|
|
Chapter NINe Lightning Strikes
By G. Wayne Miller
1. Two days after publishing the Rhode Island Catholic’s maiden issue, Bishop Tobin ordained four priests in the Cathedral of SS. Peter & Paul. Three were native Rhode Islanders; the fourth was from Poland. It was the largest number of new diocesan priests in three years. Nearly 150 of their previously ordained brothers joined several hundred deacons, nuns and lay people in welcoming them to the priesthood. The bishop was home watching TV three nights later. The Republican presidential candidates were debating on a stage at Saint Anselm College, a Catholic Benedictine school in Manchester, N.H. The bishop enjoyed political debates. It was June 5, 2007. Moderator Wolf Blitzer, the CNN anchor, had apparently read that day’s New York Times, which ran the story about Bishop Tobin chastising Rudy Giuliani, a Roman Catholic, for his stand on abortion. Giuliani supported abortion rights, despite saying he personally opposed the procedure. The article included Bishop Tobin’s comparison of Giuliani to Pontius Pilate. “How does that make you feel when you hear words like that from a Catholic bishop?” Blitzer asked. Giuliani began answering. He’d said only five words when a nearby lightning strike killed the sound. The rest of Giuliani’s response was lost. All that could be heard was an electronic buzzing. When the sound returned, Giuliani quipped: “Look, for someone who went to parochial schools all his life, this is a very frightening thing that’s happening right now!” The candidate went on to explain his position on abortion. Inevitably, the lightning strike clip wound up on YouTube. Journalists sent their accounts into the world, and the next morning, the phones inside One Cathedral Square began to ring. Reporters sought the bishop’s reaction and producers wanted him to appear on their shows. Local talk show hosts helped feed the story. One, Dan Yorke, said he saw the lightning strike as a sign from above, one that Giuliani should heed. Yorke, a practicing Catholic, didn’t seem to be kidding. Bishop Tobin did not go that far. “I guess it could be interpreted lots of different ways,” he said, “but I’m sure it was just a coincidence. Maybe it proves that Rudy is just a lightning rod.” By the end of the day, a Google search revealed that hundreds of sites in the U.S. and abroad had carried the story; by week’s end, the YouTube clip had drawn more than 329,000 viewings and almost 2,000 blogger comments. As with immigration and gay marriage, Bishop Tobin had touched one of the great fault lines in American culture — and the rhetoric, on both sides, showed it. “Bishop Tobin is a moron,” was the full extent of one Internet posting. 
The Rev. Barry Connerton, pastor of St. Augustine's Parish in Providence, looks over the revamped Rhode Island Catholic newspaper at its unveiling at the cathedral. Others who disagreed were more expansive. Some maintained that the bishop had violated the principle of separation of church and state, which, they believed, was itself a sort of moral wrong. Others drew a connection between a Catholic prelate opposing abortion and the horrors of the priest sex-abuse scandal. “Hmmm,” wrote a person, “pro-life in the bishop’s stance equates to have the children, raise them to a tender age, then serve them up for some molester priest or other church leader to con and molest. All the better to eat you, my dear!” Wrote another: “The problem of sex crimes by priests are far from gone and the churches (globally) are continuing to hide the evil truth. Church officials are not punished and sentenced by a court of law, they are sick, demented, evil people that the church tolerates within its organization…. If it is truth people want, then, Tobin and the church have a long way to go.” In Washington, meanwhile, a group called Americans United for Separation of Church and State asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the diocese for possible violation of federal codes that prohibit tax-exempt organizations from endorsing or opposing candidates. “If the bishop wants to join the political fray,” the group’s director said, “he should do so as an individual without dragging along his tax-exempt diocese. A church is not a political action committee, and it should not act like one.” The IRS, however, did not open an investigation. Supporters of the bishop maintained that he had a right as a citizen — and an obligation as a Catholic leader — to voice Catholic beliefs, previous transgressions by the Church notwithstanding. “The pedophilia/child molester/Catholic priest scandal is a straw man of the highest order,” wrote a person on a local blog. “Are all Catholic authorities forever silenced because of the past bad acts of immoral, irresponsible and criminally negligent priests? When do you draw the line? How does that in any way relate to supporting the Church’s position against the abortion of unborn babies?” And another: “Hooray for the bishop! I am a Republican and Catholic and am very distressed that BOTH parties may have pro-abortion rights candidates at the top. The Dems would no more countenance a pro-life candidate than the Republicans should a pro-abortion rights candidate. The bishop is exercising moral leadership and is right. No Catholic should be turning a blind eye to the abortion agenda.” Meeting one day with his college chaplains, the bishop discussed abortion. What he wanted to convey, he said, was that the Church’s abhorrence of abortion was not a negative message, as some perceived it. “The fundamental truth is it’s a ‘yes’ to life,” the bishop said. But like immigration in 2007, emotions on abortion were fiery, and sometimes the subtleties, on both sides, were lost in the din. The Catholic Church had company in its opposition to abortion: it was a core value of the Christian fundamentalists who had twice helped elect President Bush, and it would be a factor in determining the 2008 Republican presidential nominee. Giuliani was suspect in the minds of some fundamentalists, as was Mitt Romney, who had supported abortion rights as Massachusetts governor, despite saying that he, too, personally opposed the procedure in most cases. Fred Thompson’s unshaded opposition to abortion helped put him high in the polls, even before his late announcement that he was seeking the presidency. One morning, the bishop reflected on the controversy, and how he reacted to reading the more extreme criticisms of him and the Church. “Some of it’s just plain stupid, so you don’t take it too seriously,” he said. “Some of it is very unfair because they tend to generalize situations in the church and then try in that sense to take away the Church’s moral voice. So I think you have to sometimes consider the sources and keep it in context.” But did it trouble him to be included among the ranks of what a blogger described as “sick, demented, evil people”? 
