Friday, March 29, AD 2024 2:13am

"Your position is unacceptable to the Church"

Bishop Tobin

Faithful readers of this blog will recall this post here  discussing the Bishop of Providence Thomas J. Tobin taking Patrick Kennedy, Teddy’s son, to task for attacking the Church over ObamaCare.  Now the Bishop has written the following letter to Congressman Kennedy:

Dear Congressman Kennedy:

“The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic.” (Congressman Patrick Kennedy)

Since our recent correspondence has been rather public, I hope you don’t mind if I share a few reflections about your practice of the faith in this public forum. I usually wouldn’t do that – that is speak about someone’s faith in a public setting – but in our well-documented exchange of letters about health care and abortion, it has emerged as an issue. I also share these words publicly with the thought that they might be instructive to other Catholics, including those in prominent positions of leadership.

For the moment I’d like to set aside the discussion of health care reform, as important and relevant as it is, and focus on one statement contained in your letter of October 29, 2009, in which you write, “The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic.” That sentence certainly caught my attention and deserves a public response, lest it go unchallenged and lead others to believe it’s true. And it raises an important question: What does it mean to be a Catholic?

“The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic.” Well, in fact, Congressman, in a way it does. Although I wouldn’t choose those particular words, when someone rejects the teachings of the Church, especially on a grave matter, a life-and-death issue like abortion, it certainly does diminish their ecclesial communion, their unity with the Church. This principle is based on the Sacred Scripture and Tradition of the Church and is made more explicit in recent documents.

For example, the “Code of Canon Law” says, “Lay persons are bound by an obligation and possess the right to acquire a knowledge of Christian doctrine adapted to their capacity and condition so that they can live in accord with that doctrine.” (Canon 229, #1)

The “Catechism of the Catholic Church” says this: “Mindful of Christ’s words to his apostles, ‘He who hears you, hears me,’ the faithful receive with docility the teaching and directives that their pastors give them in different forms.” (#87)

Or consider this statement of the Church: “It would be a mistake to confuse the proper autonomy exercised by Catholics in political life with the claim of a principle that prescinds from the moral and social teaching of the Church.” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 2002)

There’s lots of canonical and theological verbiage there, Congressman, but what it means is that if you don’t accept the teachings of the Church your communion with the Church is flawed, or in your own words, makes you “less of a Catholic.”

But let’s get down to a more practical question; let’s approach it this way: What does it mean, really, to be a Catholic? After all, being a Catholic has to mean something, right?

Well, in simple terms – and here I refer only to those more visible, structural elements of Church membership – being a Catholic means that you’re part of a faith community that possesses a clearly defined authority and doctrine, obligations and expectations. It means that you believe and accept the teachings of the Church, especially on essential matters of faith and morals; that you belong to a local Catholic community, a parish; that you attend Mass on Sundays and receive the sacraments regularly; that you support the Church, personally, publicly, spiritually and financially.

Congressman, I’m not sure whether or not you fulfill the basic requirements of being a Catholic, so let me ask: Do you accept the teachings of the Church on essential matters of faith and morals, including our stance on abortion? Do you belong to a local Catholic community, a parish? Do you attend Mass on Sundays and receive the sacraments regularly? Do you support the Church, personally, publicly, spiritually and financially?

In your letter you say that you “embrace your faith.” Terrific. But if you don’t fulfill the basic requirements of membership, what is it exactly that makes you a Catholic? Your baptism as an infant? Your family ties? Your cultural heritage?

Your letter also says that your faith “acknowledges the existence of an imperfect humanity.” Absolutely true. But in confronting your rejection of the Church’s teaching, we’re not dealing just with “an imperfect humanity” – as we do when we wrestle with sins such as anger, pride, greed, impurity or dishonesty. We all struggle with those things, and often fail.

Your rejection of the Church’s teaching on abortion falls into a different category – it’s a deliberate and obstinate act of the will; a conscious decision that you’ve re-affirmed on many occasions. Sorry, you can’t chalk it up to an “imperfect humanity.” Your position is unacceptable to the Church and scandalous to many of our members. It absolutely diminishes your communion with the Church.

