The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights is criticizing Chris Matthews of the MSNBC show “Hardball,” saying he was uncivil in his Monday TV interview with Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin.

Catholic League President Bill Donohue said the group’s New York office was deluged with calls, e-mails and faxes from outraged viewers after Matthews unleashed a “tirade” at the bishop “with an extended and quite insulting lecture.”

“He had absolutely no interest in a discussion on the question of the morality and legality of abortion,” Donahue said in a news release Tuesday. “All he wanted to do was to make the bishop sit there and listen to his rant.”

Matthews, who had invited Bishop Tobin on his show Monday night to talk about his dispute with U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy over the issue of abortion and the congressman’s standing in the church, repeatedly asked the bishop what sort of law he would write if he were a member of Congress.

Tobin replied that he would leave the crafting of legislation to the lawmakers, but that if he were in Congress he would never support a law that enabled, facilitated or encouraged abortion. Instead, he said, he would work for laws that would “preserve and protect human life.”

Matthews asked several times whether Tobin would throw women who procure abortions in jail. When the bishop answered that he had no idea what the penalty should be, and that it would all depend on the legislation being crafted, Matthews, an Irish Catholic, said:

“If there is hesitancy about punishing a woman for having an abortion, maybe that’s instructive to you, sir, Your Excellency, that maybe you should step back from using the law as your tool in enforcing your moral authority..

“I’ve asked you three times what the law should be. You say you don’t know how to do it. Well, if you can’t do it, maybe you shouldn’t be involved in telling Congressman Kennedy how to write the law.”

Donohue said Tuesday: “No non-Catholic would ever treat a bishop this way. But too many liberal Catholics, especially Irish Catholics, think they are exempt from the same standards of civility that apply to others.”

Later Tuesday, the Rhode Island State Right to Life Committee commended Tobin for maintaining his composure during Matthews’ “temper tantrum.”

Barth E. Bracy, the group’s executive director, said in a release that Matthews apparently didn’t know that before the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion, state laws targeted abortionists, not women who had abortions.

“Matthews’ soliloquy comes right from the talking points of the abortion industry,” Barth said. “The reality is that the current health-care debate has nothing to do with making abortion illegal. It has everything to do with the abortion industry’s desire for federal subsidies. And the fact is that Kennedy cast his vote in favor of federal subsidies for abortion-on-demand.”

With reports from

Tom Mooney