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Sixty percent of Catholic voters say that abortion can be a moral choice


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Kaine-PenceCatholics for Choice has released a new poll that “the story of what Catholic opinions might mean at the voting booth come November 8.” According to the polling data, 46 percent of Catholic voters support Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, and 40 percent support Republican candidate Donald Trump.

Key findings include:

  • Latinos, Catholic women and Catholic millennials show the largest support for Clinton over Trump.
  • Sixty percent of Catholic voters say that the views of the Catholic hierarchy are not important to them when they are deciding who to vote for in the presidential election.
  • Six in ten Catholic voters do not feel an obligation to vote the way the bishops recommend.
  • Sixty percent of Catholic voters say that abortion can be a moral choice.
  • Seventy-two percent believe that abortion should be available to pregnant women who have contracted the Zika virus.
  • Seventy percent of Catholics do not think that companies should be allowed to use the owner’s religious beliefs as a reason to deny services to a customer or employee.

Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice said, “The Catholic vote is like a jump ball in basketball—every election it comes into play and both parties try to claim it as their own. As it represents 25 percent of the electorate, considerable effort goes into trying to determine which team will grab it. However, as this new poll shows what we’ve always known: Catholics are concerned with social justice and compassion and do not vote with the bishops, no matter how much the bishops try to project their own beliefs onto this section of the electorate.”

The poll was conducted before the vice presidential debate between Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence, where the two squared off on religious liberty and abortion, but in a statement released after the debate Catholics for Choice said, “Catholics act according to their own conscience and they do not stand with the Catholic hierarchy on abortion, access to healthcare or the rise of religious refusals backed by the bishops, and similarly do not think they nor Catholic politicians have an obligation to vote according to the Bishops. In fact, Senator Tim Kaine said it was not the role of a public servant to mandate their faith through government, and on fundamental issues of morality, like abortion, we should let women make those decisions.”

Rhode Island is routinely said to be the most Catholic of the United States.

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Reverend takes Tobin to task for calling to keep cannabis criminalized


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Rev. Alexander Sharp, of Clergy for a New Drug Policy, wrote this open letter to Bishop Thomas Tobin, the head of the Catholic Church in Rhode Island who recently asked state legislators in a blog post not to make marijuana legal.

Dear Bishop Tobin,

tobinOn May 10, you asserted in a public commentary that all drug use is sinful and immoral. You urged state legislators to reject the legalization of marijuana. As a member of the Protestant clergy, I reach a very different conclusion.

We read the same Bible, worship the same God, and seek to follow the teachings of Jesus. What, then, explains where we differ, and why? You acknowledge that a case, which you do not refute, can be made for the recreational use of alcohol. Marijuana is far less dangerous than alcohol, yet you do not attempt to justify this double standard.

You then quote the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “The use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life.” You cite the words of Pope Francis two years ago: “Drug addiction is an evil, and with evil there can be no yielding or compromise.”

The reality is that we live in a drug-using society. Most of us consume some kind of drug on a regular basis: alcohol, caffeine, tobacco, prescription drugs, or marijuana. The question that challenges us both, then, is how to respond to the possibility that drug use can become addictive. Sadly, your understanding of addiction is incomplete and outdated.

In 1971, Richard Nixon declared a War on Drugs. In the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan became its general. His wife Nancy was credited with the famous phrase “Just Say No” as the path to avoiding addiction.

We can be grateful that medical science today has helped us to understand more about the complexities of addiction than we did in the era of Ronald Reagan. In light of current knowledge, the War on Drugs is immoral. “Just Say No” seems simplistic, even fatuous.

Addiction is far less about the properties of an individual drug than the inner pain that causes a user to seek temporary relief. This inner pain is, more often than not, the “gateway” to drug abuse, not any particular substance. That’s why not just drugs, but certain kinds of behavior, can become addictive — gambling, sex, the internet, shopping, and even food.

Most people who experiment with drugs move beyond them. You speak of our youth as ‘immune to reality with their electronics – hoodies on, heads down, ear buds in…” But most of the “zombie youth” you deride will outgrow this behavior. It’s this kind of being out-of- touch that leads to youth not paying attention to adults’ advice in the first place.

In December, I participated in a conference in Providence’s Gloria Dei Cathedral. Police, physicians, and clergy addressed the impact of the War on Drugs. One of the panelists, a former president of the Rhode Island Medical Society, noted that about 10% of those who use drugs run a serious risk of addiction. About half of those will avoid addiction through treatment. It is the remaining 5% we must worry about.

Medical experts are determining that trauma and profound stress are the primary, though certainly not only, causes of addiction. Trauma and stress can take many forms, ranging from sexual abuse to acute loneliness and isolation. Pope Francis is correct when he notes a connection between addiction and extreme poverty.

People struggling with addiction are, most often, neither sinful nor weak, as increasingly outdated moral teachings would have us believe. The phrase “self-medication” is not an accident. Arresting people with an addiction is morally wrong and does nothing to alleviate their underlying pain.

My Christian faith also tells me that punishment and “tough love” are rarely the best way to change behavior. We are most likely to reach others when we respond to them with care, compassion, mercy, respect, and honesty. This is what Jesus did. Condemnation was not his instrument of change.

We are living in the dawn of a new drug policy in this country. It is called harm reduction and is based on the tenets that drugs can never be completely eliminated and that we should help drug users without insisting on abstinence. At least 35 states now have needle exchange programs as a life-saving means of avoiding HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C.

In opposing marijuana legalization, you are complicit in the failed and immoral War on Drugs. In Rhode Island, which has already decriminalized marijuana, you are nevertheless supporting fines on poor, most often young people, who can ill afford to pay them, and may face lifetime consequences as a result.

You refer derisively to “benign forms” of marijuana: “cookies, brownies, and mints” in states where it is legal. But isn’t this safer than leaving our youth to sellers in back alleys who sometimes offer toxic, adulterated marijuana, and are happy to provide the harder drugs.

Most importantly, in continuing to focus on marijuana legalization, you are distracting attention and resources from what we both fear most – the dangers of addiction. We share the common purpose of reducing the harm of drugs in our society, but we differ on the means. Your commentary is clever and engaging, but ultimately it is wrong.

Yours in Faith,

Rev. Alexander E. Sharp

Executive Director
Clergy for a New Drug Policy

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Bishop Tobin has been a moral failure for RI


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“We need a moral leader of the church who will speak out against war and poverty, not gay marriage and marijuana,” I said about Bishop Thomas Tobin on NBC10 News Conference this weekend.

tobinTobin was in the news for a blog post he wrote calling on lawmakers to keep cannabis illegal in Rhode Island. “In opening the door to drug use even a little bit, we have so much to lose and absolutely nothing to gain,” he wrote. But as I responded on TV, “The Bishop is essentially siding with mass incarceration if he wants marijuana to stay illegal, and that’s a far greater sin than indulgence.”

I called him a “moral failure for our state and for the Catholic Church.”

In the online segment I made clear my harsh judgement is not for his position on drug policy. It’s also not for taking a strong position against abortion. It’s because he has been completely absent from the public discussion on poverty and war – issues that have been central to all Rhode Islanders lives during his tenure as bishop. “I want the Church to advocate for issues that matter to the people of Rhode Island,” I said.

In his interview with Bill Rappleye (about 3:10), Tobin expressed his views on war.

“Of course I’m against wars, I don’t know anyone who is in favor of wars,” Tobin said. “I think it was St. John Paul who said war is always a defeat for humanity. It’s never good.”

But, he added, “Sometimes there are prudential judgments.”

