A few days ago, His Excellency Thomas J. Tobin, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island, wrote ...
VP Pick, Tim Kaine, a Catholic?
Democratic VP choice, Tim Kaine, has been widely identified as a Roman Catholic. It is also reported that he publicly supports
“freedom of choice” for abortion,
same-sex marriage,
gay adoptions,
and the ordination of women as priests.
All of these positions are clearly contrary to well-established Catholic teachings; all of them have been opposed by Pope Francis as well.
Senator Kaine has said, “My faith is central to everything I do.” But apparently, and unfortunately, his faith isn’t central to his public, political life.
I gave each item in His Excellency's list of sex-related issues in his condemnation red coloring, and a separate line. You can see the original here ...
https://www.facebook.com/bishoptobin/posts/1047348775312425
If you're not in Facebook, the link may not work.
His Excellency's words about nominally Catholic Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Senator Tim Kaine seem, at first glance, to be a well-articulated assertion of Catholic doctrine in the public forum.
However, there is a problem.
Even in the act of publicly condemning a fallen-away Catholic for his fallen-away position, Bishop Tobin, himself, is actually very subtly, very invisibly doing something which morally seems fundamentally indistinct from Senator Kaine's assertion of positions against Catholic doctrine, except that what Bishop Tobin is doing is an act of careful nonfeasance, as opposed to Senator Kaine's acts of misfeasance. However,
(a) because Bishop Tobin is a successor to the Apostle leader/teachers of the Church,
(b) engaged in what is very clearly an act of leading and teaching,
(c) and is publicly condemning another human being as he does so, in a fashion reminiscent of King David before the prophet Nathan,
I can't decide which is the more difficult thing, morally ...
a nominally Roman Catholic political leader publicly supporting positions against Church teaching in the all-important sexual arena; or
a modern Roman Catholic Apostle leader/teacher, presumably electable to the Chair of Peter, who carefully refrains from publicly supporting one portion of Roman Catholic dogma in the all-important sexual arena -- the portion of dogma most massively disobeyed by Catholics, including, very importantly, a substantial majority of church-going Catholics who contribute to the support of the Church -- while publicly condemning the same Roman Catholic political leader.
It's time for me to come clean: What "one portion of Roman Catholic dogma in the all-important sexual arena" am I claiming Bishop Tobin is carefully refraining from supporting, in his condemnation of Vice Presidential candidate Kaine and his positions?
Most Catholic readers already figured it out, when I described it as "the portion of dogma most massively disobeyed by Catholics, including, very importantly, a substantial majority of church-going Catholics who contribute to the support of the Church" --
the ban on contraceptive use in marriage.
Catholics are tuned-into that one issue like a one-station radio.
A federally-financed study verified that even by the mid-1990's, in excess of 72% of Sunday Mass attending Catholics made regular use of some means of contraception.
The number today, in 2016, is probably significantly higher. (Look around at Mass on Sunday for Catholic parents with 5 or 6 kids in the pew between them, and you will know the truth.)
Bishop Tobin's supporters might argue, "Well, Senator Kaine has probably had nothing to say on the subject of contraception."
Only two months ago, in May, 2016, Senator Kaine himself introduced in the United States Senate the Access to Birth Control Act.
http://www.kaine.senate.gov/press-releases/kaine-introduces-legislation-to-protect-womens-access-to-contraceptives
I don't see how Bishop Tobin could have missed that. That's not exactly ancient history.
Bishop Tobin's supporters might then argue, "Well, it was probably just an oversight."
Really? If you think that, I challenge you to simply apply to be one of Bishop Tobin's Facebook Friends -- you know how utterly simple the process is -- and publicly post on-line, in his Facebook page, the following question: "Your Excellency, do you also condemn Senator Kaine's intoduction of the Access to Birth Control Act to the United States Senate in May, and his public support for that Act? Further, do you condemn use of contraception by married persons, including Mass-attending Catholic married persons, as violating the moral law and Humanae Vitae?"
Bishop Tobin's supporters might respond, "Well, suppose His Excellency just doesn't want to do what you demand that he do? Who appointed you his boss?"
The problem is that there is a reason why almost no Catholic leader in the United States or Europe will more than occasionally give whispered support to Humanae Vitae. What reason?
Proposed answer: Because Roman Catholic Church leaders see Humanae Vitae as a quicker route to bankruptcy and collapse of the Church in the West than even the ongoing sex scandals and lawsuits.
Can I prove this?
Well, about 2 decades ago, my good friend, Monsignor Edward Korda, pastor of St. Gregory's Roman Catholic Church in Magnolia, New Jersey, called me at my home and invited me to come over to the rectory. When I arrived there, he showed me a letter from the Camden Diocese, addressed to every priest in the Diocese, in which the Bishop expressly commanded every priest in the Diocese to devote the homily at every Sunday Mass on the following Sunday to the Church's teaching that use of contraceptives, even inside of marriage, is morally disordered, and so condemned as sinful by the Church.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"The parishioners are going to hang you from the rafters," I responded.
"That was my reaction, Peter," he responded.
The following Sunday, the priests at St. Gregory's obeyed the Bishop's express written command.
But, across the Diocese, about one-third of the priests simply disobeyed the Bishop.
In the other two-thirds of the cases, hundreds of people walked-out on church in the middle of Mass, and thousands of people wrote very nasty letters to the Bishop.
And the event, nicknamed "Contraception Sunday," was never repeated.
In truth, despite the objective correctness of the teaching against use of contraceptives in marriage, most priests would probably rather eat ground glass for breakfast than, say, give a homily to a church full of Catholics advising that use of contraceptives in marriage is a sin.
And that would be why Bishop Tobin dropped Senator Kaine's introduction of the Access to Birth Control Act to the United States Senate in May from the Senator's list of sex-related heretical positions.
Which brings us to our question, here:
Is there a big moral difference between
on the one hand, being a Catholic political leader, while taking the public positions Senator Kaine does on sex-related issues; and
on the other hand, being a Roman Catholic bishop, engaged in the act of leading and teaching Catholics by publicly condemning Senator Kaine for his positions on sex-related issues, but, in the process, functionally deceiving 1 billion Catholics worldwide by dropping mention of Senator Kaine's flaunting of the contraceptive rule from the list so that the bishop, even as he condemns Senator Kaine, can avoid offending millions of American Catholics and shooting Sunday Mass contributions in the leg?
If there is a difference, I don't see it.
As far as I can see, each man is an important public figure intentionally deceiving the world about The Faith on important sexual issues.
There is on second thought one difference: Bishop Tobin is in The Truth Business.
Does that mean that Bishop Tobin has the heavier responsibility to articulate The Faith?
I suspect that it does.
I'm not trying to trap Bishop Tobin.
I'm saying, "Don't be afraid of even the most difficult requirements of The Faith! Trust in the Holy Spirit!"
Like Senator Kaine, most Catholics aren't really Catholic. Most Catholics are only nominally Catholic.
If priests reminded them on a regular basis that they have got to substitute Natural Family Planning in for The Pill or condoms, and stop taking The Pill, stop shoving The Pill into their dating daughters' mouths, and stop getting tubal litigations, the vast majority of church-going, money-donating Catholics would leave God's Church, and the Church organization as we know it would die.
Catholic bishops must refrain from the "Bell, Book and Candle Game" of publicly assassinating the reputations of nominally Catholic political leaders if at the same time the bishops are going to be hypocritically "nominally Catholic, only," by warping Catholic teaching to avoid offending Catholics on the birth control rule.
I.e., do the hard thing: Mention the contraception rule first, every single time.
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