Paris. To better compete in this new world, the Diocese would not only have a new publication; its Web sites would be modernized, and TV programming for cable and Internet viewing would soon begin. Father Colello, who had once wanted to be a TV news anchor, had volunteered to host one of the programs.

“The changing spiritual and pastoral challenges of our times require us to be open to new approaches and strategies,” said Bishop Tobin, who is publisher of the diocese’s paper and Web sites. “Upon my arrival in Providence, it became apparent to me that our newspaper could be even more effective and attractive than it already was.”

He was being polite: the outside consultants’ report, which he did not mention, had been scathing. Among other things, it had prompted him to hire a new editor and some new staff.

The paper’s new look, largely the work of Providence’s Creative Circle Media Consulting firm, was not the only difference. The initial consultants had recommended that the content also be improved; the paper, they said, could be harder-hitting, even, at times, controversial. It was published in a secular world, and while it should espouse Catholic philosophy, it needn’t be rigidly theological.

The first issue of Rhode Island Catholic, with its masthead motto of “Faith, Family & Life Since 1875,” contained a review of Pope Benedict XVI’s new book, Jesus of Nazareth. It had a Catholic school sports section, a story about a so-called Biker Priest, and a final report on the bishop’s Keep The Heat On campaign, which had raised a record $118,000 in addition to the $75,000 the diocese contributed. Donations to the Catholic Charity Fund appeal, wrote administrator Tony Gwiazdowski, stood at $6.7 million — 85 percent of its goal, with one month to go.

From a secular perspective, two stories stood out.

One was about Voice of the Faithful, the lay group formed in 2002, during the demise of Boston’s Cardinal Law, to counsel victims of sex abuse by priests. Voice of the Faithful does not enjoy universal acclaim in the Catholic hierarchy. The story was a straightforward account of a meeting, but the fact that it was published signaled something.

The other story, played on the front page, was the first installment of a three-part series on human trafficking in Rhode Island, notably on women engaged in prostitution against their will in some of the state’s massage parlors. A recently publicized quirk in state law, which some legislators proposed changing, essentially makes prostitution legal, provided it is indoors. “In several of these parlors,” wrote assistant editor Brian J. Lowney, “women from Asian and Latin American countries are literally enslaved and coerced into performing sexual acts for a fee under the guise of working as masseuses.” Police raids, Lowney wrote, brought squalid conditions to light: “Often, the women found in these filthy brothels littered with mattresses and suitcases were South Korean immigrants.”

No one could recall when, if ever, an expose on prostitution had appeared in the diocesan newspaper.

But it was “Without a Doubt,” the bishop’s own column, that would touch off a national controversy, one that would resonate for months.

In it, the bishop wrote of receiving an invitation to a fundraising event in Providence the following week for Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani. For $500, the bishop could have lunch. For another $1,000, he could have his photo taken.

“The first thought that came to my mind is that I’m not charging enough for my Confirmation photos!” the bishop wrote.

Why he had been invited was a mystery to the bishop. “I don’t know the mayor; I’ve never met him. I try to avoid partisan politics. Heck, I’m not even a Republican. But most of all, I would never support a candidate who supports legalized abortion.” Giuliani, a Catholic, does — despite claiming to be personally opposed to the procedure.

That dichotomy, the bishop wrote, was “pathetic and confusing … hypocritical.” It brought to the bishop’s mind Pontius Pilate, who personally found Jesus innocent, but nonetheless handed him over to be killed. The bishop wrote: “I can just hear Pilate saying, ‘You know, I’m personally opposed to crucifixion but I don’t want to impose my belief on others.’ ”

The bishop closed with a broader criticism.

“Rudy’s defection from the Catholic Faith on this moral issue is not unique, of course,” he wrote. “Catholic politicians of both parties, nationwide, have followed a similar path in abandoning the Faith for the sake of political expediency: Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Pat Leahy, Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden come quickly to mind. And on a local level, of course, Congressman Patrick Kennedy and Senator Jack Reed.

“How these intelligent men and women will someday stand before the judgment seat of God and explain why they legitimized the death of countless innocent children in the sin of abortion is beyond me. (‘But God, really, I was personally opposed to it, but just couldn’t do anything about it.’)

“Oh, well, as you can see by now, I won’t be attending the fundraiser for Rudy Giuliani. If Rudy wants to see me, he’ll have to arrange an appointment at my office. We’ll talk about his position on abortion. And if he wants a photo, it will cost him $1,500 as a donation for the pro-life work of the Church.”

Four days later, on the eve of a Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire, an Associated Press reporter in Washington moved a national political brief mentioning Bishop Tobin’s column.

The next morning, a story about it appeared in The New York Times.

 

gwmiller@projo.com