He continued, “The Catholic Church has a long tradition of talking about a ‘just war theory’. It is never to say someone is just in starting a war, but we certainly believe in the right of self defense. What would someone do to respond to the attacks of terrorism, of ISIS, the terrible persecution of Christians taking place in the Middle East, the attacks on our own country or in France or in Belgium? How do we respond to these violent terrorist attacks without having some means of self defense. That’s where I think someone providing legitimate armaments and self defense has a legitimate role to play. Again, no one is in favor of war.”

On transgender bathrooms, Tobin, a Republican who said he probably won’t vote for Donald Trump, showed some compassion before invoking a popular conservative talking point.

“I have no doubt there are some people for physiological or psychological reasons have to deal with being transgendered and those people deserve all the support and respect and cooperation and assistance we can offer them but I’m also concerned this seems to be becoming a politically-driven agenda. It does seem to me to be very sweeping and overarching and perhaps another intrusion of the federal government into areas that are best decided at the local level.”

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Why I write Hendricken ’05 on my pro-choice petitions


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hawks_logoFollowing the terrorist actions of an anti-choice militant in Colorado on November 27, 2015, I feel compelled to offer a few reflections on this notion of ‘the sanctity of life’ and why I invoke my Bishop Hendricken High School alumnus status when I contact my congressional representatives in Washington regarding choice issues. It is worth noting here that these opinions are my own and they do not represent the opinions of the school or any association of students past or present, though I hope they one day might. I also would be remiss if I did not add that I understand and respect the feelings this might engender within those aforementioned communities, but I do not intend this as an insult to anyone in those groups.

When I was at Hendricken, there was something called the Irish Club, a group of students and faculty that engaged in an after-school celebratory discourse about Celtic Catholic spirituality and culture. We would from time to time touch on the tremendously fraught issue that is the Irish Republican Army. The overwhelming opinion was that, even though the IRA was right in its aims, they were wrong to launch attacks in a fashion that resulted in civilian casualties. Leaving aside my own further intellectual development since I discovered the works of Frantz Fanon, the reality is that one can and should apply this logic to the murder of people at a women’s clinic.

Anything less than a full-throated rejection of an act of religiously-influenced domestic terrorism on par with the violence of 9/11, including modifying phrases that condemns the activities of the victims, is the stuff of cowardice. If a school should be involved in such acts of cowardice, their ability to be serviced by taxpayer-funded free school bussing should be revoked, as should the supply of taxpayer-funded text books in math, science, and other subjects. If we are going to have some individuals harping and howling over whether President Obama was taught in a radical Muslim madrassa in Indonesia, we are going to hold Catholic education to the same standards while remembering that Osama bin Laden was also opposed to abortion rights.

One of the lessons that I took from 9/11 that I think very few others likewise took was understanding why that event happened. Some would call this a Left position, others an anti-American position, but I call a logical and educated position. Those attacks were not random acts, they were a violent climax of events over decades involving American military force in the post-colonial world. From the bloody vistas of Vietnam to Jimmy Carter’s idiotic policies in Afghanistan and beyond, America planted hateful seeds abroad that blew back onto our shores and killed civilians.

We should be wise and apply this logic herein. This violence was not random, it was a violent and bloody culmination of years of a coordinated series of anti-choice actions that the media has refused to cover or failed to properly dissect in the name of their farcical ‘objectivity’. Clinics nationwide have been closed over the past several years with a series of Kafkaesque building codes. For months, there have been arson attacks on women’s healthcare clinics that have not been front page news on the Providence Journal (do not even get me started with their misogynist coverage of this violence). The farcical and utterly transparent videos produced by anti-choice scoundrels this summer are now confirmed to have fueled this madman’s violence and that vanguard of objectivity, Edward Achorn, printed letters and columns in his editorial pages that furthered those lies. I would not hesitate to show him as much contempt as some of his colleagues have shown for Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning (though the fact is that they were telling the truth whereas Achorn was promoting lies). The trail of tears leads to many doorways, including his. No longer can he talk of concerns about promoting terrorism in the Arab world without having this held over his head.

Let us consider for a moment the odious Bishop Thomas Tobin, whose war against women included his Know-Nothing rally at the doors of Planned Parenthood last summer. I would respect Bishop Tobin if he was actually serious about protecting children, but considering how he continues to give soft glove treatment to Bishop Emeritus Gelineau while the man has reams of testimony against him regarding sexual abuse of minors (here, here, and here), I would trust Charles Manson to protect a youth before I trusted Bishop Tobin. What is more, he is a publicly-registered Republican and actively opposed the Affordable Care Act, a law that provides the very contraceptive care that can prevent unwanted pregnancy and therefore abortion. If the Church opposes contraception, fine, that is the realm of moral instruction of membership. But when you get into actively lobbying against public policy, that is a wholly different realm. The Providence Diocese for a long time now has ceased to be a purely religious body and become the politically lobbying Grand Old Diocese, or GOD. This is such a transparent farce that the Three Stooges would blanch in embarrassment.

But there is plenty blame left. What about our allegedly pro-choice Gov. Gina Raimondo, who threw women under the bus this year at the whims of the aforementioned Republican Diocese? Can we call this rolling over for both the opposition party and the Church that took her picture off the walls of LaSalle Academy anything but a terminal lack of backbone? Why is our democracy allowed to be controlled by a body that fails to pay taxes, shelters child abusers, and supports terrorism? Are all the women of Rhode Island worth a quickie compromise with these fools? The precedents she has created are deadly and fed into this madness.

Yet the ultimate amount of guilt lies with ourselves. We failed women. We were unable, unwilling, or uncaring enough to take these warning signs serious enough. We should have been more full-throated about this than a bickering fest about a baseball stadium. In the days before 9/11, the record shows that a select few government employees were running around Washington like their hair was on fire, begging the Bush administration for attention. Were there such figures in the Ocean State landscape I missed? Steve Ahlquist has been one, his coverage of the Raimondo legal moves have been admirable and is going to be used as primary sources by future historians. But was there a Richard Clarke on hand telling we alleged feminists to watch out? Why were we not like he was? To quote the Bard “The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but ourselves.”

After this, every reproductive healthcare center should be under the same level of protection that T.F. Green Airport is. After this, we should quit worrying about Syrian Muslim terrorism and start worrying about American Christian anti-choice terrorism. After this, we should be more vocal and saying that abortion accounts for only 3% of Planned Parenthood medical care and the rest is focused on low-cost healthcare for men and women, including contraceptive, cancer, and STI testing/treatment care, medical care that would otherwise be unavailable for many of their patients. We should vocalize that, prior to the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, the largest killer of women of child-bearing age was septic abortion, more than car accidents or cancer.

If moral absolutists are going to argue that they do not want their tax dollars funding abortion, they should be as vocal about funding our murderous, child-killing military-industrial complex and be pro-life regarding Palestinian children. Yet the only religious group I know of that does that is the generally pro-choice Quakers. Are Catholic Bishops willing to use the same condemnatory tones used towards those who help procure abortions with Catholic soldiers and threaten automatic excommunication for drone killings, especially since the revelations by The Intercept and other publications reveal the targeted assassinations program has killed so many innocent children?

NARAL Pro Choice petitions I recently received in the mail.
NARAL Pro Choice petitions I recently received in the mail.