Bishop Tobin meets with members of his administrative board for their monthly meeting at the chancery at One Cathedral Square in Providence. Finances and the administration of the diocese's Catholic schools are among the board's duties. The bishop cited an interview with the pope’s brother, an 83-year-old retired German monsignor. Asked what he thought of harsh rebukes of Benedict XVI, Msgr. Ratzinger said criticism was an indication of good leadership. “A person active in God’s kingdom has to expect resistance, just like our Lord, who also encountered enemies time and again,” the monsignor said. “It can’t all be peace, joy and pancakes.” Bishop Tobin said: “Maybe, in a sense, if I’m drawing some criticism, or the church is drawing some criticism, that’s a sign that the church is doing its job, that I’m doing my job — and that I recognize fully it can’t be all peace, joy and pancakes.” Did he believe the Church really could change society? “Sometimes I’m doubtful about that, a little skeptical about whether or not the church’s position will prevail in our state or in our nation,” he said. “Because we’re obviously swimming against the tide, and we’re really counter-cultural. I do hope the church’s positions on these key issues will prevail. “But in one sense, it’s not as important whether or not we prevail as the fact that we’re being faithful to our own mission. We have a vocation, a task to fulfill, and that’s to speak on these issues and speak the moral truth as we see it and understand it.” 2. With priests and staff soon to begin their summer vacations, Bishop Tobin convened the last meeting of his administrative board until September. It was Monday, June 25. The meeting began, as usual, with a prayer, and then the bishop took up item number one: the draft of a letter, intended to be mailed to parents, describing impending changes in Catholic schools in Warwick. The letter stated that beginning in September 2008, two schools that currently taught students from pre-kindergarten through grade eight — St. Peter and St. Rose — would offer only education through grade six. A third school, St. Kevin, which also taught students from pre-kindergarten through grade eight, would become a co-educational middle school run by Bishop Hendricken High School. Diocesan education administrators believed that a fourth school, St. Francis, might close in 2008, although that possibility was not mentioned in the draft letter to parents. The bishop had received a copy of the letter only that morning. “I haven’t signed off on this plan,” he said, icily. The administrators who were behind it suddenly looked uncomfortable. The Hendricken-run middle school proposal was new to the bishop. “Nobody talked to me about that,” he said. The bishop also questioned the proposed timing of the letter’s release: the following weekend, which for many was the start of the long Fourth of July holiday. Would anyone be paying attention? And when they finally did, who in the diocese and the parishes would be around to answer their concerns? It was summer vacation time. “The timing’s really difficult to me,” the bishop said. An education official began to summarize the studies and discussions that had led them to this point. The bishop said he knew the background. 
