Seemingly in response to critics, like Rhode Island Senator Donna Nesselbush, who took issue with the recent firing of Michael Templeton, the Music Director at the Church of St. Mary in Providence due to his same-sex marriage, Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Providence Diocese has written a short defense of sorts. In his piece, Tobin disputes the idea that Pope Francis is somehow softening the church’s approach to non-heterosexuality.

Tobin doesn’t defend the church’s position of intolerance to homosexuality but instead seeks to demonstrate that Pope Francis can not be differentiated from the church’s anti-gay agenda.

“When Church leaders have to respond to situations involving persons living an openly ‘gay lifestyle’ these days, we’re often scolded and told that we should be ‘more like Pope Francis,’ presumably the ‘Who-am-I-to judge’ Pope Francis,” writes Tobin, before listing four examples of the Pope actively not “gently advancing” the cause of gay rights and gay marriage:

• “Perhaps those critics should also remember the Pope Francis who said that same-sex marriage is destructive of families and is the work of the devil.
• “And the Pope Francis who has now supported the Mexican Bishops’ campaign to oppose gay marriage in their country.
• “And the Pope Francis who rejected the nomination of the Ambassador from France because the Ambassador is openly gay.
• “And the Pope Francis whose administration immediately fired and disciplined a priest who was working in the Vatican upon learning that the priest was gay and involved in a relationship.

“It seems to me, then,” concludes Tobin, “that when we uphold the faith and teachings of the Church about homosexuality, we are indeed a lot like Pope Francis.”

Rhode Island State Senator Donna Nesselbush released a statement in response to the recent firing of Michael Templeton, the Music Director at the Church of St. Mary in Providence due to his same-sex marriage. Nesselbush was instrumental in getting marriage equality passed in the Senate.

“Sponsoring the marriage equality legislation in the Senate will always be my most cherished accomplishment in the Rhode Island Senate. I grew up staunchly Catholic, attending eight years of Catholic school at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. My father did not go to church every Sunday; he went every single day. Although Catholicism is in my bones and I will always be a Catholic at heart, I stopped going to church years ago after I realized I was gay. I never wanted to cause a problem, embarrass my family or the church and religion I love,” said Senator Nesselbush.

“The time, however, has come for me to speak out about the Catholic Church’s flawed view of gay marriage. The Church persists in placing ‘form over substance.’ I always say, we Christians should worry more about the quality of our love, rather than the gender of the person we love. I hear Pope Francis gently advancing this cause when he repeats the words of Jesus: ‘Who am I (the Pope) to judge,’ paraphrasing the well-known…’judge not lest we be judged.’ Interestingly, the parishioners at Saint Mary’s seem also to be upset, crying out for justice for their beloved music director, as I suspect most Catholics are. If the church stays true to the real teachings of Jesus, the answers are right there. Love is love, and love is all we need, not the Church’s rules and regulations that actually, ironically, belie Christianity,” added Senator Nesselbush.

In an excellent break-down of the story, Bob Shine of New Ways Ministry wrote, “The Diocese of Providence took over the administration of the parish from the Franciscan Friars two years ago. The administrative shift means the parish is now overseen more directly by Bishop Thomas Tobin, who has a very LGBT-negative record.”

This story will be updated if Tobin responds to a request for comment.

Who among us has never asked for help? Who among us is so self-sufficient that they have never relied on the kindness of strangers? And when we ask for help, or lean on our friends, family or even strangers for support, have we given up our dignity, or are we simply demonstrating our humanity? What, after all, is more human than relying on our greatest strength, each other?

“There is nothing dignified about standing on street corners, or venturing into the middle of the street, dressed in dirty, shabby clothes, in all sorts of weather, with a crude cardboard sign, begging passersby for help,” wrote Bishop Thomas Tobin in a letter to the Providence Journal last week, but he was wrong. Dignity, the state or quality of being worthy of honor or respect, is, by Catholic principle, “inherent and inviolable.” Human dignity has been called the “cornerstone of all Catholic social teaching.”

Humanists affirm the dignity of every human being. A cornerstone Humanist document is the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 1 states, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” No distinction is made in the declaration based on class or property.

I’ll avoid the sexist term “brotherhood” (the Declaration was written in 1948 after all) and call it our “spirit of kinship.” This idea, that we are one large human family, reminds us to rely on each other when things go wrong in our lives. Our kinship is a fundamental part of what makes us human, and without it, our society and our lives fracture.

Through this fracturing, people end up on the street, homeless, hungry and alone with their demons. The truth of human dignity means that it should not be the responsibility of the downtrodden to ask for our help. Our own human dignity requires us to offer it.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights also affirms the human right to expression, the human right to freely move within our cities and as a consequence, affirms our right to ask for assistance.

“The problems [associated with panhandling] have spread since Mayor Jorge Elorza, responding to the threat of action from the American Civil Liberties Union and others, directed that the police should no longer enforce ordinances dealing with panhandling and loitering,” said Tobin in his letter. “The ACLU, while presumably well-intentioned, has done no one a favor.”

In defending the human and constitutional rights of panhandlers, the ACLU respected human dignity in a way Bishop Tobin seems unprepared to do. The “favor” the ACLU did was to remind us that rather than sweeping people in need out of sight, it is far better to provide the things they need to live their lives comfortably.

Some religious leaders understand this, but many others don’t get it, even as they wonder why their moral authority is crumbling.

“The Bishops of the United States have supported the passage of comprehensive immigration reform in our nation for many years.  Until that finally happens, particular, ad-hoc issues such as providing drivers licenses for undocumented individuals will inevitably arise.