I write Hendricken ’05 on my pro-choice petitions to our Congressional delegates because Jack Reed is a Catholic and James Langevin went to Hendricken. I write Hendricken ’05 on my pro-choice petitions because, once you void the privacy of the doctor’s office, you create a slippery slope that could void the privacy of the Catholic priest’s confessional due to the fact clergy and medical personnel are protected by the same statutory logic. I sign Hendricken ’05 because I oppose terrorism. I sign Hendricken’05 because I believe women know better than anyone else what medical care they need and that the patient is always the best advocate for their care, not priests. I sign Hendricken ’05 because I respect the female teachers at Hendricken. When I was a student, there were instances where male instructors would sometimes talk about the ‘morality’ of regarding why some of these teachers did not have a large number of children, behavior showing of a lack of respect for these women that screams Human Resources complaint. But I also sign Hendricken ’05 because I believe in sanity, secularism, feminism, and maturity and do not believe in governance by religious fundamentalism. It was John Adams who said “The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

Finally, I sign Hendricken ’05 because all Hawks are quality one, even if they are pro-choice. By pro-choice, I do not mean I push my sexist nose into the doctor’s office to observe all the activities therein. Rather, it means I respect when that door closes and do not dare open it ever lest I have the same be done to my mother, aunt, grandmother, sister, or female friends. This is the kind of respect I also express for the Seal of the Confessional.

Those who tell you that being pro-choice automatically means being in favor of abortion are lying. It is the complete opposite. Being pro-choice means not being in favor of anything a woman chooses to do in her doctor’s office because it is none of your business, period. Being pro-choice also means opposing state-mandated abortion, such as the Chinese one-child policy, because a law like that strips a woman of her agency and intrudes on the relationship she has with her doctor. Men are not subjected to the level of regulation and scrutiny when they choose medical care that I might not agree with, ergo a woman is due that same level of respect. Refusal to grant that is defined by an SAT vocabulary word, misogyny.

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RI Future to cover Pope Francis’ US visit


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Steve Ahlquist wants to cover Pope Francis

Despite having more Roman Catholics than any other state in the country, no Pope has ever visited Rhode Island. In September Pope Francis will be the fourth Pope to visit the United States in what will be the tenth papal visit to our shores.

The first Pope to visit the United States, or even the Western Hemisphere, was Paul VI in 1965. He limited his visit to New York. He met with President Lyndon Johnson, spoke before the United Nations, held a mass at Yankee Stadium and visited the New York World’s Fair, cramming a lot into a 14 hour visit.

Pope John Paul II , 14 years later, made his first of seven visits to the United States. This Pope visited Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington, Des Moines, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Miami, Columbia, New Orleans, San Antonio, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Denver, Newark, Brooklyn, Baltimore and St. Louis over 20 years of visits.

Benedict XVI was the last Pope to visit the United States, arriving in Washington and visiting New York in 2008.

In Rhode Island, Catholics make up about 44 percent of the population, the highest in the nation. But if Rhode Island Catholics want to catch a glimpse of their spiritual leader, they need to travel to where he is. That’s why the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence is leading a pilgrimage of 400 faithful to Philadelphia, where the Pope is speaking before the World Meeting of Families.

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Pope Francis Graffiti

Pope Francis, while being true to his predecessors on the subjects of reproductive rights and homosexuality, (he’s against both) has nonetheless upset conservative Catholics in the United States with his stance on the environment and capitalism (which he has compared to “the devil’s dung.”)

Quoted in Politico, Sam Clovis, a Catholic and political activist who’s run for US Senate and state treasurer in Iowa said, “In northwest Iowa, we are discussing this a great deal, and sometimes it’s hard for us to reconcile the pronouncements we read from the Holy Father with our conservative principles.”

Meanwhile, Republican Catholics running for president, such as Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Rick Santorum are all trying to differentiate between what their Catholic faith compels them to believe and what are merely the opinions of Pope Francis. The same politicians who once said to Catholics in support of LGBTQ and reproductive rights that such positions were impossible to square with true Catholicism are now facing the same criticism themselves on the issues of economic and environmental justice.

Locally, we are seeing similar reactions to Pope Francis. Conservative Catholic blogger Justin Katz wrote a piece last month for the ProJo in which he asked, “What’s the deal with Pope Francis?” Katz is examining Catholic theology as a way of navigating the difficult questions Francis poses to conservative Catholics.

Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Providence Diocese has publicly proclaimed his disappointment with Pope Francis, saying “…he hasn’t, at least that I’m aware of, said much about unborn children, about abortion, and many people have noticed that.” Tobin, who publicly switched his political party affiliation from Democrat to Republican, has received a fair amount of criticism for this and other remarks about his boss.

Even Bernard Healey, the Catholic priest who lobbies the RI General Assembly on behalf of the Providence Catholic Diocese, has dinged Pope Francis, beginning testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 25th with a guilty smile, saying, “I would quote Pope Francis, who is widely quoted in the media. You probably missed this quote, they normally miss the ones that I agree with,” implying that he disagrees with much of what Pope Francis has been saying.

Pope_Francis_among_the_people_at_St._Peter's_Square_-_12_May_2013
Pope Francis

Nationally, 54 percent of Catholics support same-sex marriage. 66 percent think abortion is at least sometimes justified. 69 percent support contraception. Given such numbers, it seems the Catholic Church is out of step with American Catholics on the political left as well as the right.

Yet here in Rhode Island the Catholic Church exerts formidable political power. The governor, speaker of the House and Senate president are all at least nominally Catholic, as are many members of the General Assembly. Tobin has his own part time lobbyist working our part time legislature. Politically speaking, the Roman Catholic Church is a power player here in Rhode Island and that means that in order to understand our state, we have to understand the dynamics of political Catholicism.

And to do that, you have to understand the Pope.

Since Pope Francis isn’t coming to Rhode Island, RI Future is going to the Pope. To do that, we’re running a GoFundMe campaign to secure the $1000 I’ll need to cover train travel, food, lodging and other expenses. Over the course of five days, from September 23-27, I’ll be in Washington DC, New York City and Philadelphia, covering the Pope’s visit in my unique way.

This will be very different coverage. Readers of this blog know that I am an outspoken atheist, progressive and democratic socialist. I won’t just be covering the Pope, I’ll be covering the people I meet. There will be protesters, critics and supporters. I’ve never done anything like this before, so I expect my coverage to be unlike anything I’ve done before as well.

Consider donating, and let’s see what I can pull off.Send an Atheist to cover the Pope

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Mattiello’s payday loan position opposed by Catholic ideology


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Nicholas Mattiello

Correction: After this piece was published I received the following communication from Carolyn Cronin, Director of Communications for the Diocese of Providence:

“The article you are referencing in your piece was an editorial in the RI Catholic newspaper.  Bishop Tobin is the publisher, but he does not write or review the editorials. It is a separate opinion of the paper. So to attribute those quotes to him are not accurate. I would appreciate the clarification.”

When I asked Cronin what Bishop Tobin’s views on payday lending are, I received this reply:

“The Bishop supports the traditional teaching of the Church, but has not made any specific statements about pending legislation. Father Healey represents the diocese on this and other issues at the Statehouse.”

The piece below has been modified to reflect the fact that the statements made in Rhode Island Catholic should not be attributed to Bishop Tobin.

I regret the error.

The Rhode Island Catholic newspaper came out against payday loans in an editorial.

After referring to such loans as “heresy” Rhode Island Catholic said, “Usury, the charging of extreme interest, is condemned by Catholic doctrine. Recently Pope Benedict XVI explicitly condemned usury in his encyclical letter Caritas in Veritate. St. John Paul II called usury ‘a scourge that is also a reality in our time and that has a stranglehold on many people’s lives.’”

“Rhode Islanders,” continued Rhode Island Catholic, “especially R.I. Catholics, should stand up against payday lending, the usury of our time. The extremely poor need protections from what appears their only option in a challenging economy. Extreme rates of interests, with little chance of payment in a timely fashion, are not the way to grow a healthy economy. Instead, the poor need regulations against financial charlatans who seek the economic ruin of those on the margins.”