The bishop blesses churchgoers during the renewal of Baptismal vows at the Easter Sunday Mass at the Cathedral of SS. Peter & Paul on April 8. The official said there was “buzz” in Warwick about possible changes. The bishop said he knew about that, too. Then the bishop softened, somewhat. He was unwilling to answer calls and letters on the issue during the summer — but if others wanted to, that might be fine. “If I’m the only one who has a problem,” he said, “then I’ll let you deal with it in July and August.” But the bishop remained troubled. The concept may be perfect, he said, but the wording of the letter struck him as misleading, if not dishonest. It said, for example, that these plans were a “proposal” and that parent “input is critical.” But the education administrators were presenting it to the bishop as a fait accompli; it was not, the bishop said. Still, if the wording were changed to reflect the true situation — that the diocese was headed in this direction — the letter could be mailed, Bishop Tobin said. The administrators said they would change the wording. In the end, the bishop decided not to send the letter. After the meeting, he asked for further study, with results to be presented to him after Labor Day. Next on the agenda was a proposal to merge two parishes that, on their own, were ailing — both financially, and in terms of their pastoral missions. An aging population and declining Mass attendance, combined with ineffective leadership, a diocesan study showed, were among the causes. The financial situation at both parishes was dire, said the Rev. Raymond B. Bastia, secretariat for planning and financial services. One was $30,000 in debt and had $140,000 in unpaid bills, while the second, headed by a priest some had taken to calling a “mad spender,” had spent $800,000 from its reserve accounts. “They will be completely out of money in nine months, with no indication of anything to stop that,” Father Bastia said. Chief Financial Officer Michael Sabatino said administrators had met with the pastor and offered to have the diocese take control. The pastor refused. This was not a story that the bishop, a fiscal conservative, wanted to hear. The bishop instructed top administrators — Father Bastia; the Rev. Msgr. Paul D. Theroux, vicar general and moderator of the curia; and the Rev. Msgr. John J. Darcy, vicar general and chancellor — to meet with the pastor and report back to him. If necessary, he said, the diocese would freeze the parish’s funds and assign someone from One Cathedral Square to take direct control. The meeting was almost two hours long. “Can we take a two-minute break?” the bishop said. “I want to stretch my legs — and have a martini!” He wasn’t really having one, of course, but the comment drew laughter. SINCE THE beginning of the Catholic Charity Fund appeal, a sign charting the campaign’s progress stood in the main entrance to One Cathedral Square. During the first week of July, after the books closed on the fundraising effort, someone had written: “Over goal, a new record. Thank you!” The campaign had brought in $15,066 more than the $7.85-million target the bishop had set in February. More than 48,000 individuals gave to the appeal, an increase of 1,400 — the first overall increase in six years. And for the first time ever, three parishes raised more than $200,000 apiece. Bishop Tobin was pleased. Liturgically, summer was slow; the bishop would not celebrate Mass in the cathedral again until after Labor Day. The bishop vacationed on Florida’s Sanibel Island for several days in July, then returned home, where he entertained a few friends and relatives, including his sister and brother-in-law, who flew in from Pittsburgh. August found him back at One Cathedral Square, and into the diocese for a few events, including an installation Mass at Narragansett’s St. Thomas More Church. The bishop had named the Rev. Marcel L. Taillon, formerly diocesan vocations director, pastor of the Narragansett parish. The dog days brought back memories for the bishop, which he shared in two of his summertime “Without a Doubt” columns. One, reprinted from his days in Ohio, contrasted his own experiences with back-to-school shopping in the 1950s with today, when cell phones and computers, more than pencils and rulers, were the coveted purchases. “I hope that our kids still learn the basics of a good education: reading, writing, and ’rithmetic,” he wrote. “And in our Catholic schools, I pray that our students know as much about Commandments as computers, are as comfortable in sacred space as cyberspace.” The other column, more deeply nostalgic, recalled his weekly golf dates with his aging father, Raymond, in the 1970s, when the bishop was a young priest in Pittsburgh. Dad, a Sears salesman, used an incomplete set of J.C. Higgins clubs, a Sears brand he’d bought with his company discount. The two would wager a dime per hole, and after their nine holes, they would return to the Tobin house, where Mrs. Tobin served dinner. After desert, the father, mother and son would repair to the porch, where the priest’s parents read the newspaper, listening to the Pittsburgh Pirates on the radio. “After my dad passed away,” the bishop wrote, “one of the hardest things I had to do was dispose of his golf clubs, a hand-me-down gift to one of my young nephews, I think. The clubs weren’t worth much — a partial, old, worn set with that very funny name, ‘J.C. Higgins’ — but they were priceless to me for the memories they inspired. “I don’t play golf very much anymore — a tight schedule and even tighter back conspire to make it difficult. And maybe that’s OK. Without my dad, golf isn’t nearly as much fun as it used to be.” 3. For an American bishop, idyllic days were mostly memories. Controversy took no time off that summer, and Bishop Tobin remained involved. In early August, he publicly praised a priest who had delivered a sermon in Barrington, where a 17-year-old boy had died in a boating incident in July. Alcohol was involved, the police said, and five days later, the Rev. S. Matthew Glover — a close friend of the bishop’s administrative secretary, the Rev. Michael A. Colello – said the town was in denial about its alcohol and substance abuse problems. The bishop telephoned his priest to privately