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 • Do you think you will go to heaven? 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. Barbiconi, the clerical tailoring and insignia establishment 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.

One day during the fourth week of Lent 2007, Bishop Tobin spent the morning in his office, then went home after lunch for a break. He was traveling that evening to a South Kingstown school to host a reception for prospective donors to the Catholic Charity Fund. He would speak about the Church’s daily effect on many people through its health-care, education and other ministries, then ask his audience to give generously.

It was Tuesday, March 13.

For the past week, a federal raid on a New Bedford textile plant had dominated the headlines. More than 300 immigrants, many of them women with young children, were arrested, prompting some to declare a humanitarian crisis. The talk shows and the blogs went stratospheric. Dan Yorke invited a Providence priest who worked with immigrants to appear on his radio show. Bishop Tobin had no policy requiring his clergy to seek his approval for media appearances, but someone had told him that the priest would be on.

The bishop listened as Yorke and callers criticized the Rev. Raymond L. Tetreault, pastor of St. Teresa of Avila Parish on Manton Avenue in the Olneyville section of Providence.

The bishop decided to call in.

Yorke made a crack about being double-teamed, and the bishop began.

“Father Tetreault is one of our great pastors,” he said. “He understands, as he said before, the real human face of this whole immigration question.” The bishop thanked the priest for his work with immigrant families. “Father Tetreault is where the action is. He’s helping lots of people in very real situations.”

The bishop mentioned that he personally was prominent in supporting immigrants. One of his favorite photographs was of him with several demonstrators on May 1, 2006, during a “Day of Action for Immigrant Justice.” Like the New Bedford raid, the Day of Action had been big news. It drew attention to the diocese and one of the beneficiaries of the Catholic Charity Fund: the Immigration and Refugee Services department, which helped foreigners new to the state obtain documentation and legal representation.

The bishop told Yorke that national immigration reform is needed, but chances for passage were diminished while emotions ran so hot around the country.

“I go back to some of the basics of our teachings and our scriptures. Jesus said, ‘I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.’ In terms of our pastoral response, it’s that simple: ‘I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.’ But that’s not the kind of welcome our nation has been extending to people who have come to these shores for a variety of reasons and in a variety of circumstances. We’ve got to fix the problem together. If we can tone down the rhetoric and work on some immigration reform, then the status quo that nobody is happy with can be addressed.”

Anthony Gwiazdowski, director of the Stewardship and Development Office, which runs the Charity Fund appeal, drove Bishop Tobin to the reception at Msgr. Matthew F. Clarke Catholic Regional School in South Kingstown. On the way, the bishop told the director about his call to Yorke. Gwiazdowski was well aware of the strong sentiments many hold against illegal immigrants: his office had been flooded with angry calls after the bishop’s well-publicized participation in the May 1, 2006, demonstration. Not even the priest sex-abuse scandal had prompted such a strong negative reaction, he said.

“Here we are launching the campaign today and I’m on the radio doing immigration — again!” the bishop told Gwiazdowski.

“There goes the appeal,” Gwiazdowski quipped.

Several dozen invited guests awaited the bishop in the Clarke School gymnasium. Many were Bishop’s Partners, donors of $1,000 or more in earlier appeals. He greeted them by a table with an attractive display of fruit, cheese, crackers and wine. The bishop had eaten dinner at home and had no appetite, but he appreciated what the caterer had prepared. At one point, he joked about the two things a bishop can rely on: “You never hear the truth — and you never have a bad meal!”

The bishop began the speaking program with a prayer and then read from the Gospel of Matthew, the passage in which the Lord appears on Judgment Day, to separate the good people from the bad. The righteous, bound for heaven, are commended for helping the Lord when he was hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick and in prison.

Bishop Tobin read from Matthew: “And the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the King will say to them in reply: ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ ”

It was a time-honored gospel, the bishop said. “The challenge for us, the challenge for the Church, is to put that into practice — to take these words of Christ and make them tangible. The mandate for us is just as real now as it was 2,000 years ago.”

