Bishop Thomas J. Tobin is a Stupid Thirsty Shithead

Prayers for the clout

For two millennia, the bishops have been the official teaching authority of the Catholic church. According to Catholic teaching, the first bishops were Christ's original Apostles, sent out at Pentecost to make disciples of all nations. Saint Peter was the first Pope, and the Pope continues to be the only authority that can ordain and install bishops. They directly continue the work of those original Apostles. And one of them has a special blessing for you if you can help him get to 10k on Twitter:

This is a post from last week from His Excellence The Most Reverend Thomas J. Tobin of Providence, RI, the biggest clout slut in the American episcopate. Is a bishop offering blessings in exchange for Twitter followers funny? Yes of course. Does his thirst for those sweet sweet retweets somehow make him automatically lacking as a human being? No, that would be ridiculous, there are plenty of better reasons why he's lacking as a human being.

THE BAD PART

I guess the obvious place to start is with the actual criminal activity. Before becoming bishop of his own diocese, Tobin served in other roles in the church, most notably as an auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Pittsburgh from 1992-1996. “Oh no,” you might say, “a diocese in Pennsylvania in the mid-nineties, wouldn't that have put him in a position of power during widespread brutal sexual abuse of minors and a massive institutional coverup, all of which we learned about less than two years ago?” It sure would! Tobin was there during what would become the biggest sexual abuse scandal in the history of Pennsylvania, a record that college football fans everywhere thought would never be broken.

In Tobin's defense, he is not named in the 2018 PA grand jury report; it's possible that he was never aware of any cases of abuse in Pittsburgh. Possible, but untrue, since by his own admission in 2018 he was definitely aware of them. As he put it to the Providence Journal after the report came out, he “became aware of incidents of sexual abuse when they were reported to the diocese.”

If you're wondering what he did with that information when he got it, he also has a response:

“My responsibilities as Vicar General and General Secretary of the diocese did not include clergy assignments or clergy misconduct, but rather other administrative duties such as budgets, property, diocesan staff, working with consultative groups, etc. Even as an auxiliary bishop, I was not primarily responsible for clergy issues.″

Ah, ok, glad he was able to clear that up. Tobin learned about abusive priests, was one of the few people with the power to do something to ensure that these crimes didn't continue, and said “boy I sure hope HR figures that one out.” Perhaps there was a process for dealing with this sort of thing (that obviously failed countless times), and Tobin wasn't part of the process, and he trusted that others would handle it well, and wasn't aware of what was actually going on.

But let's trace the thought process of one of the literal successors of the Apostles. Tobin was the General Secretary of a diocese that was actively destroying records and obstructing justice. Even if he wasn't in charge of clergy assignments, he knew about abusive priests in his diocese, and didn't seem to ask any questions about why they were continuing to work in parishes. He was in charge of the financial records of the diocese, and didn't seem to ask any questions about money being paid for out-of-court settlements. He saw the Boston Globe break a story in 2002 about abusive priests being protected by the church, and apparently said to himself “whew, lucky they weren't reporting on Pittsburgh, otherwise I might look like a real asshole right now". He never, at any point, seemed to feel the need to check with state authorities or ask even one goddamn followup question about what was going on in his diocese. When the grand jury report came out, he immediately said “oh yeah, I knew about that, but technically that was outside of my job description, so don’t worry I’m fine". And less than two years later, he went on Twitter to say “ok bbs get me to 10k and I'll post feet".

And that's important, because the systematic abuse in the diocese and the failure of the bishops to protect people is infuriating. It was a major event that shook the faith of American Catholics everywhere, he was there when it happened, and best-case, he was laughably negligent. I don’t know that Tobin could have stopped what was happening, but he could have absolutely done something, anything, as someone who continues the direct work of the Apostles in the church today, to at least ask questions or see if things got followed up on. Instead, he chose to do nothing. And in the aftermath of that information coming out, he should have resigned as a bishop. Or at least expressed some level of remorse for what happened. Or at least seemed to be mildly embarassed by what happened. Or at least thought twice before becoming an insufferable conservative moral scold begging for Twitter followers. But we all know where this is going.

THE DUMB PART

Knowing what we know about Tobin's tenure in Pittsburgh, his ongoing public statements as bishop of Providence can best be described as bitterly ironic. In 2007, he told his then-Congressman Patrick Kennedy to stop receiving Communion, given his support for abortion rights. As he put it [emphasis mine]:

“On February 21, 2007, I wrote to Congressman Kennedy stating: "In light of the Church's clear teaching, and your consistent actions, therefore, I believe it is inappropriate for you to be receiving Holy Communion and I now ask respectfully that you refrain from doing so." My request came in light of the new statement of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that said, "If a Catholic in his or her personal or professional life were knowingly and obstinately to repudiate her definite teachings on moral issues, he or she would seriously diminish his or her communion with the Church. Reception of Holy Communion in such a situation would not accord with the nature of the Eucharistic celebration, so that he or she should refrain."“

I am assuming, in Tobin’s mind, the moral teachings of the Catholic church as they related to sexual abuse, and failing to act on it when made aware of it in one’s own diocese, was still unsettled.