That usurious lending is ideologically opposed in Catholic theology should come as no surprise to Speaker of the House Nicholas Mattiello, a lifelong Catholic, who continues to oppose reform.

“The case has not been made to me to terminate an industry in our state,” said Mattiello last month, “The arguments against payday lending tend to be ideological in nature.”

This would not be the first time that Mattiello has found himself politically at odds with his putative faith. A Providence Journal report, published shortly after his accession to speaker, says, “A Roman Catholic who for half his life had been a lector at Immaculate Conception Church, in Cranston, Mattiello opposed gay marriage. His view changed, he says, as society became more accepting and the issue became one of equality. Today, Mattiello says his vote to legalize gay marriage is one ‘that I am proud of,’ even though it cost him his lector position.”

Mattiello’s recent statement on payday loans is no different than the view he expressed back in March 2014, when he said, “Payday lending is a hot button issue, but the consumer likes the product. It’s an ideological approach. I will make my decisions based on evidence and how it actually impacts people and our economy. I’ve asked for evidence on that issue in the past in my position as House majority leader and I’ve been promised a dozen times over, and I’ve never gotten evidence on that.”

What evidence Mattiello is looking for is hard to imagine, given that year after year the House Finance Committee hears testimony from the AARP, the Economic Progress Institute, Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless, Rhode Island AFL-CIO and the Rhode Island Payday Lending Coalition. These groups present reams of evidence detailing the harmful effects of payday loans to both individuals the state’s economy.

To some, Mattiello’s willful ignorance about the plain evils of payday loans seems predicated on the special relationship he has with the payday loan industry’s paid lobbyist. According to RI Monthly, former Speaker of the House William Murphy, who is the paid lobbyist for the payday loan company Advance America Cash Advance Centers, is “like a brother” to Mattiello. “In 1994, Mattiello ushered at Murphy’s wedding.” In 2006 Murphy encouraged Mattiello to go into politics, starting him on his path to speaker of the house.

One of Speaker Mattiello’s favorite words is “outlier” in that he claims he doesn’t want Rhode Island to be one. “Rhode Island is one of only 13 states with an income tax on Social Security,” said Mattiello, “and I am tired of our state being an outlier.”

Sam Wroblewski, at WPRO, writes, “Mattiello said not assessing fees to out-of-state trucking operations makes Rhode Island an outlier in the northeast.”

One way that Rhode Island is an outlier that doesn’t seem to bother Mattiello is payday loans.

“Rhode Island payday loans are authorized to carry charges as high as 260% APR,” says the Economic Policy Institute, “Payday lenders can charge this rate in Rhode Island because in 2001, payday lenders received a special exemption from the state’s usury laws, making RI the only state in the Northeast to do so. The exemption enables licensed check cashers to make payday loans as at 260% rather than complying with the state’s small loan laws.”

Apparently, being an outlier is okay if one of your best friends is making $50,000 a year.

It seems clear that the day Nicholas Mattiello will allow a vote on the abolition or restructuring of payday lending laws here in Rhode Island is the day that Advance America decides to stop employing Mattiello’s friend Bill Murphy as a lobbyist. Until that day, the poor will continue to be exploited and money will continue to be sucked out of Rhode Island communities.

Catholic ideology be damned.

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Tobin walks back his criticism of Pope Francis


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tobinBishop Thomas Tobin of the Providence Diocese is doing some damage control in a recent interview on the website Crux: Covering all things Catholic.

Tobin has a history of making strong political statements about contentious issues such as abortion, marriage equality and separation of church and state. He is never shy about his opinions of atheism and homosexuality. His political involvement even extends to elections, as when he advised Catholics to vote for Mother Teresa for governor rather than Raimondo or Fung.

This is, of course, his right. And to the extent that Tobin involves himself in the political discourse, he opens himself up to critiques (which I am happy to provide).

When asked by interviewer Michael O’Loughlin about his rhetoric, Tobin explained that his outspoken statements are “an expression of my own style. I don’t use a lot of filters. I just try to speak candidly and openly and personally, but hopefully never in a way that’s offensive.”

Still, the timing of this interview is interesting. The interview seems to have been conducted last Thursday, just days before the high profile and expected demotion of American Cardinal Raymond Burke. Burke famously said that the Catholic Church under Pope Francis “is like a ship without a rudder.”

Tobin’s criticism of the Pope – he once said Francis is fond of “creating a mess” – doesn’t seem much different in substance or style from Cardinal Burke’s statement. Could Tobin’s interview be seen as laying the groundwork for a preemptive defense? Note that the Crux piece never mentions Tobin’s most contentious and direct criticism of Pope Francis.

Tobin claims to be surprised that his words were perceived as critical of Francis, saying, “I guess when I offer these comments, I’m doing what I think the Holy Father himself has encouraged us to do, which is to be open, to be candid, to be transparent, to share our thoughts and our feelings without fear of any retribution or strong reaction.” [emphasis mine] In other words, Tobin really doesn’t want to be demoted like Burke was.

One wonders if Tobin is equally open to the idea of the people he supervises being publicly critical of his leadership.

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Tobin, Stenhouse backpeddle on ‘thorny cultural issues’


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Is Bishop Tobin now doing the same thing he accused Gina Raimondo of?

TobinBishopThomasBishop Tobin, despite a lengthy career of advocating against abortion and marriage equality, has said that in the event of a constitutional convention being held in Rhode Island, he didn’t “think it would or should deal with cultural/moral/religious issues. These particular, discrete issues are better dealt with in the normal legislative process.”

The Bishop’s statement stands in stark contrast to his earlier statements regarding marriage equality, which he said should be placed on the ballot for a popular vote, “We will continue to oppose efforts to redefine the institution of marriage in Rhode Island… The citizens of Rhode Island have a right to vote on this crucial issue.’’

One wonders if Bishop Tobin’s backing off on the issue of abortion, as pertains to a ConCon, represents “an inexcusable lack of moral courage” and an abandonment of “teaching of the Church on the dignity of human life for the sake of self-serving political gain” as he recently said of Gina Raimondo when she announced her position on abortion.

Why would Tobin, so dedicated to changing the laws regarding abortion (and marriage equality) give up a potentially powerful tool that might help him accomplish his task? Does Tobin intend to go so far as to oppose any potential resolutions passed by a ConCon that sought to deal with “cultural/moral/religious” issues in a way the church favors? Can you imagine the Bishop taking a stand against an amendment limiting reproductive of LGBTQ rights if one were to make it through the ConCon?

I can’t.

017frontMeanwhile, Mike Stenhouse, of the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a group devoted to crank economics, has pledged to not “support any amendment in a convention that would infringe on individual rights,” despite a line in the Center’s own report that said a ConCon could, “Resolve some thorny cultural issues – one way or another – through the mechanism that most clearly represents the will of the people.” (page six)

Stenhouse’s attack on Jim Vincent of the NAACP and Steve Brown of the ACLU for pointing out the actual words found in the Center’s report rings false. Stenhouse maintains that, “Any honest reading of this section clearly shows that the Center was not taking a position on those topics. Nor is the Center aware that any pro convention organization has publicly suggested that social or cultural issues should be a convention topic.”

So what does “resolve thorny cultural issues” mean to Stenhouse? It’s hard to know, but Stenhouse defender Justin Katz, in a piece entitled, If not on the Ballot, Where? attacks Vincent and defends the Center’s statement by saying, “Look, cultural issues have to be resolved.” In other words, thorny cultural issues are up for discussion in a ConCon, no matter what Stenhouse says.

