Rhode Island bishop regrets failure to stop same-sex marriage
August 14, 2013
Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island, said that he was “profoundly disappointed” by the state legislature’s decision to recognize same-sex marriage, and said the vote represented a failure of Catholic influence.
Bishop Tobin said that the legal recognition of same-sex marriage, in America’s most heavily Catholic state, occurred because “so many Catholic politicians abandoned ship on this issue.” He said that the Church should have worked more effectively to preserve the traditional definition of marriage.
Bishop Tobin made his remarks in an address to a meeting of Young Republicans. The bishop said that he was not entirely comfortable speaking to an avowedly partisan political group, but revealed that he had changed his own party registration from Democratic to Republican, primarily because of Democrats’ support for legal abortion.
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Posted by: dover beachcomber -
Aug. 15, 2013 1:17 AM ET USA
Alas, Church leadership often seems to be decades behind when it comes to noticing and responding to threats to the Faith. Take the current emphasis on "accepting" and "respecting" homosexuals, for example: appropriate in the '70's maybe, when anti-gay violence was common, but out of place now when the problem is that gays and their allies are firmly in control of the press, media, and government at all levels, and starting to persecute their enemies (i.e., us).
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Posted by: -
Aug. 15, 2013 12:42 AM ET USA
Until Catholic Bishops accept that they have a moral duty to lead by example they will continue to be "profoundly disappointed". Bishops need to personally take to the pulpits and speak out with clarity and boldness. Bishops must also be willing to take punitive action when necessary starting with the many high profile Catholics who openly defy the Church on major moral evils such as abortion, same sex marriage, and government mandated loss of religious freedoms.
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Posted by: Lucius49 -
Aug. 14, 2013 2:55 PM ET USA
I think more than disappointment is called for. Catholic pols supporting immoral legislation should receive a penalty: not being able to receive Communion for example or gasp excommunication. Such penalties are called medicinal to force the person via "tough love" to see the serious of his departure from the Faith by formal and or material cooperation in moral and political evil: immoral legislation. Otherwise this script will continue to be enacted.
