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Chapter Two School Days
By G. Wayne Miller 1. Friday, March 2, a short while into Lent 2007, began as most days had for Bishop Tobin since coming to Rhode Island. He awoke at about 6:30 a.m. and took his dog, Molly, who sleeps on his bed, out for a walk. Then he said his morning prayers, made himself breakfast, read the paper, watched the news and checked for overnight e-mails. In a short while, his administrative secretary would arrive to drive him to his first appointment of the day. The bishop was saying Mass and visiting a grade school, which he always enjoyed. It was good to get out of the office and be among children.
Empty for years until 2005, when John Paul II named a new bishop of Providence, the caretaker’s residence at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in East Providence had been renovated and furnished to Bishop Tobin’s specifications. Crucifixes and statues of Mary decorate the living room, and a wine rack and fresh-cut flowers grace the dining room. Photos of the current pope, Benedict XVI, and his predecessor, JP2, as clergy sometimes refer to him, hang on walls. The study, where Bishop Tobin writes most of his homilies and his columns for the diocesan newspaper, is filled with books — mostly religious in theme — and photographs of family and friends. His study desk, like his office desk at One Cathedral Square, is obsessively neat. The house has two bedrooms: one for his occasional guests, and one for him. The bishop’s room is small and simply decorated, with a bed, chest of drawers and a print of a painting, Jesus Knocking on the Door, based on a Biblical scene, which he’s had since he was a young child. His closet holds his black clerical suits and the casual off-duty attire he calls “play clothes.” He arranges his shoes by color: white tennis shoes and a few pairs of brown, but mostly black. The bishop’s sister sometimes jokes that he used to arrange his shoes by date of purchase, not just color, but that was apocryphal. The bishop is compulsive, but there are limits. Bishop Tobin’s private chapel adjoinsd his bedroom. He keeps many of his religious treasures there, including first-class relics — hair and bone fragments — of Mother Teresa and St. Columba, patron saint of the Youngstown, Ohio, cathedral. Another treasure is a chalice once owned by the pastor of the bishop’s childhood church, in Pittsburgh. The chalice had left Church hands after the pastor died and was damaged in a fire. Bishop Tobin’s parents rescued it from a flea market and gave it to their son, who later had it replated and restored. The chapel has no pews, only kneelers; the only one who usually attends the private Masses he celebrated for himself is his dog. “I used to keep her out, but she started wandering in,” the bishop said, as Molly sat quietly near a kneeler, her eyes on him. “That’s all she does — she sits there, doesn’t cause any trouble, doesn’t walk around, doesn’t bark. Where I go, she goes. She’s like a little lamb. She’s my flock!” He patted Molly, a present to himself for his 50th birthday. “Yeah, that’s right, I’m talking about you.” The sunroom is down the hall from the chapel. The basement has a wide-screen TV, bar and much of the bishop’s Pittsburgh Steelers’ memorabilia, and he sometimes entertains down there — but he spends most evenings in the sunroom, with its smaller TV and Venetian blinds. He sits in his favorite lounger, Molly with him, the remote control and a coaster for his evening martini on the table to his right, the portable phone and a clock on the chest to his left. He likes sports, news and opinion shows, and reruns of television classics. He often falls asleep with the TV on. 
His dog Molly, a gift to himself for his 50th birthday, is the first thing the bishop sees in the morning and keeps him company at the end of the day. Sometimes they watch television at night as the bishop winds down at home. Journal photo / Mary Murphy “This is where we crash at night, Molly and me.” SHORTLY AFTER 8 a.m., a car passed through the electric gates and parked in the bishop’s driveway. The bishop’s administrative secretary, the Rev. Michael A. Colello, came inside. Father Colello was acting this morning as Bishop Tobin’s master of ceremonies, which gave him responsibility for driving his boss, carrying his miter and crosier, and overseeing the many details that have to come together for the flawless services to which the bishop aspires. For high rituals such as an ordination or Good Friday services, which require choreography of clerics, choir, organist, orchestra, servers, readers and others, the details can run to several pages. A parish Mass on a weekday in Lent was simpler. Tall, thin and sandy-haired, Father Colello was the oldest of four children of a blue-collar worker and a registered nurse who now works at Wal-Mart. Father Colello attended public schools in North and South Kingstown, then graduated from Providence College, where he majored in history and philosophy. Four years later, he graduated from Pontifical North American College, the bishop’s alma mater — they were fellow “Romans,” priests educated in the shadow of the Vatican, which gave them a certain status in the Church. The bishop sees some of himself in Father Colello, a disciplined and punctual man who shares the same compulsive tendencies, which feed a shared sense of humor. They both diligently follow the news, a passion that began for Father Colello when he was a child and wanted to be a TV anchorman. Their birthdays are six days apart, which puts them in the same astrological sign, Aries — not that they heed those heavens. Father Colello spends many of his leisure hours with his boss. Unlike the bishop, whose culinary skills end with grilling steak, Father Colello is an accomplished chef; his specialty is Italian pasta sauces, including spaghetti al vongole, the bishop’s favorite. They met soon after the bishop arrived in Providence. Father Colello was an associate pastor at St. Philip’s in Greenville, among the diocese’s more vibrant parishes, and he impressed the bishop with his organizational abilities. The bishop needed a good assistant, and early in 2006, he asked Father Colello, who immediately accepted. At the time of his assignment, Father Colello was just 31, five years younger than Bishop Tobin when he took his first administrative job, in the Diocese of Pittsburgh. Inevitably, some wondered if Father Colello himself was on the bishop track. 