Maybe the Center should get its messaging straight.

Whereas Tobin serves the Catholic God, Stenhouse serves the God of the Free Market, whose invisible hand makes the rich richer by picking the pockets of the poor. Stenhouse pledges not to support any amendments that might infringe on individual rights, but the term “individual rights” does not equate to civil rights or human rights. The term “individual rights” is much narrower than that.

Individual rights are not group rights. Individual rights are not environmental rights. Under this narrow conception of rights, corporations are individuals, unions are not. The concept of individual rights is often advanced as a way of avoiding the obligations our rights impose on us. Under this view, everybody is responsible for their own rights, not the rights of others.

Human rights, on the other hand, are understood to be “interrelated, interdependent and indivisible” and to apply to “individuals or groups.”  Stenhouse and the center are cautious to avoid terms like human rights and civil rights because these terms carry a moral, ethical and historical weight that is bigger and more expansive than the narrow limits the narcissistic, Objectivist term “individual rights” allow for.

Human rights are both rights and obligations. When we talk in terms of human rights, we call on the power of states to enforce and enhance those rights. Stenhouse and the Center prefer a world of limited government that is unconcerned with human rights and is concerned only with the narrow limits of individual rights. Civil rights legislation that forces bigoted shopkeepers to serve hated minorities are not allowed under this formulation.

Finally, it’s easy for Bishop Tobin, Mike Stenhouse and the members of Renew RI to pinky swear that they will not go after what they call “thorny cultural issues” because they don’t control all the forces in and out of Rhode Island that may involve themselves in the process. Further, their promise to not involve themselves in such issues are limited and conditional.

So it all comes down to this: Do you trust them?

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Can atheists be trusted in public office?


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TobinBishopThomas“I should emphasize that being an atheist would neither recommend nor disqualify [Jorge Elorza] from being Mayor of Providence,” said Bishop Thomas Tobin in a surprising, recent Facebook post, but before celebrating Tobin’s tolerance and openness, we should read on, “But I wonder if an atheist mayor would be in a position to respect the sincere convictions of believers (of all faiths) and to encourage and support the many contributions the faith community makes in our city and state.”

Thus, Tobin slyly implies that atheists are intolerant.

Put aside, for a moment, the idea that atheists may be more or less intolerant than a conservative, Republican, Catholic Bishop and ponder a moment what Tobin’s words would sound like if he were talking about group of people other than atheists.

“But I wonder if a Jewish mayor would be in a position to respect the sincere convictions of Christians (of all denominations) and to encourage and support the many contributions the Christian community makes in our city and state.”

“But I wonder if an Asian mayor would be in a position to respect the sincere convictions of citizens (of all races) and to encourage and support the many contributions non-Asian communities make in our city and state.”

“But I wonder if a woman mayor would be in a position to respect the sincere convictions of men and to encourage and support the many contributions men make in our city and state.”

“But I wonder if a Catholic mayor would be in a position to respect the sincere convictions of Protestants and to encourage and support the many contributions Protestants make in our city and state.”

A candidate’s religious convictions (or lack thereof) are not relevant to their fitness for office, unless those beliefs run contrary to the Constitution of the United States. Article VI, paragraph 3 of the Constitution reads, “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

If your religious beliefs run counter to the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, and you attempt to act on those beliefs in your official capacity as an elected official or judge, then you are unfit for office. Unless one has good reason to suspect that a candidate will not uphold the Constitution, questioning their fitness for office on the basis of religious belief or unbelief is bigotry, pure and simple.

Tobin Elorza

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San Fran’s Archbishop’s decision to speak at anti-LGBTQ rally has Rhode Island roots


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SJC photo-resized
Archbishop Cordileone

San Francisco Archbishop Cordileone’s decision to speak at the “March for Marriage” an anti-gay marriage rally organized by NOM (National Organization for Marriage) on June 19 has caused quite a stir in Catholic circles. Many are imploring the Archbishop to reconsider his decision to speak at the event, citing Pope Francis’s “Who am I to judge?” attitude towards homosexuality, though it is doubtful that the Pope’s words marked a new understanding in the Catholic Church on the issue.  Cordileone’s willingness to ignore liberal trends in the church and to partner with more extreme anti-gay groups such as the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) should not come as a surprise to those following the Catholic Church’s involvement in the marriage equality battle here in Rhode Island.

Bishop Thomas Tobin trailblazed these efforts over a year ago.

Back in January 2013 I reported that the Providence Diocese made the unfortunate decision to partner with NOM and MassResistance as part of a group calling itself the Faith Alliance to Preserve the Sanctity of Marriage as Established by God. At the time, I was surprised to see the Catholic Church openly aligning itself with MassResistance, a Southern Poverty Law Center certified hate group.

Mark Potok, a senior fellow with the Southern Poverty Law Center told me “In our experience, it is highly unusual for the Catholic Church to work with groups like MassResistance, which has repeatedly, and utterly falsely, linked homosexuality to pedophilia, among other things. This is a group that lumps homosexuality in with criminal behaviors like bestiality, claims gay people are dangerous to children, and says, again falsely, that no gay people were murdered in the Holocaust. I should add, however, that we’ve not seen any real history of the Catholic Church working with hate groups. It may be that in this case they’ve simply failed to look into the background of the group they’re allying themselves with. At least I hope so.”

Whether or not NOM is a hate group on par with MassResistance is an open question to some, (though I am of the opinion that they are just sneakier in broadcasting their hate and intolerance, constantly skirting the line.) The one unifying presence in both the Rhode Island and San Francisco cases is NOM operative Christopher Plante, who led the coalition in a failed bid to prevent marriage equality in Rhode Island, and said to the Christian Post in April, that the March on Marriage event is aimed at showing ‘the world, the media, members of Congress and the Supreme Court that the marriage debate is not over. There is a huge groundswell of popular support, popular belief in traditional marriage. And despite what the polls may say, the reality is the majority of Americans believe marriage is between one man and one woman.”

Cordileone, defending his decision to attend the march in Washington, weakly claims that the event is “not ‘anti-LGBT’ … it is not anti-anyone or anti-anything,” but if the history here in Rhode Island is any indication, NOM operatives like Christopher Plante seek the endorsement of institutions like the Catholic Church to provide cover for their alliances with hate groups like MassResistance and other groups that spread ugly smears and lies about our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. Cordileone should weigh the political consequences of selling his status as a church leader so cheaply.

This weekend, as Rhode Island celebrates Pride, we should continue to encourage tolerance and acceptance rather than bigotry and hate, and we can only hope that in the future the Catholic Church will be on the right side of that equation.

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Bishop Tobin Confuses Anti-Choice for Pro-Life


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Providence Diocese Bishop Thomas Tobin has a tendency to very publicly take Catholic politicians to task for their stand on reproductive rights. Tobin’s very public fight with Congressman Patrick Kennedy was seen by many to be a bold assertion of clerical power to control the votes of Catholic legislators on issues of importance to Catholic theology. Most recently the Bishop went after James Langevin in his June 28th Without a Doubt blog, saying:

Although he continues to identify himself as a “Catholic, pro-life member of Congress,” consider his record. He voted in favor of Obamacare that allows the funding of abortion; he has championed the use of embryonic stem cells, a practice that results in the destruction of human life; he has proudly announced his support of homosexual marriage, a concept that is, ultimately, an offense to human life; he supports the HHS Mandate that requires Catholic ministries and others to provide insurance coverage for immoral practices; and recently he voted against the bill that would have banned the horrific practice of sex-selection abortion. It’s clear that Langevin has abandoned the pro-life cause. What a disappointment!