applaud him, and he said in a front-page article in the Rhode Island Catholic: “I fully support Father Glover’s efforts to address a serious problem facing many families in Barrington.” Abortion, one of the great national fault lines, continued as an issue, with the Giuliani episode prompting a Protestant minister to assail Bishop Tobin on the commentary pages of The Providence Journal. While clergy sometimes took public stands that differed with beliefs espoused by other denominations, they rarely publicly challenged one of their fellows — but this was the second time in 2007 that the Rev. Eugene T. Dyszlewski, pastor of Riverside Congregational United Church of Christ, had fired a shot at Tobin. Raised a Catholic, Mr. Dyszlewski had entered a seminary in the late 1960s intending to be a priest. But the Church’s strict dogma put him off, and he left, eventually finding a ministry with the more liberal United Church of Christ. Mr. Dyszlewski first took Bishop Tobin to task in a March 2007 letter to the editor for his opposition to gay marriage. In his second letter, Mr. Dyszlewski wrote that he was “concerned” by the bishop’s “blatant foray” into American politics. “His public rebuke of Rudy Giuliani is an unfortunate intrusion into the American political process by a religious leader. In a country where religion is safe from state interference, shouldn’t the state be safe from religious interference? “I have no problem with the bishop’s teaching members of his fold whatever position his church takes on dogmatic and moral issues. However, it is hard to see that Mr. Giuliani has any pastoral connection with the Rhode Island prelate, and the opinion piece written by the bishop and disseminated by Vatican media sources did not have the tone of pastoral concern. It was a public rebuke of a presidential candidate. This behavior is divisive….” Nationally, journalists at The Associated Press, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and numerous other publications also explored the impact of abortion on the 2008 presidential race — particularly among conservative Republicans, many of whom, Catholic and Protestant, were stridently pro-life. The possibility that front-running Giuliani could be the GOP nominee worried this core constituency, who hoped someday for a Supreme Court that would overturn Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion. “We have our eye on the goal,” Kim Lehman, president of the Iowa Right to Life Committee, a branch of the National Right to Life Committee, told The New York Times. “Our goal is to get a pro-life president, so we can be confident of his position on legislation and confident of his judges.” Based in Washington, the nonsectarian national committee is America’s largest antiabortion group. Homosexuality also made headlines that summer, with the revelation that Republican Sen. Larry Craig had pleaded guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct stemming from a sexual advance to a male police officer in a Minneapolis airport bathroom. Once more, conservatives were angry. Until the airport encounter, Craig’s reputation was strong on “family values.” A Rhode Island Supreme Court case attracted national attention — and the bishop again found himself at odds with Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch. The Supreme Court was asked to rule whether Rhode Island can grant a divorce to two other women who had married in Massachusetts. In a brief to the court, Lynch argued that Rhode Island should grant the divorce. Bishop Tobin, through his lawyers, said it should not. He contended that the issue should be decided in a broader arena than a court of law. “The issue deserves the robust, full-ranging debate available in the media and the legislative process,” the bishop’s lawyers wrote. “If the law is to change in so radical a manner, every citizen of Rhode Island is entitled to participate in the debate and every legislator and executive branch official is entitled to solicit the views of the voters who elected them before changes are made. Given the teachings of the Church regarding the nature and purpose of marriage and the complementarity of the sexes, Bishop Tobin cannot and will not remain silent.” Word of the Rhode Island case spread, drawing briefs and counter-briefs, pro and con, from numerous parties. The Utah-based Marriage Law Foundation, filing on behalf of three organizations, came down on Bishop Tobin’s side. So did the National Legal Foundation, based in Virginia Beach, Va., which wrote: “Man-woman marriage is the law of Rhode Island, and it is the law of the species.” The American Civil Liberties Union supported Lynch’s position, as did several rabbis, an Episcopal priest and several Protestant ministers, including Mr. Dyszlewski. In its supporting brief, the Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, or GLAD, argued that the couple in question were legally married, regardless of how offensive or immoral that was to some. The law, they said, was the law. While opponents’ “clever word games might constitute for them some type of airtight logic,” GLAD wrote, “it is the logic that Lewis Carroll made so popular in Alice in Wonderland, and that leads to absurdity while also leaving behind the living, breathing people that the law is designed to support and protect.” THE BISHOP spent the week before Labor Day visiting relatives and friends in Pittsburgh. On Tuesday, Sept. 4, he was back in his office at One Cathedral Square. Schoolchildren had returned to the classroom. The Sunday Mass attendance committee resumed meeting, the properties-review board was about to make its recommendations, redesigned Web sites were soon to be launched, and the 2008 Catholic Charity Fund appeal was being planned. The Pittsburgh Steelers were playing again, and the bishop was planning visits to parishes and a week-long trip to Rome, where he hoped for an audience, if not a private meeting, with Pope Benedict. The Rhode Island Supreme Court was set to hear oral arguments on the same-sex divorce case, and with the presidential primaries looming, abortion and immigration were certain to be in the news. The bishop’s third autumn in New England promised to be busy.
|
On Monday, Oct. 29, Journal staff writer G. Wayne Miller hosted 
