WASHINGTON, D.C. — Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin on Sunday disputed key details of Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy’s account of their 2007 communication about whether the congressman should take Communion, given his support for abortion rights.

The leader of Rhode Island’s Catholics criticized the timing of Kennedy’s decision to publicize what the bishop called a private, “pastoral” message. He termed “absolutely inaccurate” Kennedy’s assertion that the bishop had instructed the priests of Rhode Island not to give him Communion.

“If I had told 300 priests of the diocese in any format not to give Communion to Kennedy or anybody else, you think that would have remained confidential?” Bishop Tobin asked.

Kennedy

Bishop Tobin spoke in an interview after Kennedy’s assertion in The Providence Sunday Journal that the “bishop instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion.”

“If he took it as an instruction, so be it, but it was really a request,” Bishop Tobin said upon releasing excerpts of a Feb. 21, 2007, letter to the Rhode Island Democrat. The bishop said he felt he had to comment on the letter because Kennedy had chosen to “break it open.”

“My correspondence with him was nearly three years ago — and I think it’s important to stress that — [and] was intended to be personal and confidential and pastoral,” the bishop said. “It was never intended for the public domain.”

Kennedy made his disclosure Friday, escalating a heated dispute with the bishop that began last month when the congressman assailed the Catholic stance on the abortion clauses in the health-care overhaul legislation pending before Congress. But Kennedy declined Friday to give any details of when or how the bishop had communicated his message about Communion. Kennedy has not answered telephone messages left Saturday and Sunday.

Tobin

Citing confidentiality between priests and parishioners, Bishop Tobin declined to say whether he has made such requests about Communion to Sen. Jack Reed, another Catholic Democrat from Rhode Island who supports abortion rights. Reed later Sunday issued this statement: “I respect the bishop and recognize his authority regarding these matters of faith, but any discussions we’ve had are between us.”

The bishop ducked a similar question about Rhode Island Rep. James R. Langevin’s support for embryonic stem cell research, which the church opposes as the destruction of human life. But he praised Langevin’s support for tough language against abortion subsidies in the health-care bill that the House has passed. Langevin, also a Democratic Catholic, generally opposes abortion rights.

(The Rhode Island congressional delegation’s fourth member, Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, is an Episcopalian who supports abortion rights.)

“I’m not picking on Patrick Kennedy,” Bishop Tobin said. “I’m responding to things Patrick Kennedy has said” in recent weeks. “In each case,” Bishop Tobin said, Kennedy “has started the dialogue and in each case I have responded to him.”

Bishop Tobin said he understood — and partly agreed with — critics who contend that headlines about denial of Communion to public officials are harmful to the majority of bishops who oppose the imposition of the such penalties.

The bishop said that his 2007 letter to Kennedy was in accordance with a newly issued statement from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that Catholics who “knowingly and obstinately” repudiate the church’s “definite teachings on moral issues” — such as abortion — should not take Communion. Bishop Tobin said the December 2006 paper was not just an appeal to the individual Catholics’ consciences but also “a teaching document, and bishops are always teachers of the faith.”

He said no one knows how many bishops confidentially bring that teaching to individual Catholic officials. He added, finally, that he had never contemplated that his letter to Kennedy would become public.

What is the distinction, Tobin was asked, between what Kennedy recollected as an “instruction” not to take Communion and what the bishop considered a request. How is a Catholic to take such a suggestion, coming from a bishop, he was asked?

Tobin said he “presumed” that Kennedy had complied with the request and was not certain what he would have done if Kennedy continued to take the sacrament. “If I had found out that he was regularly violating that request, the next step might have been more direct. An instruction? A decree? I don’t know what.”

Kennedy has said that he has taken Communion, but he did not give any specifics.

Tobin was asked whether, by taking his firm public stands on abortion, he is seeking to advance his career within the church.

“No,” he replied. “Bishops who tend to be really outspoken don’t tend to get promoted …

“It’s simply one bishop — me — doing my job as best I can.”

jmulligan@belo-dc.com