Randall Edgar, in the September 13th Providence Journal article Bishop says Langevin no longer pro-life followed up this story, with comments from Langevin, who still considers himself “pro-life.” Langevin said

…he has differences with Bishop Tobin, for whom he has “deep respect.” Among them: He believes that being pro-life requires that he work to “reduce unwanted pregnancies,” which is why he supports “making contraceptives available.” He also said he sees stem cell research as offering “hope for curing some of life’s most challenging chronic conditions and diseases.”

What is clear from the disagreement between the legislator and the bishop is that the “pro-life” position is not in any way the opposite of the “pro-choice” position. In fact, the reality is that everyone, on either side of the reproductive rights issue, is pro-life. The only real disagreement is how we express our point of view through our political actions.

Tobin and others who wear the pro-life label with pride love to tarnish those who believe in reproductive health care as being pro-death, as seen in this editorial from the April 19th Rhode Island Catholic entitled “Planned Parenthood’s War on Women” in which The American Civil Liberties Union, Humanists of Rhode Island, Rhode Island Medical Society, Brown Medical Students for Choice and Catholics for Choice were labeled “culture of death allies” to Planned Parenthood.

Tobin has every right to publicly cajole or privately persuade legislators to vote as Tobin interprets  God’s will. Legislators, Catholic or otherwise, are free to heed Tobin’s words or not. The voting public, however, many of whom are not Catholic, and many of whom follow faith traditions that understand the necessity of reproductive health care choices for women, might understandably become worried about casting votes for candidates with otherwise fine credentials that happen to be Catholic, their worry being that they are not voting for someone who will act in the best interests of our country and our citizens, but only for what is in the theological interests of the Catholic Church.

It should be remembered that we are not just talking about abortion here. We are talking about condoms, birth control pills, marriage equality, doctor patient privilege, sex education and a myriad of health care and lifestyle issues important to the lives of real people living in the real world. The harder the Providence Diocese pushes Catholic legislators to forgo a multicultural and secular perspective in favor of Catholic theology, the more likely it is that voters will find themselves unable to be sure that Catholics can be trusted to hold public office.

Catholic Senator John F Kennedy faced this head on in 1960, speaking to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association :

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute–where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act… I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish–where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source…

At the time, though prejudice against Catholics was waning, there was still enough serious suspicion that a Catholic president would be little more than a puppet of the Pope that Kennedy felt it necessary to make this speech disavowing such influence. Kennedy was faced with essentially the same problem posed to Jesus, who famously told his interlocutors to render unto Caesar (the government) what was Caesar’s, and render unto God what is God’s. In other words, separate church and state.

Tobin wants Langevin and all other Catholic officials to stop making any distinction between church and state, rendering everything unto God, Caesar be damned. What Tobin risks with his very public pressure tactics against Catholics in high office is the very ability of Catholics to attain high office. Under the conditions Tobin wants to impose on Catholic office holders, how could anyone who disagrees with Catholic theology concerning marriage equality or birth control reasonably vote for any Catholic?

Tobin has resorted to what amounts to religious extortion in the past to get his way politically, when he denied the sacrament of communion to Representative Patrick Kennedy in 2009. His strong words against Langevin might mark the beginning of a second round of religious bullying. Langevin maintains that he has “deep respect” for Tobin, and though little in Langevin’s voting record should overly worry those in favor of reproductive health care rights, can we be sure that Langevin’s deep respect won’t eventually cause him to compromise his duty as an elected official?

I ask the question rhetorically. I think there are many fine Catholic politicians holding elected office in our state, and I have little cause to doubt them. But the louder Tobin publicly demands allegiance to Catholic doctrine over duty to our country, the more a reasonable person has cause to worry about the loyalty of those in Tobin’s cross-hairs.

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Progress Report: Cicilline vs. Doherty, or Policy vs. Smear; Two Democratic Parties; Tax Cuts Don’t Stimulate, Tobin


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Downtown Providence from the Providence River. (Photo by Bob Plain)

The new best political narrative in Rhode Island is also the biggest battle for progressives: Congressman David Cicilline’s reelection battle against Brendan Doherty. Cicilline is among the most liberal legislators from the Northeast and Doherty would be one of the most conservative. That’s the case Democrats will be making these next 54 days, while Republicans will run more of a smear campaign. While the local mainstream media will probably care more about the character issues, we’re betting voters will care more about policy.

We don’t often find opportunity to write this sentence but here goes: there’s truth to what Donna Perry writes in GoLocalProv this morning about their being two very different factions of the Democratic Party at the State House. The blue dog Dems support tax cuts to the rich and retirement benefit cuts for the working class, marriage inequality and voter ID laws, while the progressive wing doesn’t. Which one sounds more like the traditional Democratic Party to you?

Speaking of tax cuts for the wealthy, a new study shows they don’t stimulate growth. Then again, Rhode Island is another study that depicts this trend…

One of the reasons Rhode Island has Democrats that skew to the right is we allow people who are completely out-of-touch with mainstream values like Bishop Tobin to define them.

But the Green Party will be on the Rhode Island ballot this November. This will help David Cicilline and progressives.

Providence Schools Superintendent Susan Lusi is encouraging all the city’s public schools to become charters; so far nine have taken her up on the offer.

Anti-America protests in Egypt, Libya and now Yemen, too.

Today in 1971, the Attica prison riot comes to an end after inmates held guards hostage for four days in a failed attempt to negotiate for more humane living conditions.

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The Bishop Has No Clothes


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Many Roman Catholics look to those who hold exalted positions within the hierarchy of the church for guidance on moral issues, but if polls on the behavior of Catholics in their personal lives regarding such issues as birth control and marriage equality are any indication, most Catholics find their morality elsewhere.

Still, this does not stop some high ranking prelates, such as Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Diocese of Providence, from publicly pontificating on issues of concern to the church and using his not inconsiderable political power to influence the General Assembly to hue closely to Catholic ideals. As reported on RI Future, “The President, the entire congressional delegation, the governor and the House all would support marriage equality in Rhode Island. But ‘probably two handfuls’ of Catholic state senators still stand in the way.” Unfortunately, those two handfuls of Catholic senators give the impression of answering to Bishop Tobin first, and their constituents and the Constitution of the United States second.

Tobin is unafraid to take strong stands to advance the political agenda of his church in a very public way. In 2009 the bishop famously denied Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy the sacrament of communion because Kennedy supported a woman’s right to choose in matters of abortion and family planning.

Speaking on Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly show in December of 2009, Tobin said:

I think the Church has every right and indeed the obligation to be at the table in these important questions of public policy and certainly the bishops have been for a long time now involved in the question [of] health care and the legislation that’s been developing and lots of other issues too and as I’ve often said, if the church, not just the Catholic church, but the religious community, if we don’t bring these values, this spiritual vision to these discussions, who else will do that?

O’Reilly, to his credit, pushed back against Tobin somewhat, asking why he would deny legislators sacraments in the case of supporting abortion rights but not in the case of a politician supporting capital punishment. Tobin differentiated between abortion and capitol punishment:

Abortion we believe is intrinsically wrong, it’s always wrong. There are no circumstances under which abortion can be justified… the church has been very clear and very consistent about that. However the church has also taught pretty consistently the death penalty, while it is not necessary and probably immoral in our time, at least in theory there may be circumstances that allows the death penalty to be a moral option.

