I hope this incident does not silence Bishop Tobin, but his carefully worded apology sounded forced, and I was disappointed that he succumbed to pressure. If the LGTB community was offended then so be it, they are offended by anyone who gets in the way of their agenda. Bishop Tobin should have no regrets for his initial statement, he is a Shepherd leading his flock. Yes, Carol I agree that these gay pride events can be pretty rough and certainly no place for children, or anyone who wants to protect their soul from harm. I do not understand why Bishop Tobin, in his apology, hoped the Pride event would be a "safe, positive, and productive experience." A Pride event can be physically safe, but never positive, productive, or spiritually safe.
I agree he didn't totally backtrack (Which I didn't say he did) but since when does a Catholic Bishop instructing the faithful in his diocese have to apologize for people being offended by Church Teaching? You're right though Carol at least he didn't retract his statement. Perhaps I was too uncharitable.
The thing is: deep inside the souls of these people, they know they are wrong. That is why they are fighting so vociferously for their “rights”. I saw on a twitter page where someone characterized the movement as “look at me” and then when you look at them and criticize, they say, “don’t look at me.” It’s sin and it’s Satan.
What he said was right. You should never apologise for saying what is right and true because it makes it look like what you said was wrong and false in the first place. Better to have said nothing at all. It is a bit like standing up to a bully and then backing down. Better not to have stood up to the bully in the first place. Once he started swinging his Crozier he should have kept on slugging away with it. The enemies of the Church won't respect him for backing down; they'll simply despise him all the more. It's a bit like feeding a hungry dragon, it'll only come back for more.
You nailed it Padraig, it would have been much better if he had said nothing. He issued a 'sorry, not sorry ' apology, and I pray the the hungry dragon never returns for more. I always had great respect for Bishop Tobin, I live in a neighboring state, and I have family in Rhode Island. I know he was under tremendous pressure; the local news was all over this, and it was horrible. It was especially disturbing to listen to Catholics rise up in defense of gay pride events, and criticize Bishop Tobin.
Well on second thoughts the Bishop possibly got a phone call from the Papal Nuncio telling him to shut it and eat humble pie. I can think of at least two homosexualist US Cardinals (and there appears to be an army of Cardinals just like them...take your pick) who would have taken Apoplexy at the Bishop's statement and probably would have burnt the ears off Rome to have him shut down. Who knows? But that would be my best guess.
I would not be surprised, I thought about this as well. I believe the Bishop was under tremendous pressure.
I think he should have said just what he said in his original statement. To stay silent is not the answer. No need to apologize for Catholic teaching. If it offends them then they don't have to come to church. What they do offends us and we don't attend their events. Here is a related article with more fallout: https://apnews.com/e0ba223b548040138c4a867213b30913
Though the AP meant it to be derogatory, they finished the article with the best line from Bishop Tobin's second message: Tobin, a conservative bishop, said he didn’t mean to offend anyone, but he also defended the tweet. He said in a statement Sunday that it was his obligation to teach the faith “clearly and compassionately, even on very difficult and sensitive issues.” Safe in the Barque of Peter!