Tables along a wall of the gymnasium featured displays from many of the agencies and departments that rely on the Charity Fund. These, the bishop said, provide evidence of the fund’s “impact,” the central theme of the redesigned campaign, which now had a slogan: Remarkable Wonders are Done Through You. Posters and photographs told the story of nearly 40 programs, including Mother of Hope Day Camp, the HIV/AIDS ministry, Elder Services, and Apostolate for the Handicapped. A letter from the bishop noted that these services are available to anyone, Catholic or not.

One table had a display from the Respect Life Office, which urges women not to have abortions, and counsels those who have undergone the procedure and later regretted it. Abortion is another of the great fault-line issues in which the Church has an abiding interest.

As with immigration and gay marriage, Bishop Tobin does not shy from it.

LESS THAN three months before, the bishop had ventured out into a bitterly cold morning to lend his voice to the antiabortion movement.

It was Saturday, Jan. 20, 2007.

The Women’s Medical Center in Cranston was open, and a hundred or so adults and children marched outside on the sidewalk, their breaths turning to frosty vapor. One person carried a crucifix. Several others had rosary beads. Across the street, a trailer displayed photographs of dismembered fetuses. A sign read: Butchered children in Rwanda killed with machetes, in America killed with suction machines. Another read: You have the power to choose life or death. The messages were directed at women arriving for abortions. A first-trimester procedure takes about five minutes, excluding preparation and recovery, and costs about $500. The center accepts insurance and credit cards and offers student discounts.

Young female escorts wearing yellow vests greeted the cars as they drove into the clinic parking lot, where protesters would be trespassers. Two policemen made sure the law was obeyed. Some women huddled in the back seats of their cars, hoods or coats over their heads, their drivers avoiding eye contact with the protesters.

“Why should your baby die?” Joseph Manning shouted. “Why? Life is precious.”

A man well into his 70s, Manning has been protesting abortion for almost 20 years, including for a decade outside the Cranston clinic. Only rarely does he convince a woman to turn back. “In a sense, that’s not our objective, totally,” he said. “Our objective is to save souls. To have people repent. It not only destroys their children, it destroys them. It’s terribly destructive of our whole society. The fabric is being torn. And the weakest among us is destroyed.”

Bishop Tobin arrived wearing a down parka and holding rosary beads in his gloved hands. He joined the line and participated in the rosary, which was led by one of his priests. Communications Director Michael K. Guilfoyle shot photographs for The Providence Visitor, the Diocesan newspaper.

After singing along on Ave Maria, the bishop walked to nearby St. Paul church to say Mass.

“Welcome to our annual Respect Life event,” he began his homily. Jan. 23 would be the 33rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.

While abortion was the target of the morning march, the bishop reminded the congregation of the Church’s opposition to other behaviors. He mentioned capital punishment, euthanasia, domestic violence, and violence in neighborhoods and on the streets. He noted that America is fighting a global war on terrorism, and he made reference to a theme often struck by the late Pope John Paul II: the so-called “culture of death,” enunciated in his 1995 encyclical, “The Gospel of Life.”

The bishop said: “In the pro-life movement, we, too, are engaged in a war — against a different kind of terrorism. This terrorism is in our own society, our own culture, and it promotes the culture of death. It is the terrorism that is hidden in the mountains and the caves of our own society. It is the terrorism that relentlessly attacks human life on many different fronts.”

He elaborated on embryonic stem-cell research, another nationally charged issue. The Church is not opposed to stem-cell research from non-embryo sources, he said — but even the good that might result from destroying an embryo does not balance a moral equation. “We have to remind ourselves that an embryo is a tiny human being. It’s not a commodity. It’s not a piece of meat. It’s not a vegetable. It’s a human being.”

What irony, he said, that the nation recently celebrated the birth of a baby that had grown from a frozen embryo rescued from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina — even as embryos were routinely being destroyed inside private research laboratories.