“I wish to express my support for the proposal to provide special, limited licenses for undocumented individuals in Rhode Island.  It seems to be a rather practical approach that will obtain information about individuals who are already driving in our State.  Additionally it will, in the long run, promote public safety. It is common sense legislation that will do much more good than harm.

“Our Holy Father Pope Francis has reminded us that he himself is the son of an immigrant family, and he has urged Americans to welcome immigrants into our midst.  “I am certain that, as so often in the past, these immigrants will enrich America and its Church,” the Holy Father said.

“As the current proposal is debated, I encourage all parties to discuss the issue in a reasonable and constructive way, and to work together to promote the common good of our community.”

Tobin’s stance puts him at odds with his right-wing talk radio fan John DePetro, and at odds with the Republican Party, of which Tobin is a member.

Tobin’s letter was read at State Rep Anastasia Williams‘ press conference held today at the State House.

In the Harry Potter books and movies, wands are built by encasing the hair (or feather) of a magical creature in wood. Though a spell can be cast without a wand, wands make spell casting easier.

Of course, Harry Potter is fantasy and few of us really believe that the magic performed in the books and movies could be real, or that their are creatures possessed of magical powers whose body parts can assist in the casting of spells. Magic in Harry Potter is a fun idea, but it’s not to be taken any more seriously than the Force in Star Wars.

In 2008, Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Providence Diocese showed up at the bedside of a five year old child diagnosed with stage-three kidney cancer to bless her and pray for her recovery. To assist in the child’s cure, Tobin produced his own version of a Harry Potter magic wand: “a relic containing strands of Mother Teresa’s hair.”

“I always tend to be skeptical of these divine interventions, but it is very clear to me that something very special happened that day,” Tobin said, “When she was blessed with the relic, her body reacted and she opened her eyes.”

Mother Teresa is a nun who died in 1997 and is soon to be recognized as a saint. As part of the process of canonization, the church confirmed two posthumous miracles “obtained from God through the intercession of the candidate.” Upon canonization, a Saint’s body parts can be used in reliquaries, and through the intercession of saints, miracles can happen.

In short, the reliquary used to bolster the power of a Bishop’s blessing serves exactly the same function as the wand used to bolster the power of a Wizard’s spell. The only difference is that no one seriously believes in the Magical powers of Wizards and Wands, but there are many who believe in the Miraculous powers of Bishops and Reliquaries.

But they are exactly the same thing.

Thankfully the little girl recovered and is now, at age 13, cancer free. The church is still examining the medical records of the girl’s recovery to determine if this was an actual miracle.

Whether the cure was effected by “an experimental cocktail of chemotherapy along with two weeks of radiation” or through the magical intercession of a reliquary waving bishop is impossible to determine.

But chemotherapy is real, and Harry Potter is fiction, so…

• As I watched the demonstrations, I wondered if Bishop Tobin was aware that the videos presented to the public by the anti-choice group Center for Medical Progress, the videos that inspired these protests, are hoaxes made to fool gullible people? These videos are amateurishly edited lies, as any Google search will show. (See: Snopes, Wonkette, MediaMatters and LittleGreenFootballs) Could the Bishop have checked the Internet before continuing to spread false witness?

• I wondered if Rhode Island Catholics are aware that under the leadership of Bishop Tobin, the Providence Diocese has made a habit of teaming up with extremist anti-LGBTQ hate groups? The national sponsors of the “Day of Protest” against Planned Parenthood included:

–American Family Association is listed as a hate group with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). For just a flavor of the sickening things this group has said, I’ll supply one quote from Bryan Fischer, director of issue analysis for government and public policy: “Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews.”

–Family Research Council is also listed as an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the SPLC, whose senior Fellow for Policy Studies, Peter Sprigg, said, against all evidence to the contrary, that, “We believe the evidence shows … that relative to the size of their population, homosexual men are more likely to engage in child sexual abuse than are heterosexual men.”

-Besides the SPLC identified hate groups, the Planned Parenthood protest event was also backed by Operation Rescue, which has been linked to violent anti-choice extremists.

-Saturday was not the first time Tobin has sided himself with extremist hate groups. In 2013, Tobin gave his blessing to FAPSMEG, an anti-marriage equality coalition that counted MassResistance, another certified SPLC hate group, among its members. MassResistance executive director Brian Camenker even came to RI to testify against marriage equality as part of the coalition.

Do Rhode Island Catholics really want to be allies with hate groups?

• Is the general public aware that the Catholic Church doesn’t simply oppose abortion, they also oppose most common forms of birth control such as condoms, birth control pills and IUDs? At least one group sponsoring the Planned Parenthood protests, the American Life League, (ALA) is opposed to “abortion under any circumstance” and “all forms of contraception, embryonic stem cell research, and euthanasia.” The ALA is “the largest Catholic grassroots pro-life organization in the United States.”

Now, this might be a fine way for believing Catholics to live, but the Church would see its beliefs imposed on everyone, through law. America, and specifically Rhode Island, was founded on very different principles. Here, we separate church and state.

• The Catholic Church in Rhode Island pays no taxes, yet exerts an out-sized influence on Rhode Island’s politics. At least three state legislators were outside Planned Parenthood with the protesters. I saw Representatives Raymond Hull, Robert Lancia and Justin Price. We should ask ourselves: How are laws shaped by Catholic theology fundamentally different from sharia law?

• Women’s rights to privacy, medical care and freedom of conscience are under attack across the country. The ugly manifestations of this are starting to be felt in Rhode island. Governor Gina Raimondo, who sought the endorsement of Planned Parenthood, has shown herself to be no champion of reproductive rights. Rhode Island has a proud tradition of standing against intolerance, fear and ignorance. When will we demand leadership that will stand against these pernicious attacks on our fundamental freedoms?

With this in mind, I hope you will join me in making a donation to Planned Parenthood.