Father Colello and Bishop Tobin go over readings before the bishop officiates at the ordination of four priests at the cathedral in Providence on June 2. Father Colello often drives as the bishop makes his rounds. Journal photo / Mary Murphy LEAVING MOLLY in the care of the housekeeper, the bishop rode with his administrative secretary to East Providence’s Sacred Heart Church. They were in the bishop’s car, a late-model Mercury Montego with a three-digit license plate, on free loan from the Tasca car dealer family. A Mercury suits Bishop Tobin fine, but Father Colello thinks it rather ordinary. He often jokes that the Tascas now own a Volvo dealership, too — wouldn’t a Volvo better befit a bishop? So far, the bishop has prevailed. It was a bleak, windswept, rainy day. Easter lilies and lilacs seemed an eternity away on this 10th day of Lent. The bishop and Father Colello went to the church sacristy, changed into their vestments and Mass began. Dressed in their traditional uniforms, the school children brought to mind the 1950s, when Bishop Tobin had come of age. In his homily, the bishop addressed the meaning of Lent, a time of prayer and repentance. When Mass ended, he stood inside the main door of the church, greeting parishioners and the children, who were returning to school, across a flooded street. The bishop wore one of his many miters, and he carried a crosier that nuns had given him years before in Pittsburgh. The crosier consists of several short pieces that unscrew for transport in a small case. It is one of several, wood and metal, that the bishop owns. “Whenever someone sees the bishop carrying a crosier,” the bishop explained, “they should automatically think about Jesus the good shepherd. And it’s a reminder to the bishop himself that he tries to be a shepherd. In the life of the church, the work of shepherding — the work of pastoring — is always defined in three ways: it’s to teach; it’s to administrate, or to govern; and it’s to sanctify. “It’s been pointed out that a crosier, of course, has two ends: there’s a hook on the top and a point on the bottom. A shepherd would use those in the field. If the sheep are wandering away, he’ll use the hook to gently pull the sheep back together so they won’t get in trouble. Or if the sheep aren’t moving at all, or they’re moving in the wrong direction, he’ll turn the staff around and poke them a little bit to get them going.” THE BISHOP and his secretary returned to the sacristy and changed into their 33-button Roman cassocks: the priest’s all black, the bishop’s black also, but with red buttons and red piping. The bishop tied a red cincture, or sash, around his waist; put on a red zucchetto, or skull cap; and finished the look with a crucifix around his neck. Father Colello held the umbrella as they went into the school. The bishop visited all of Sacred Heart’s students, kindergarten to eighth grade. He went room-by-room, greeting the children, inquiring about their secular and religious studies, discussing Lent and lightly quizzing them on religion. He answered their questions. He gave every child a small card with his photo on one side, his coat of arms on the other. He asked them to pray for him when they beheld it, and he promised to pray for them. 