Here he is, later in his career, in an official diocesan statement from 2013 after the Rhode Island legislature legalized gay marriage [emphasis mine]:

“As I have emphasized consistently in the past, the Catholic Church has respect, love and pastoral concern for our brothers and sisters who have same-sex attraction. I sincerely pray for God’s blessings upon them, that they will enjoy much health, happiness and peace. We also offer our prayerful support to families, especially parents, who often struggle with this issue when it occurs in their own homes. Our respect and pastoral care, however, does not mean that we are free to endorse or ignore immoral or destructive behavior, whenever or however it occurs. Indeed, as St. Paul urges us, we are required to “speak the truth in love.””

Tobin starts by affirming that actually he loves gay people, he just thinks the things they do go against nature and are immoral and destructive and go against everything God could want, a sentiment which I’m sure has provided gay Catholics everywhere with tremendous comfort and support. Even more comforting is Tobin’s commitment to never ignoring immoral or destructive behavior, a thing he definitely did in Pittsburgh, but it was okay then, because it wasn’t technically his job to speak up.

In the same year, Tobin tried to pick a fight with Pope Francis, over maybe the dumbest thing over which I’ve ever seen a bishop pick a fight with the Pope: specifically, Tobin thought Pope Francis was too nice in his statement acknowledging Nelson Mandela’s death, and said that Mandela’s fight to end apartheid in South Africa was tempered by his permissive attitude towards abortion in his country. Tobin also criticized Francis more broadly for being too nice, and for not doing enough to speak out against abortion in the world, a topic on which Pope Francis has spoken out multiple times including in his encyclicals. As the Boston Globe put it:

“Tobin told his diocesan newspaper that he was “a little disappointed in Pope Francis” for not having said much about abortion, and that “many people have noticed.” Francis’s decision to deemphasize divisive social issues, despite recriminations from critics, was seen as a slap at conservative US bishops like Tobin. “It’s one thing for him to reach out and embrace and kiss little children,” Tobin told the newspaper. “It would also be wonderful if in a spiritual way he would reach out and embrace and kiss unborn children.””

Dude, come on with that phrasing. But the phrasing is not the worst part of this, it’s Tobin’s overall assurance of his own authority, his feeling that he can coach the Pope on messaging and tone, when we’ll find out in 2018 that he mainly used his authority to hide his head in the sand as sex crimes were committed on his watch.

It gets dumber. Here he is in 2019 - after everything came out about Pennsylvania! - urging people on Twitter to literally protect their children by…not taking them to Pride events:

Tobin got ratio’d pretty hard for this one, but it gets dumber still. He writes a weekly column for the diocesan newspaper, and the entry from February 2020 was titled “What I Have Failed to Do”. This is not about his own failings as a bishop, this is not him feeling bad about scolding the Pope, this is not him apologizing to countless victims of sexual abuse. It’s just about “hey guys, live life to the fullest!”

“Examine your conscience: Have you failed to worship God by attending Sunday Mass? Have you failed to educate your children in the Faith? Have you failed to be generous in supporting the Church and helping the poor and needy? Have you failed to be reconciled to a family member or former friend against whom you’ve held a grudge for a long time? It’s an important reminder for us, for when our time on earth has ended and we stand before the judgment seat of God, he will judge us not just on what we have done, but also by what we have failed to do. Something to think about: What are the unfulfilled hopes and dreams you’ve been carrying in your heart? Is it too late to fulfill them?”

Examine your conscience, Tobin. Is there anything you wish you could have done differently? Have you expressed any remorse for what happened on your watch, or do you continue to shrug it off? And how can you possibly, 18 months after the grand jury report, write a column titled “WHAT I HAVE FAILED TO DO”? Are you rubbing our faces in it? Would a shepherd of American Catholics truly be the kind of man that would be publicly tied to the coverup of horrific child abuse and then continue to scold people for endangering their children by going to a Pride event?

There are two explanations for this: the first, which I think is less likely, is that Tobin is a true monster, one who revels in the abuse of power, one who actively covered up the abuses of the church and stonewalled victims and families. He would be one who would let it happen again, would in fact encourage abusers today, and would laugh in your face if you came to him as a victim.

But if there is one lesson that I hope G.OT.H.S. teaches to the world, it’s this: people are much less likely to be monsters than they are to be dumbasses. And I think it’s more likely that Tobin is just an oblivious idiot with no sense of self-awareness. He might not even remember working in Pennsylvania. He just loves getting those sweet sweet retweets, hell he’ll offer you a blessing if you get his follower count up. He likes being a conservative culture warrior because it gets him attention and engagement. When a bishop tells you what to do, how to vote, who to listen to, when they speak with the authority of the Apostles, you’re allowed to go back and see how they’ve used that authority in the past. And you’re allowed to rethink the value of that authority if the person wielding it is a monster, or even if they’re just a stupid thirsty shithead.

Grift of the Holy Spirit is a series by Tony Ginocchio detailing stories of the weirdest, dumbest, saddest members of the Catholic church. You can subscribe via Substack to get notified of future installments.