Congressman Kennedy, I write these words not to embarrass you or to judge the state of your conscience or soul. That’s ultimately between you and God. But your description of your relationship with the Church is now a matter of public record, and it needs to be challenged. I invite you, as your bishop and brother in Christ, to enter into a sincere process of discernment, conversion and repentance. It’s not too late for you to repair your relationship with the Church, redeem your public image, and emerge as an authentic “profile in courage,” especially by defending the sanctity of human life for all people, including unborn children. And if I can ever be of assistance as you travel the road of faith, I would be honored and happy to do so.

Sincerely yours,

Thomas J. Tobin

Bishop of Providence

 

Here is a Bishop!  He is speaking words that Catholic pro-abort pols have needed to hear for decades.  Bravo!  Father Z adds some timely comments of his own here.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
28 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Tim Shipe
Tuesday, November 10, AD 2009 1:36pm

Wow- what an excellent thing to have a bishop respond so completely, so intellectually, armed with both truth and compassion. Any public Catholic worth his or her salt would welcome a critique of their politics by the Church’s Hierarchy- the obedience of faith.

Chris Burgwald
Tuesday, November 10, AD 2009 1:55pm

Ditto, Tim! This is a great letter, in many ways.

afl
afl
Tuesday, November 10, AD 2009 1:59pm

If only those Bishops with whom Pelosi, Kerry, Biden, etal are attached to would send each this type of letter and ask them the same questions or ask them to quit stating they are faithful and practicing Catholics.

Karl
Karl
Tuesday, November 10, AD 2009 2:12pm

While this certainly pleases me and is encouraging, I wish that all bishops would do such things, in private, when there are situations where those who publically claim to be Catholic are flaunting their situations that are, based upon the very definition of it, scandalous.

These bishops seen to think that they will not be held to account when they are fully aware of what is going on and choose to do nothing.

Bravo, to Bishop Tobin. A hopeful sign, indeed. May your public act encourage your fellow bishops to see the value in public admonishment, and private too….

ron chandonia
ron chandonia
Tuesday, November 10, AD 2009 2:39pm

I wish this sort of response were more common. In fact, I wish it were the policy of all the bishops in the USCCB. I think we’d see a very different response from self-described Catholic politicians than was evident during the Stupak vote.

Tito Edwards
Tuesday, November 10, AD 2009 3:27pm

Your rejection of the Church’s teaching on abortion falls into a different category – it’s a deliberate and obstinate act of the will; a conscious decision that you’ve re-affirmed on many occasions. Sorry, you can’t chalk it up to an “imperfect humanity.” Your position is unacceptable to the Church and scandalous to many of our members. It absolutely diminishes your communion with the Church.

Incredibly eloquent and to the point.

I pray many more bishops will follow his example.

Imagine if Cardinal Mahoney or Cardinal George were to follow this exemplary example!

Deo gratias!

Andrew C.
Andrew C.
Tuesday, November 10, AD 2009 3:42pm

That was rather refreshing!

c matt
c matt
Tuesday, November 10, AD 2009 3:50pm

Wow…just wow!!!

A 100 more like him, please.

e.
e.
Tuesday, November 10, AD 2009 3:59pm

Donald:

It is right that you should applaud this bishop; however, how about the USCCB, too, for what they apparently did just recently as regarding abortion in the Health Bill?

Kindly note from The Wall Street Journal:

“We did not want this legislation to be a vehicle for expanding abortion or for changing federal policy on abortion in the wrong direction,” said Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the secretariat of pro-life activities for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The abortion issue was at the center of last-minute wrangling in the House. A bloc of Democrats, *backed by the Catholic bishops*, threatened to scuttle the House health bill if leaders didn’t take up the antiabortion measure. In an unusual show of influence, Mr. Doerflinger and other representatives of the bishops on Friday met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to broker an agreement. Ms. Pelosi, who favors abortion rights, reluctantly agreed to bring the measure to the floor, and it became part of the broader bill that passed in the House late Saturday.”