Pending congressional legislation would allow federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research, which President Bush, along with the Church, opposes.

“What would happen,” the bishop said, “if every person in this church on Monday morning called the offices of Senators Reed and Whitehouse to make that point: that you are opposed to embryonic stem cell research because it’s the destruction of human life. Moreover, you don’t want your tax dollars to be used to fund it. … It may or may not change their minds, but it will let them know this is an important issue.”

The bishop closed with a prophecy.

“We have the power of the truth,” he said. “Ultimately, we will prevail in this struggle. May God help you be strong and faithful and successful in this work.”

2.

In a column that he titled “Abortion 101,” Bishop Tobin referred to the Second Vatican Council, the catechism of the Catholic Church, the American Bishops’ conference, and Blessed Mother Teresa. He quoted from the late John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical. “The deliberate decision to deprive an innocent human being of his life is always morally evil and can never be licit as an end in itself or as a means to a good end,” the pope wrote. “Among all the crimes which can be committed against life, procured abortion has characteristics making it particularly serious and deplorable.”

Bishop Tobin lovingly recalled his several meetings with the pope — although he remained perplexed, if not occasionally haunted, by the pope’s unexplained prophecy for him, “You will suffer a great deal.” He found an ironic but instructive connection between the death of comatose Terri Schiavo by medical intervention — the withdrawing of a feeding tube — and the pope’s own death from natural causes, just two days later, in the spring of 2005.

In his 2004 book, Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way, John Paul II wrote of his years as bishop in his native Poland. Consecrated to the Episcopate in 1958 at the age of 38, the Most Rev. Karol Józef Wojtyla was the youngest bishop in Poland. He became archbishop of Krakow in 1963 and a cardinal four years later, when he was just 47 years old. Bishop Tobin considered Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way a memoir of a bishop worth emulating. He kept a copy in his home study.

The late pope wrote prolifically, and Bishop Tobin owns copies of many of his other works, including Pastores Gregis, published by the Vatican in 2003 on the 25th anniversary of John Paul’s election to the papacy. Directed less to mainstream readers than his memoir, Pastores Gregis — in translation, Shepherds of the Flock — was the pope’s most comprehensive teaching on what it means to be a bishop. Bishop Tobin has highlighted numerous passages in his paper-bound edition, 196 pages long. In one of the highlighted passages, the pope writes that a bishop’s role is universal:

“He has the duty of instilling confidence and proclaiming before all people the basis of Christian hope. The bishop is the prophet, witness, and servant of this hope, especially where a culture of ‘the here and now’ leaves no room for openness to transcendence. … Only by the light and consolation born of the Gospel can a bishop succeed in keeping his own hope alive and in nourishing the hope of those entrusted to his pastoral care. He must therefore model himself on the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Hope, who believed in the fulfillment of the Lord’s words.…

“The bishop stands in the midst of the Church as a vigilant sentinel, a courageous prophet, a credible witness, and a faithful servant of Christ.”

THE LATE POPE recognized that despite the miter, crosier and ring, a bishop is first and foremost a priest — a high priest, but still a priest.

As the years since Bishop Tobin’s 1973 ordination unfolded and the young man who had aspired only to be pastor found himself leading a major diocese, the bishop often reflected on his calling. He sometimes wondered where a different path might have taken him — into writing or politics, perhaps, or into marriage and family — but he said his commitment to the priesthood has not wavered. Soon to be 59, he expressed no regrets.

Sitting in his office at One Cathedral Square one afternoon, he recalled minor seminary, with its Great Silence, morning Mass, noontime chapel meditation — and morning and evening prayers, which remain a part of his daily schedule 45 years later. God spoke to him in those early years, he said, but without drama. This was not Moses on the mountaintop.

“God’s voice was not so much like a tsunami washing over you, but more a gradual flood that seeps into you gradually,” he said.

As he left America for study in Rome the weekend after others in his generation partied at Woodstock, in 1969, Tom Tobin seemed destined to be a priest. He was 21 years old, and nothing else appealed.