To a non-Catholic Tobin’s distinction may seem arbitrary or overly legalistic, but the bishop, when speaking on matters of Catholic theology and doctrine should be taken at his word. Tobin clearly intends to ground his public comments on political issues in morality as interpreted by the Catholic Church. He said as much recently on the May 15, 2012 Buddy Cianci Show. Talking about marriage equality, Tobin said:

We don’t want to fight with [proponents of same-sex marriage] but we do have the right and I think the duty to comment on these issues and the pieces of legislation we think are objectionable and we’ll try to do that but we’ll try to do that respectfully.

Odd then, that even given the distinction he makes between between abortion and capital punishment, Tobin would be more concerned with opposing marriage equality and standing up for such seemingly trivial matters as the prayer banner in Cranston or the cross in Woonsocket than in standing up against capital punishment. These other issues are not life or death propositions, though certainly the quality of life would be improved immeasurably for many in our state by the passage of a marriage equality bill.

Clarifying his position on the death penalty through the lens of the Pleau case, Tobin explains why he does not feel qualified to speak out on this issue on the May 10, 2012 John DePetro Show:

The position of the church on capital punishment is rather clear, that we do do not think that the use of capital punishment in necessary or appropriate in our culture and in our society today. I’ve intentionally stayed away from this particular issue because it gets quickly involved in constitutional issues and state’s rights issues and federal law and local law that I’m really not qualified to talk about. So while in principle I would support the rejection of the use of capital punishment I’ve intentionally stayed away from this particular [case] because it does get rather involved in technical legal issues that I’m not at all qualified to address.

Elaborating further, if a bit repetitively, Tobin adds:

…there are some technical legal questions involved and again that’s why I’ve deliberately tried to stay out of that issue because it’s well beyond my competence to try and say where the Federal law begins and where the state law begins and the responsibilities of the federal government and governor. While [Catholics] certainly reject the use of capital punishment in our culture and our society today because it is, again, the taking of a human life, we don’t think it’s necessary. This is a very complex issue that involves law and the Constitution on the one hand, but very deep and personal and heartfelt emotions on the other and it’s enormously difficult to balance the two.

So with this deft bit of verbal lawyering Tobin divorces himself from having to speak out on the issue of capital punishment because he is not a lawyer. This makes sense, in a way, because Tobin is a theologian, not a lawyer, and should optimally only be engaged in theological pursuits and providing moral guidance for the Catholics in his church. But how do we square Tobin’s reluctance with his earlier assertion that he and his church “…have the right and I think the duty to comment on these issues and the pieces of legislation we think are objectionable…”

Tobin can certainly sound lawyerly when he wants to. Speaking about the Cross in Woonsocket now at the center of a church/state separation debate, Tobin said:

It certainly has nothing to do with the separation of church and state, this is not the establishment of a denomination, it’s not the establishment of a particular church or the recognizing of a church by the state, this is a cultural symbol…

One might be led to believe that the Woonsocket Cross is not “a very complex issue that involves law and the Constitution” that Tobin is “not at all qualified to address” but is instead a simple moral issue that the bishop feels well qualified to speak out on. On this issue and others, Tobin is not prepared to claim legal ignorance but instead speaks out forcefully.

On the May 10th DePetro Show Tobin decried President Obama’s recent declaration that his position has evolved and that he now personally supports marriage equality. Tobin said:

It’s a very, very strange evolution. The man has no real moral foundation, moral compass. This is clearly politically driven… It’s unfortunate that the leader of our nation doesn’t have a stronger moral compass to direct him… and you know, some of the other politicians who have chimed in on this I think have the same lack of moral foundation, whether you talk about President Obama or Vice President Biden or the Senators, Whitehouse and Reed or the Congressmen Langevin and Cicilline, none of them have a strong moral foundation or compass, there’s not a single profile in courage among the lot.

Speaking of Reed, and the rest of the Rhode Island delegation, Tobin added:

I think the whole group … are driven by the Democratic agenda.

and

In many of these cases, for some of these politicians it’s more important for them to be a Democrat than a Catholic and in many cases they’ve abandoned the basic teaching of the church.

Let’s go back to Tobin’s attack on Congressman Kennedy, a Democrat. Let’s go back to the silly issue over the Christmas Tree, or Holiday Tree, as Governor Chafee’s office called it. Even though plenty of evidence was produced to show that former Governor Carcieri, a Republican, had also referred to the tree in the Rhode Island State House as a Holiday Tree on more than one occasion, Tobin never had an issue with the designation until Governor Chafee took office. Chafee, an independent who strongly favors marriage equality, is disliked by Bishop Tobin whereas Carcieri found in Tobin a staunch supporter.

This is likely why Tobin will not take a strong stance on the Pleau case. Governor Chafee is making a very strong, moral case that Rhode Island’s long and historic opposition to the death penalty necessitates exhausting every legal option, up to and including the Supreme Court, to prevent a Rhode Island citizen from facing the death penalty on a Federal level. Though it is a complex legal case, the morality of the death penalty is a comparatively simple moral stance to take from the point of view of a Roman Catholic, but Tobin balks. Though the bishop would, in theory, oppose the death penalty on Catholic theological grounds, he seems to not want to do anything that might make it appear that he is supporting the governor, a political enemy.

It should surprise no one that Bishop Tobin’s political bent is not progressive or liberal. It is right-wing and authoritarian in the worst way. He is anti-gay rights, anti-women’s rights, and even opposed to the constitutional separation of church and state. Tobin is a theocrat. Even the most progressive stance he espouses, that the death penalty is at least in theory morally wrong is shrouded in caveats:

…we do do not think that the use of capital punishment is necessary or appropriate in our culture and in our society today.

Note that Tobin qualifies that statement with the word, “today.” The death penalty was appropriate in the past (perhaps when the Catholic Church had nearly unlimited political power) and may one day be morally correct in the future (in that nightmare world where the Catholic Church has massive political power once more.) It is only today, when the moral certainty of the Catholic church is marginalized by secular society, that capital punishment is considered wrong by Tobin.

Tobin’s reactionary politics may be abhorrent to progressives and humanists, but in truth little more can be expected from a man so deeply vested in the ancient theocratic mindset prevalent in today’s Catholic Church. I would venture that Tobin’s tenure as Bishop has been devastating to Rhode Island Catholics especially since under his tenure the percentage of Catholics in the state has dropped to 44% according to a study by the Association of Statisticians of American religious Bodies. Indeed, Rhode Island can no longer claim to be the most Catholic state in the United States, that distinction now belongs to Massachusetts.

Worse than his politics is Tobin’s style of public discourse. On the marriage equality debate, Tobin said:

…let me emphasize [when] we [the Roman Catholic Church] participate in these public debates it’s never intended to be insulting or personally offensive [to people of] same-sex orientation. They are children of God and certainly our brothers and sisters in the community.

Apparently the insulting and personally offensive comments are reserved for those working to preserve the reproductive rights of women. On the Providence Diocese website RICatholic.com, The American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, Humanists of Rhode Island, Rhode Island Medical Society, Brown Medical Students for Choice and Catholics for Choice were referred to as “radical promoters of death” for speaking out against laws that seek to limit a woman’s right to access birth control, including abortion.

Tobin equates atheism with a lack of morality, though even the most conservative Catholic theologians understand that people can be moral without a belief in God. Tobin is quick to make gross, sweeping characterizations about non-believers. Speaking on the April 24th John DePetro Show about the cross in Woonsocket, Tobin makes the following, almost paranoid statement:

Do we want a state and a nation completely free of any expressions of faith or references to God or moral values or spiritual values order we want a state and a nation where these things are part of our life and part of our culture. I think the church, the religious community, the faith community has so much to contribute to our citizens, to our individuals but to our common life together that’s the kind of nation state we have had historically, but unfortunately these other forces of secularism and atheism are encroaching upon us. You know the governor has that famous quote he said that “the world is changing” well I hope it’s not changing that much because then we’re going to be completely separated from God and we’ll be living truly in an atheistic culture and society and i don’t think most of our people want that.