Paul, Just This Guy, You Know?
Tuesday, November 10, AD 2009 4:23pm

A wonderful letter; as a Catholic seeking public office myself, this letter is like water in the desert.

Is there a link to the original somewhere?

Paul, Just This Guy, You Know?
Tuesday, November 10, AD 2009 4:48pm

Disregard, found it.

John T
John T
Tuesday, November 10, AD 2009 6:35pm

That letter was incredible. Thank you Bishop Thomas Tobin for speaking out against the scandal that these so called Catholic politicians inflict upon the Catholic name.

Donna V.
Donna V.
Tuesday, November 10, AD 2009 8:23pm

Thank God for Bishop Tobin. I am so weary of politicians trying to convince me that 2 plus 2 equals 5, that one can be a good Catholic and pro-abortion, that Hasan’s religion had absolutely nothing to do with the Ft. Hood shooting, that we can spend our way to prosperity and so on, that when an honest man with common sense speaks up I want to cheer. And then I want to cry, because there are so few of them.

American Knight
American Knight
Tuesday, November 10, AD 2009 8:27pm

Wonderful. We must keep praying for our bishops and the Holy Father. It is the pope’s leadership that strengthens the bishops and it is the sacrifice and prayers of all communicants that strenghten our leadership.

The Holy Spirit is no cowardly spirit.

This is one servant that is not lukewarm. We need more. Pray, pray, pray.

Largebill
Tuesday, November 10, AD 2009 10:28pm

A direct, honest and hopeful letter. I would suggest that we all read this letter as though it were written to us personally. No, I’m not saying any of us are as confused on core issues as some of our politicians, but we can all use some personal reaffirming of what our faith entails. I could not help but examine my own failings as the Bishop reminded the congressman (and the rest of us) of some of what makes us Catholics. The exchange could seem like a rebuke of the congressman (and it was), but it also was an invitation to return. The congressman (and millions of others) have to RSVP.

Bishop Tolan also showed a touch of humor by suggesting Patrick could be an authentic “profile in courage,” obviously a play on the title of Ted Sorenson’s book that Patrick’s uncle Jack got a Pulitzer for writing.

Benedictus Quebecensis
Benedictus Quebecensis
Thursday, November 12, AD 2009 7:11pm

The current absolutist teaching of the Church on abortion is an innovation. The Roman Catholic hierarchy can try to paper over the Church’s history but they cannot succeed because the historical record is irrefutable.

Under today’s rigid rules, they would have to refuse communion to some of the most imminent popes and doctors of the Chruch.

The Church has always considered abortion to be inherently evil but has been divided on the degree of sin attached to it. It is always to be discouraged but punishment (if any) has, until the 20th century, depended on WHEN it is practiced.

It is obvious that life (of some kind) begins at conception. The question for theologians has until very recently not been when life begins but when the embryo or fetus is endowed with HUMAN life, that is, with a human soul. And that question is difficult to answer.

From the 5th to 16th Century AD, Christian philosophers took varying positions on abortion.

St. Augustine wrote that an early abortion is not murder because the soul of a fetus at an early stage is not present.

St. Thomas Aquinas, Pope Innocent III, and Pope Gregory XIV believed that a fetus does not have a soul until “quickening” or when the fetus begins to kick and move. Abortion before quickening was, therefore, discouraged but tolerated.

Since quickening occurs at some indeterminate time after conception and according to some doctors of the Church, after the first trimester, it was assumed that ensoulment occurs at some unknown moment during that period. After the first trimester, abortion was homicide because it was (according to the theological consensus) a certainty that the fetus was by then endowed with a human soul.

Prior to that time, there was no consensus. It was therefore common over the centuries for abortions in the first trimester to be tolerated in varying degrees.

Indeed, this position was reflected in British and U.S. criminal law until the beginning of the 20th century. Until then, it was uncommon for a woman or her doctor to be charged with a crime if the abortion was induced during the first trimester.