First graders at Sacred Heart School in East Providence pose with the bishop on March 2. The bishop went room to room asking the children questions and answering theirs. Journal photo / Mary Murphy Near the end of his visit to second grade, the bishop said: “Do you have any questions you’d like to ask Father Michael today? Because he has lots of information, too.” “Good morning, everyone,” Father Colello said. “Good morning, Father Michael!” the children said. One girl raised her hand and asked: “Why are you wearing a dress?” The children giggled and Bishop Tobin laughed along with them. Father Colello, who often wears cufflinks and carries a Prada briefcase, was momentarily flustered. “I’ve never gotten that question before,” he said. “It’s not actually — it looks a little bit like a dress — but it’s actually a robe. It has a very special name. It’s called a cassock.” “Well,” said a boy, “it looks like a dress.” “His is a lot like mine,” the bishop said, “except mine has some red.” “Pink,” the boy said. To be technically correct, the bishop said, the color is fuscia. “Father Michael does lots of great work for me,” he said. “Helps at church and gets me where I’m supposed to go and keeps me from getting in too much trouble.” A third grader wanted to know why the bishop wanted to be a priest. The bishop said that his calling began when he was attending a parochial school much like this. The nuns and priests inspired him. “I said, ‘I bet I can do that,’ so I started to think about it and pray about it. God creates each one of us to do something special during our time on Earth, and I think that’s what God wanted me to do. I just thought it was a great thing to do — to help people be holy, to help people get to heaven.” Curiosity about the bishop’s and priest’s clothes continued in other classrooms. In fourth grade, a boy pointed to Bishop Tobin’s cincture and asked: “Why do you wear that thingamajiggy?” “This is a very special outfit that bishops wear on special occasions,” the bishop said. Today was such an occasion. “But I don’t wear this all the time. Sometimes I just wear a black suit, and sometimes I just wear, like, ‘play clothes,’ when I’m relaxing.” The bishop drew attention to his cap. “Anyone know what this is called?” “A yarmulke?” “That might be one word for it. But for Catholics, this is called a zucchetto. Sort of like zucchini. See — it goes on your head just like this.” He placed it on a child’s head. His hair had tousled when he’d removed the zucchetto, and he patted it back down. The bishop was particular about his appearance. “Oh, cool!” the child said. 
Bishop Tobin greets Sacred Heart students after saying Mass for the students and parishioners of the church on a Friday in March during Lent. Curiosity about the bishop's clothes followed him from classsroom to classroom. In fourth grade, a boy pointed to his cincture and asked, "Why do you wear that thingamajiggy?" Journal photo / Mary Murphy “You hardly know that it’s on, huh? It’s light. Bishops wear purple ones. What about cardinals? What color do you think cardinals wear?” “Red.” “And the pope?” “White.” “Excellent! It shows your position in the church.” Discussion turned to Lent and Good Friday, when Christ was crucified. “Did Jesus die of, like, dehydration — or did he bleed to death?” a boy asked. “I don’t think we know that for sure,” the bishop said, “but probably it was a little bit of everything. Probably suffering, and he lost lots of blood, and he had trouble breathing, and he was really worn out. See my cross? That’s a reminder of how much Jesus loved us, that he died on the cross. That’s why bishops wear crosses.” 2. The next morning, Saturday, March 3, found Bishop Tobin presiding over a meeting at Our Lady of Providence Seminary, where he had celebrated his maiden Mass as leader of his new diocese two years before. This occasion was a planning session intended to help bring priests – and, by extension, their bishop — into a closer relationship with lay people. The bishop wanted to bring new life to parish pastoral councils, local groups comprising priests and lay people. Since coming to Providence, he had learned that only about a quarter of the diocese’s 152 parishes had pastoral councils — and many in that 25 percent met irregularly or were dormant. Parish councils were high on the bishop’s list. Some two dozen men and women, most of them lay people, joined Bishop Tobin at a long conference room table. The youngest was a college student; the oldest a man past 75. Representatives of Rhode Island’s African-American, Cape Verdean, Dominican, Brazilian and Polish-American communities, among others, were there. One member of the committee was a professor, another a banker. There was a nurse, a state employee, several businessmen and a stay-at-home mother. The bishop began by having a young man read from Thomas A Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ, written in the 15th century and a popular guide to Catholic spirituality ever since. The man read from the bishop’s copy, which Mary and Raymond Tobin had given their son on his 13th birthday, when he already wanted to be a priest. Behold, in the cross is everything, and upon your dying on the cross everything depends. There is no other way to life and to true inward peace than the way of the holy cross and daily mortification. 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.… When the reading was done, the bishop explained why A Kempis, the German-born mystical priest and monk, was not a saint. Apparently, he had gone into a coma and been buried alive, unintentionally by people who thought he had died. “According to legend,” the bishop said, “when they started the process of looking toward his beatification and canonization, they opened his casket, which would be a very typical thing to do if they were examining someone for canonization. On the inside of his casket they found scratch marks — which led them to conclude that he was probably buried alive after some illness or disease or whatever. And because of the possibility that perhaps he betrayed his faith, or had doubted or given in to some kind of despair in his last moments of agony, they couldn’t proceed with his canonization.” The bishop paused, to set up a line. “I always sort of thought that was unfair,” he said. “If I was buried alive, I would try and get out!” The planners roared. On a coffee break, the bishop joked to Father Colello about Anna Nicole Smith, who had been buried the day before after lying for weeks in a morgue while lawyers fought over the final disposition of her body: no one, he conjectured, would be digging her up for purposes of canonization. The bishop construed Smith’s celebrity and the coverage of her sad fate — which he, too, had followed until it disgusted him and he stopped — as another symptom of a culture with misplaced values. But for her personally, the bishop hoped that Anna had found peace. After small-group discussions, everyone returned to the table to share suggestions. The bishop promised to consider each carefully. “I think it’s really important that the laity increasingly take responsibility, in proper ways, for the life of the church,” he said. “It was John Paul II who wrote that in large measure, the future of the church depends on the involvement of the laity.” The bishop concluded the nearly three-hour meeting by listening to general comments. Several applauded his recent stand against gay marriage. “This speaks to one of the things that’s most near and dear to my heart,” the bishop said, “because, as you know, I’ve tried to be out front there on all these current social and moral issues. I’ve been very visible and very vocal — but frankly, sometimes I feel I’m out there by myself.” He said people tell him: “Bishop, you lead the charge.” And when he does, he said, he looks behind him and wonders: “Where’s everybody else?” The bishop gave his view of leadership. “My job is to inspire you. Your job is to change the world. You have to be involved in the marketplace and our schools and our communities and in our legislatures. I don’t mind leading the charge, but it’s very difficult to do it all by myself.” 3. The journey that brought Thomas Joseph Tobin to Providence began in a Pittsburgh hospital on April 1, 1948. That was the day that the Tobins welcomed their fourth and final child. 