Tobin fears living “in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute—where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote—where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference—and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.” Tobin fears this because in this America he would just be just another priest, ministering to his flock, watching his religion become ever more redundant in a world that has left ancient and medieval beliefs behind. By the way, the above quote is from John F. Kennedy in his address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association from September 12, 1960.

Tobin seems well acquainted with this former president. Not only is former Congressman Patrick Kennedy JFK’s nephew, Tobin obliquely referenced the first and so far only Catholic president when speaking of the Congressional delegation from Rhode Island, saying, “there’s not a single profile in courage among the lot.” Profiles in Courage is a 1955 Pulitzer Prize winning book by JFK that “describes acts of bravery and integrity by eight United States Senators throughout the Senate’s history.” Tobin knows the popularity of JFK among his Catholic constituency, and his use of the presidents book title to disparage our present crop of senators and congressmen is particularly appalling given Kennedy’s expressed views on church/state separation.

Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, famously said, “…when one mixes religion and politics, one gets politics” and that’s something that Bishop Tobin should pay more attention to. The more involved the Catholic Church gets involved in politics the less it becomes a church and the more it becomes just another conservative political lobby. Mythological belief systems may work to undergird a system of personal morality for some people but actively working to enforce those personal values on everyone in our secular society is theocratic, anti-Democratic and anti-American.

Bishop Thomas Tobin frocks himself in the garments of moral authority and spiritual leadership but his conservative politicking on social issues reveal him as a naked hypocrite. When it comes to morality and ethics, the Bishop has no clothes.

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RI Progress Report: Tobin Corners ‘Creepy’ Market; More on Marriage Equality, Barrington’s Tuition Proposal


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It won’t happen this session, but we’d be real surprised if opposition to marriage equality in the Rhode Island Senate can fend off the legislation for another year. Ted Nesi reports that the Senate’s opposition to gay marriage is “softening.”

Meanwhile, Ian Donnis reports that Rev. Gene Dyszlewski is running for the Senate seat being vacated by Bea Lanzi … Dyszlewski is the chair of the Rhode Island Religious Coalition for Marriage Equality and has told a Senate committee that “same sex marriage is god’s will.”

Speaking of the church and marriage equality, we wonder if Bishop Tobin realizes that the news value in him calling someone’s statements “creepy” is the irony of it. He’s practically cornered the Rhode Island market on creepy statements and positions and the Catholic church is among the creepiest institutions going. Bishop Tobin should really spend more time helping the poor and much less time engaging in useless and bigoted behavior.

And speaking of picking on people, if you haven’t read the Washington Post story about Mitt Romney bullying a fellow student while in prep school, click here.

More on Barrington’s proposal -and it is still very much just a proposal – to offer out-of-town students to pay tuition to attend the high-performing schools. It’s amazing how much the idea has evolved in just 24 short hours … for as well as Barrington students fare on standardized tests, you’d think its school committee could have figured out to get a legal opinion before going public with a proposal so fraught with legal and moral conundrums.

Good move, state Senate, in voting to repeal former Gov. Don Carcieri’s limits on how long families can collect welfare benefits … even with the repeal, Rhode Islanders will still be able to collect for less time than the average American. 35 states, reports Phil Marcelo, cap the time a family can collect welfare benefits at 60 months. RI would go from 24 months to 48.

Did you see the US Chamber of Commerce’s TV ad for Brendan Doherty? You can watch it here, if you’re into that kinda thing…

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Bishop Tobin on Gay Marriage: Not Christ Like


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In a not-very-Christ-like op-ed piece titled “Five Problems With Homosexual Marriage,” the leader of the Catholic Church in Rhode Island reaffirmed his objections to same sex relationship equality.

“It’s a sure sign of spring, as predictable as the Red Sox at spring training, the swallows returning to Capistrano, and the flowing of green beer on St. Patrick’s Day,” wrote Bishop Thomas Tobin. “I’m referring of course to the public re-appearance of the determined proponents of homosexual marriage.”

Yeah, nothing says warmer weather to come like people fighting for equal protection under the law. Most unfortunately, when it comes to the Catholic Church, it seems that hate springs eternal.

Not to fear though, Rev. Gene Dyszlewkski, chair of the Rhode Island Religious Coalition in Support of Marriage Equality quickly shot back.

“No Christian I know believes in discrimination,” he said in a statement rebuking the Bishop. “No Christian I know thinks it’s OK to deny basic human rights to a minority class of citizens. I think Bishop Tobin would do well to remember that. These continued attacks on our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters only further perpetuate the notion that some religious leaders are out of touch with members of their faith.”

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Have You Seen the New Freedom From Religion Foundation Billboard?

The Madison, WI-based Freedom From Religion Foundation has put up a 14 by 48 foot billboard on Interstate 295 at Route 2 in Warwick.  This is the first billboard by the organization in Rhode Island, but the 695th in 61 cities since 2007.

Annie Laurie Gaylor, Foundation co-president, said it’s fitting that the campaign has expanded to Rhode Island, which was founded by Roger Williams, a strong advocate of keeping religion out of government and vice versa.

“Although Williams was a religious man, he believed deeply that civil and sectarian authorities should not intrude on each other, for the good of both,” Gaylor said.

She noted Williams’ famous statement that “forced worship stinks in the nostrils of God.”

The billboard’s message is abundantly clear, based on a form of governance that seems to be continually distorted.  The Founding Fathers may have been Deists, and most of them held some sort of belief in a god, in whatever way that was personally defined.  Anything more than that, and in particular anything related to the national government’s support of a specific religion, was out of the question.  The Founding Fathers were fearful of unrestrained government power, and particularly a government that would impose religion on its people.

Many clear examples exist that support this, including our very own Roger Williams, founder of the Providence Plantations colony in 1636, who was a “.”  This was all due to him needing to flee Massachusetts by challenging the political and religious establishments, claiming government had no role in religion and that the Massachusetts Colony was not even legitimate since the land was stolen from Native Americans.

The Treaty of Tripoli, signed by John Adams in 1797 reads:

…the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…

In Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists (1802), he wrote:

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. “

Another stellar example was James Madison’s response to Jasper Adams’ pamphlet (a graduate of Brown University), The Relation of Christianity to Civil Government in the United States, in which he wrote:

In the Papal System, Government and Religion are in a manner consolidated, & that is found to be the worst of Govts.

In most of the Govt of the old world, the legal establishment of a particular religion and without or with very little toleration of others makes a part of the Political and Civil organization and there are few of the most enlightened judges who will maintain that the system has been favorable either to Religion or to Govt.

To put this in perspective, we just have to look at the conspicuous moralism that often accompanies religious-based “discussions” in Rhode Island, such as those about a tree in the State House Rotunda, being pro-choice, or supporting marriage equality.  As examples, in each of these cases, Bishop Tobin was compelled to express his displeasure, not as an individual, but as a representative of the Catholic Church.  As that representative, he holds quite a bit of power over the shaping of political decisions, whether it be exacerbating an uproar over the name of a tree, excoriating former Representative Patrick Kennedy, hindering the expansion of health care coverage, and preventing full marriage equality (which is as clear of a case as I could imagine that creates a government-sponsored, special privilege for religion).

I do think having a discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of any policy are important.  And arguments will be based on individuals’ worldviews.  But there can often be overt religiosity that tries to pass itself for reasonable debate….

And that’s just not right.