While the Church has ALWAYS OPPOSED abortion, the modern absolutist position that equates it with culpable homicide with no exceptions and as of the moment of conception is at odds with the Church’s earlier practice.

The Church is certainly within its rights to adapt and refine its teachings. However it is false to claim that the position taken today has always been held.

Today’s teaching does not rise to the standard of the Vincentian canon of catholicity; it has not been held everywhere, at all times, by all (quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est).

If CIVIL and CANON laws allowed first trimester abortion (as did early Churchmen, the ancient Jews, the early Muslims and even Aristotle) and banned later abortions, there would be little or no conflict over this issue. That would be a lesser of evils solution that would spare many righteous-minded people from suffering.

Tell me, do YOU know when a soul enters a human fetus or embryo? I don’t either, but I respect the opinions of the doctors of the Church and believe that greater good is achieved by following their teachings rather than the innovations of a very few modern theologians.

e.
e.
Thursday, November 12, AD 2009 7:19pm

Benedictus:

Your Pelosi-styled argument (not to mention, stupidity) is as risible and demonstrably deficient as hers. A refutation to such a deficient (as well as to say, twistedly perverted) presentation of history was already submitted by those more superior in both thought and epistemology than you seem to be:

St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, held that the process of conception required forty days for boys and eighty for girls before the conceptus was ready for the infusion of the rational soul (Commentary on the Fourth Book of Sentences, d. 31 exp. text.). And that was the common view through the eighteenth century. Abortion prior to said infusion was not held by the Church to be the killing of a human person; it was condemned only as a particularly nasty form of contraception. What changed that, of course, was the development of the modern disciplines of obstetrics, gynecology, and above all genetics.

As soon as it became clear to the Church that even the blastocyst, under normal conditions, was a genetically unique individual member of homo sapiens—twinning being a separate, still controversial case—Pope Pius IX included abortion at any stage of gestation as a form of homicide in his renewed list of offenses incurring excommunication (Apostolicae Sedis [1869]). And so the teaching and discipline remain today.

American Knight
American Knight
Thursday, November 12, AD 2009 8:09pm

Donald,

That was great! Thank you so much.

Did you really need to pull out the Howitzer to handle the little misguided relativist though? 😉

American Knight
American Knight
Thursday, November 12, AD 2009 8:32pm

Nice.

Benedictus Quebecensis
Benedictus Quebecensis
Saturday, November 14, AD 2009 10:26am

I appreciate the theological rebuttals to my original message (even if the gratuitous calumnies added by some are hardly Christ-like remarks).

However, even the material adduced show that the question of when the product of conception, no doubt a living being, is a human being endowed with a soul. Some seem to confuse spiritus humana (ruach, psykhe) with anima humana (nephesh, pneuma).

It is an incontrovertible fact that, despite the universally held view (among Catholics) that abortion was inherently evil and always to be condemned and opposed, the punishment to be applied varied. Furthermore the punishment depended on whether or not the product of conception was infantus inanimatus (soul-less enfant) or infantus animatus (ensouled enfant).

Those today who pretend to call on science and argue that even a human blastocyte is endowed with a soul are perverting science (which does not deal with preternatural phenomena) and displaying arrogance by claiming in the absence of sure knowledge, to know something that only God knows for sure.

The Universal Church did not begin rigorous Canon Law codification of what it considered to be “sexual sins” unitl the earth 7th century. At that time, abortion made the list, but in terms of punishment, abortion was well behind the sins of contraception, fellatio, and sodomy. In fact, the punishment for fellatio was at least 7 years of penance, while the punishment for abortion was a mere 120 days. At that time, the Church certainly did NOT consider all abortion to be culpable homicide.
St. Augustine of Hippo argued that abortion before ensoulment was not infanticide. However, the time of ensoulment that he assumed was not the same as the time assumed by others.

Pope Innocent III in the early 1200s, ruled that the fetus had no soul until it was “animated”, usually around the 24th week.