Jo, I see that Bishop Thomas Tobin knew about the protest rally and that is the event that he hopes would be "safe, positive and productive experience", the protest itself. I understand why he would say this also. Imo this poor bishop did what all clergymen should be doing and now he is getting persecuted for it. He went out on a limb for all Catholics and Christians in general and because of all of the confusion in the Church and in the world he is being made to suffer for it. It would be nice (and a miracle) if Pope Francis would speak out in his defense but I won't hold my breath. Providence Bishop Tobin responds to controversy over 'Pride' tweet Providence, R.I., Jun 3, 2019 / 04:12 pmm (CNA).- Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence responded Sunday to controversy that ensued from a tweet admonishing Catholics not attend or support “gay pride” festivities. “The Catholic Church has respect and love for members of the gay community, as do I,” the bishop wrote in a statement Sunday, adding that “individuals with same-sex attraction are beloved children of God and our brothers and sisters.” On Saturday, Tobin tweeted: “A reminder that Catholics should not support or attend LGBTQ ‘Pride Month’ events held in June,” tweeted Tobin on Saturday, the first day of the month. “They promote a culture and encourage activities that are contrary to Catholic faith and morals. They are especially harmful for children.” Each year during June, cities around the world host LGBT “Pride” celebrations, which often include parades, parties, and concerts celebrating the gay rights movement and celebrating the LGBT lifestyle. June was chosen in memory of the Stonewall Riots in New York, which are considered a key event in the gay rights movement in the United States, and which took place from June 28-29, 1969. Tobin’s tweet received about 25,000 “likes,” 6,500 “retweets,” and over 88,000 responses, most of them negative. Among those who responded negatively to Tobin’s tweet were actress Mia Farrow, who accused Tobin of “pure ignorance & bigotry” and called him a “hate-filled hypocrite.” She also linked Tobin’s tweet to clerical child sexual abuse. “Kids are far more in danger at a catholic church [sic] than at a gay pride gathering,” added Farrow. Actor Wilson Cruz, who played the character Rickie Vasquez on the short-lived series “My So-Called Life” and the character Angel in the play “RENT,” responded with “You know what’s proven to be actually harmful to children..? The Catholic Church.” Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler (TX) defended Tobin on Twitter, republishing the original tweet and adding “Thanks for speaking up Bishop Tobin....let us be mighty loving messengers of truth and light in Jesus Christ.” [I try to follow Edward Pentin's tweets and I had noticed on June 1st that he had re-tweeted this too.] On Sunday, Strickland elaborated on his support, saying Tobin was “simply speaking for one truth of the deposit of faith.” “God made humans male & female,” continued Strickland. “Certainly those who are confused about their identity need Christ’s love & compassion, let’s remember Christ’s love is expressed when dies on the cross for the truth.” In a statement published to the Diocese of Providence website on Sunday, Tobin expressed regret that his tweet had “turned out to be so controversial in our community, and offensive to some, especially in the gay comunity.” He did not apologize for or retract any of the content of his original statement. [Emphasis added] “That certainly was not my intention, but I understand why a good number of individuals have taken offense,” said Tobin, also acknowledging that he had received “widespread support” for his tweet. While noting that he was not motivated by hatred, Tobin said that as a bishop, “my obligation before God is to lead the faithful entrusted to my care and to teach the faith, clearly and compassionately, even on very difficult and sensitive issues,” said Tobin. “That is what I have always tried to do - on a variety of issues - and I will continue doing so as contemporary issues arise.” Tobin acknowledged that there was to be a rally in protest of his words on Sunday evening, which he said he hoped would be a “safe, positive and productive experience” for all attendees. [emphasis added] “As they gather I will be praying for a rebirth of mutual understanding and respect in our very diverse community,” he added. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/...esponds-to-controversy-over-pride-tweet-36489 *** From time to time, I try to reflect on Pope Benedict's prediction in 1969 of what the Church would look like in the year 2000. It is contained in the following link, https://www.romancatholicman.com/fa...s-1969-prediction-church-will-look-like-2000/ and it begins, “The future of the Church can and will issue from those whose roots are deep and who live from the pure fullness of their faith. It will not issue from those who accommodate themselves merely to the passing moment or from those who merely criticize others and assume that they themselves are infallible measuring rods; nor will it issue from those who take the easier road, who sidestep the passion of faith, declaring false and obsolete, tyrannous and legalistic, all that makes demands upon men, that hurts them and compels them to sacrifice themselves. To put this more positively: The future of the Church, once again as always, will be reshaped by saints, by men, that is, whose minds probe deeper than the slogans of the day, who see more than others see, because their lives embrace a wider reality..." Imho Bishop Thomas Tobin is striving to be a saint.
I was deeply saddened when the Bishop did not stand by his first statement because it was the absolute truth. Since he did not, I agree with Padraig that it would have been better to say nothing rather than issue any sort of apology. Yes, the gay pride events are extremely offensive to us, and Our Lord. What a sad state of affairs.
Carol, I respect and understand your opinon. One simple tweet started a firestorm of controversy. The Bishop did what he believed was right under intense pressure, but in my heart of hearts I believe clarification of his original statement was unnecessary. I would love it if Bishop Tobin joined the ranks of our great saints. God bless.
On Saturday, Tobin tweeted: “A reminder that Catholics should not support or attend LGBTQ ‘Pride Month’ events held in June,” tweeted Tobin on Saturday, the first day of the month. “They promote a culture and encourage activities that are contrary to Catholic faith and morals. They are especially harmful for children.” I'm sure the above line will be distorted. One will be that the "they" in the above quotes will be said to refer to individuals who identify LGBTQ, rather than the events that promote the lifestyle. After all the events continue the propaganda of sexual normalcy and goodness. Safe in the Barque of Peter!