“I couldn’t think of anything else that would be better to do, more worthwhile to do, in my life – not to take away or demean or belittle any other vocation or profession, they’re all great and do positive things. But what could be better than to get close to God and help people save their souls forever?”

The young man believed that as a priest, he, too, would get to heaven.

“I’m not nearly as secure about that now,” the bishop said.

To a lay person, it seems a startling admission.

The bishop evoked a favorite metaphor, priests as “earthen vessels” — humans, with all of their frailties, called to the Lord’s work.

“I recognize now more than when I was 14 years old that priests are also very human and also very sinful, like everybody else,” the bishop said.

He told the story of returning to Rome for John Paul II’s Jubilee Celebration, in 2000. One day, a priest heard his confession in St. Peter’s Basilica. When Tobin identified himself as a bishop, the priest reminded him of the words of the fifth-century St. John Chrysostom, known for his eloquent preaching (in Latin, Chrysostom means “golden mouth”). Saint John said: “The road to hell is paved with the heads of bishops.” And it was true: the Catholic Church had experienced many scandals in its long history.

The bishop was asked: Do you think you’re going to heaven?

“Well I hope so and I think so, but I can’t absolutely presume that because ultimately that’s up to God’s judgment and God’s grace, not my own virtue,” he said. “It would be wrong for anyone to make that presumption, because then you become very spiritually complacent if you think you have the right to heaven — or you have a free ticket to heaven.”

3.

The Rev. Thomas J. Tobin was visiting a high school in the Diocese of Pittsburgh when a school secretary received a call from Bishop Donald W. Wuerl, his boss. Father Tobin was the diocese’s vicar general and general secretary, the second in command.

It was Tuesday, Oct. 27, 1992.

“Bishop Wuerl just called,” the secretary said. “He wants you to call him.”

Fr. Tobin reached someone in the bishop’s office.

“The bishop wants to see you back here as soon as possible,” the person said.

There must be an emergency, Father Tobin thought. A fire, someone died, some kind of crisis.

Father Tobin sped to his boss’s office. It was lunchtime. Bishop Wuerl closed the door and said: “I just got some information from the Vatican that I’ve been expecting.”

Father Tobin surmised that Bishop Wuerl, long rumored to be headed to an archdiocese or Rome, was leaving. Oh, my gosh, he thought, where’s he going? New York? Chicago? Washington? Baltimore? Rome?

“We have a new auxiliary bishop,” Wuerl said. “It’s you.”

Father Tobin was speechless. He knew, of course, about the speculation that he was on the bishop track — but he did not know, since tradition forbade disclosure, that his name had appeared on a list of candidates for auxiliary bishop. The list had gone to the pope’s American emissary, the Apostolic Nuncio, Bishop Agostino Cacciavillan — who, after study, had forwarded it to Rome. After yet more study, Father Tobin’s name had been presented to Pope John Paul II for his approval. No one applies for bishop, and no priest is privy to the deliberations that might get him the office; no candidate is even aware discussions are under way. The Vatican always moves mysteriously.

“In the movies, you get to go away for a week and pray about this and agonize over it,” Bishop Wuerl told Father Tobin. “But in reality, the nuncio is holding his lunch until you call him back.”

The bishop put Father Tobin through to Washington.

The nuncio said: “The Holy Father has appointed you to be the auxiliary bishop of Pittsburgh — and of course you will accept!” It was the nuncio’s standard playful line.

“I’m not sure I understand it,” said Father Tobin, “but if that’s what the Church wants me to do, I will do my best.”

And he thought: Well, God wanted it to happen, and apparently a lot of people who were involved in the consultative process think that I am prepared for this — even if I don’t understand it.

The appointment would not be announced for a week, so Father Tobin pledged to keep it secret, even from his mother. With his afternoon free, he decided to visit the cemetery where his father, Raymond, who had died in 1988, was buried. He often took walks there, drawn by the serenity and the chance to reflect and pray.