At that time, in a salacious case of sexual disobedience, a monk was found NOT guilty of homicide for aborting his lover’s unborn child. In that case, it was ruled that at the time of the abortion, the fetus was an “infantus inanimatus” and thus it’s destruction was not culpable homicide.

St. Jerome held a view not unlike the later view of Pope Innocent III. Jerome said, “The seed gradually takes shape in the uterus, and it [abortion] does not count as killing until the individual elements have acquired their external appearance and their limbs. (“Epistle” 121,4)

Jerome certainly did not think the human blastocyte was an infantus animatus.

In 1588, Pope Sixtus V in 1588 made all abortions illegal.

In due course, Sixtus V was reversed by Pope Gregory XIV, who tolerated abortions up to 16 ½ weeks as not equivalent to the killing of a human being, as no soul was present.

The toleration shown by Pope Gregory XIV remained the official teaching of the Church for the next three centuries, until 1869, when Pope Pius IX declared all abortion to be homicide.

Furthermore, the declaration of Pope Pius IX (which is not explicitly claimed by theologians to be an ex cathedra pronouncement and thus is a papally imposed discipline not unlike the divergent opinions of some of his predecessors) was not the last word on the matter.

It took more than a CENTURY after his pronouncement before all references to “foetus inanimatus” and “foetus animatus” were removed from Canon Law.

A question that seldom is discussed is what the punishment for abortion should be today under secular criminal law. After all, many Catholics take a strong position on the secular illictness of abortion. They work tirelessly to suppport or oppose candidates of political office and office holders based on how those people view abortion as a matter of secular law. They favor state and federal laws against abortion.

However, they seldom say what the civil punishment for abortion should be. Historically, the ecclesiastical punishment has generally been a period of penance, that has varied, in different eras, between 120 days and 10 years.

However, if abortion is culpable murder then it must be punished just like any other culpable murder or least be considered a form of criminally negligent manslaughter. If a women is charged with procuring an abortion, what should her sentence be? To be consequent in their positions, Catholics who insist that abortion should be a crime under secular law must take a position on the sentence or range of sentences that would be appropriate for that crime.

Since the Church discourages recourse to the death penalty, capital punishment would seem to be excluded. What then would the punishement be? Life in prison as for any other premeditated murder? A period of years (5, 10, 15), as is the case for most forms of non-premeditated murder or negligent homicide? Probation and a fine?

I respect those who sincerely believe that all abortion is culpable homicide. They have serious grounds, historically speaking. However, those who decry abortion as evil, but would tolerate it in some circumstances during the first trimester are also in good company, historically speaking.

What disturbs me is the distortion historical record by those who believe all abortion is culpable homicide. Stand up for the position that you sincerely believe is morally right but do not make the false claim that you are promoting a stance that has been taken always, everywhere and by all.

stillhere4u
Sunday, November 22, AD 2009 12:56pm

In the escalating fight between Thomas Tobin and Patrick Kennedy, it strikes me that a conflict of interest is involved in one of the parties being the umpire or mediator. It also strikes me that both parties are in a position to abuse their position to further the fight…under the rubric of a higher purpose. I recommend the following post: http://deligentia.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/so-the-last-will-be-first-and-the-first-will-be-last/

trackback
Sunday, November 22, AD 2009 3:15pm

[…] with the Bishop of Providence Thomas J. Tobin.  Prior posts on this combative dialogue are here and here.  Kennedy has now revealed that he is barred from receiving communion.  The Bishop has responded […]

trackback
Saturday, November 28, AD 2009 12:04am

[…] As Rhode Island is our most Catholic state, Kennedy went silent and got this parting shot from Tobin: “Your position is unacceptable to the Church and scandalous to many of our members. It absolu… […]

trackback
Friday, February 12, AD 2010 6:35am

[…] conflict with his Bishop Thomas J. Tobin over the issue of abortion as detailed in posts here, here and here.  I suspect that Kennedy is not running for a number of reasons, perhaps the most […]

Discover more from The American Catholic

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

Scroll to Top