Tommy Tobin, age 9 months, plays in Pittsburgh on Jan. 9, 1949. Photo courtesy of Bishop Tobin Descendant of a man who had immigrated to America from Ireland in the 19th century, Raymond worked for a local Sears store selling radios, record players and TVs, when they came on the market. Mary, of English and German descent, was the daughter of a Lutheran man and his Catholic wife, who had baptized her daughter in her faith. Mary was at home with the Tobins’ other children, two nearly teenage boys and a girl who was almost 9 years older than baby brother. No one had predicted Tom’s birth — the family line held that he was a “mistake” — but the elderly woman who lived on the first floor of the two-family row house that the Tobins rented in Pittsburgh’s working-class East End delivered a prophecy. Holding Tom in her arms when his parents brought him home, she pronounced: “This one will be a priest.” On Dec. 8, 1948, a date Mary always remembered since it was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the Tobins left the city for a home they had bought in a suburban development; like many families after the war, they were realizing a piece of The American Dream. The house had two stories and a front porch with a glider, on which Raymond and Mary often sat reading the daily paper. 
His childhood was busy with Little League, Scouts, a paper route and books. Photo courtesy of Bishop Tobin As he grew, Tom Tobin developed many interests. He played the accordion. He read. He was a Cub Scout. He golfed with his father. He played ping pong and Little League baseball, and he organized a Wiffleball league, collecting four cents a week from his fellow players for a bat-and-ball replacement fund. He had a paper route. He passed hours in the woods abutting the backyard, building forts and catching frogs with his buddies. Many years later, one friend would recall it as a Leave it To Beaver existence, middle class and mostly Caucasian. Tom did not attend kindergarten — for reasons he does not remember more than 50 years later, the thought scared him, and his mother did not force her baby to go. He was a straight-A student in first grade at the newly opened parish school, Saint Teresa. He was friendly and well-behaved, although his teacher, Sister Claudia, did note her concern on his report card that he obeyed promptly and willingly and was courteous in speech and manner only “most” of the time. Except for an occasional B or C in handwriting and art, he earned all A’s during his remaining seven years. 
His first communion was at St. Teresa Church in Pittsburgh in the spring of 1956. Photo courtesy of Bishop Tobin The Tobins were not completely immersed in the Church, but they always attended Sunday Mass, sitting in the second pew. Tom was fascinated by the rituals, the stained-glass windows, the incense, the holy water and the sacred oils, all of which suggested timeless mystery. By third grade, Tom was saying play Mass on his mother’s Singer sewing machine table, with the machine folded down to create a makeshift altar. Mom had made vestments from a sheet, and his teenage sister sometimes served as altar girl. He used flattened sandwich bread as the host, a tea cup for a chalice. He lit a candle in a miniature ceramic grotto of the Virgin Mary that someone had found discarded in the woods in back of his house. Decades later, the grotto would adorn his living-room mantel in a house 450 miles away. In eighth grade, Tom applied for admission to what was known as a “minor seminary,” few of which exist any longer. Sister Eileen, his principal, was required to write assessments of all candidates. She was blunt, describing one candidate as “morally good but inclined to be a day dreamer,” another as “confused and uncertain of aims.” But Thomas Tobin, she wrote, exhibited “fine character and ability. Very sincere in his desire to be a priest. He is conscientious and thorough in his work. He is quite sociable and well-liked.” The boy, she believed, could fulfill an old woman’s prophecy.
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On Monday, Oct. 29, Journal staff writer G. Wayne Miller hosted 