“I bet you did this!” he said at his father’s grave.

And it was then, at the very place where he assumed he himself would be buried, that the 44-year-old Tobin realized he was unlikely to follow the path he’d always imagined.

I probably won’t spend the rest of my life in Pittsburgh, Father Tobin thought. But where he might go as the future unfolded was out of his control now.

The next day, Bishop Wuerl gave Father Tobin a small box wrapped in gold paper and tied with a red ribbon. Fearful that word would get out — no diocese lacks for gossips — he instructed the priest to open it only when he was alone. When he did, Father Tobin found a zucchetto, his first bishop’s skullcap.

ON THE NIGHT before he was announced auxiliary bishop of Pittsburgh, Father Tobin visited his mother. He had obtained special permission from the nuncio to tell her — but only her — a few hours before the press release. He was carrying the gift box.

“I have some wonderful news,” he said. He handed her the box. “Open it.”

His mother did.

“Isn’t this a bishop’s hat?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Those nuns are always pulling tricks on you!” she said. Father Tobin lived in a house owned by the Sisters of the Holy Spirit of Pittsburgh. Mary took comfort in how solicitous they were of her son, and she was amused by their gentle teasing.

“This is the real thing, Mom,” Father Tobin said. “It isn’t a trick.”

Mary wasn’t the overly emotional sort, but she began to cry.

The announcement was made at 6 a.m. — noon Rome time — on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 1992, the day Bill Clinton was first elected president. Bishop Wuerl had previously made plans to visit the Vatican on Church business, and after a 10 a.m. news conference, he and Father Tobin, who would be ordained bishop in December, flew out of Pittsburgh.

In Rome, Father Tobin met Pope John Paul II for the first time, in his private chapel. The pope placed a pectoral cross over Tobin’s shoulders. Bishop Wuerl later remarked that he had seen the pope hand over many crosses, but never personally place one on a priest. Was it some kind of sign? In the days ahead, Father Tobin replayed the moment over and over again, but came to no answer.

Bishop Wuerl brought his priest to Barbiconi, a clerical tailoring and insignia establishment founded in the early 19th century that catered to bishops and cardinals. In his ordination remarks, Father Tobin would jokingly describe it as “an ecclesiastical Kmart.”

The priest walked the aisles with the bishop, who said: “You’re going to need a red cassock, you’re going to need a black cassock with piping, you’re going to need two sashes, a couple of zucchettos. You need a white miter, a red miter… hmmm, might want to get a gold miter, you need a couple of rings.”

Father Tobin would later describe being fitted for miters and rings as “surrealistic.” He said: “It was like Disneyland,” a fantasy place he had never expected to visit. He had never worn a hat or a ring, of any kind.

AS AUXILIARY BISHOP, the Most Rev. Thomas Tobin continued as vicar general and general secretary. His ceremonial duties grew. He presided at confirmations and other events when Bishop Wuerl was otherwise occupied. When Wuerl was out of town, he was in command of the diocese. Three years passed.

One afternoon in late November 1995, the phone was ringing when Bishop Tobin arrived home from work. He thought it was his mother, who usually called around that time to catch up on the day.

A voice with an Italian accent that he recognized was on the line.

“Bishop Tobin?” Nuncio Cacciavillan said. “The Holy Father has appointed you to be the new bishop of Youngstown, Ohio.”

Bishop Tobin wasn’t sure he’d heard properly. He knew that the diocese of Juneau, Alaska, was also open at the time — and he wanted to be sure of what he was agreeing to. Juneau, Alaska, with its roughly 6,500 Catholics, a smidgen, was not exactly a promising assignment for a full bishop. It likely would be a dead end — perhaps literally. The last Juneau bishop had died in office after 16 years on the job.

“Bishop Tobin?” the nuncio said. “Are you still there?”

“Yes, yes.”

“The Holy Father has appointed you to be the bishop of Youngstown, Ohio — and of course you will accept.”

 

gwmiller@projo.com