Notice: Tobin’s tweet received about 25,000 “likes,” 6,500 “retweets,” and over 88,000 responses, most of them negative. Apparently a sizable number of people approve of his message, but are quiescent. That says a lot. The LGBTQRS lobby are loudmouth complainers, but just because they are loud does not mean they are right. It just means they are good at shouting people down.
The LGBTQ crowd are the new Pagans trying to overturn Christian society. We should not apologize to them for stating the Truth.
HH, Thank you. I greatly appreciate Bishop Thomas Tobin for speaking up especially since we are living in time when so few do. *** Moving on to another subject... Jun. 4, 2019 | http://www.ncregister.com/daily-new...n-massacre-china-remains-a-surveillance-state Thirty Years After Tiananmen Massacre, China Remains a ‘Surveillance State’ Religious freedom is among the areas that have deteriorated since then, according to experts who monitor human-rights violations there. Edward Pentin The Tiananmen Square protests, which took place 30 years ago today and led to a brutal and deadly crackdown of scores of pro-democracy activists by the Chinese authorities, could not happen in today’s Beijing. That’s because China no longer has “freedom of assembly,” said Reggie Littlejohn, the founder of the organization Women’s Rights Without Frontiers that protects women in China. Currently, any two or more people who do protest there are “detained immediately.” Since the 1989 massacre, human rights in the vast Asian country “have not improved but deteriorated,” she said in a statement, adding that the country has become “a surveillance state,” where technology is being used as an instrument of “repression.” Part of that repression includes government attempts to erase the Chinese people’s memory of the government crackdown, which killed hundreds, if not several thousands. References to it are censored on social media, news and history books, in what has become known as the “great forgetting.” Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, stressed on Twitter that the massacre is “not erasable” and that the Chinese people are “still waiting for the apology to compensate this massacre of the China government.” But that apology is not expected anytime soon, as the government continues to clamp down on various freedoms in a bid to control the population in China and to ensure the survival of the Chinese Communist Party. Beijing has “ramped up” its digital-surveillance program “on a massive scale,” said Steven Mosher, an authority on China and the president of the Population Research Institute. He told the Register May 21 that, since 2012, it has run a “DNA-collection program,” beginning with the oppressed Uyghur minority and then extending it to the rest of the country. “This is part of the surveillance state that China is setting up,” explained Mosher, who, in 1979, became the first American research student allowed to carry out anthropological research in China following the Cultural Revolution. “For the first time in the world, we’re seeing a high-tech digital dictatorship which will, at the end of the day, be able to monitor on a 24/7 basis where everybody is, what everybody’s doing.” The goal of the state “is, of course, to stay in power,” Mosher said, using people’s DNA to trace them and track them down if they do something the government dislikes. In the U.S., DNA samples are taken for criminals, he pointed out. “In China, it’s nationwide.” He also believes, following a recent hacking of a U.S. government personnel database, that China is already setting up surveillance beyond its borders, including a database that includes “tens of millions of Americans,” and is using companies such as Huawei to do it. The surveillance crackdown also makes use of facial-recognition technology, allowing the government to track people even without a cellphone. “It’s Orwellian in a sense that even George Orwell would never have imagined,” said Mosher. Other Human-Rights Violations But China experts say this is just one area of human-rights violations that have grown up since the June 4 atrocity of 1989. The economy has boomed since that time, a “fruit of Tiananmen,” according to Father Bernardo Cervellera. In a June 4 editorial, the editor of Asia News wrote that, “in order to hide the military’s blood-stained hands,” the government of then-President Deng Xiaoping rolled out economic reforms to “repurchase” respect from the population. “The wealth was the opium that helped forget the massacre,” Father Cervellera wrote. The authorities found a willing collaborator in the Clinton administration, which hoped that, by de-linking U.S. conferral of “most-favored nation” status from China’s human-rights transgressions, trade would increase and the country would eventually embrace Western values and human rights. “That policy has proven to be an epic fail,” said Littlejohn. According to the 2018 Congressional-Executive Commission annual report on China, more than 1 million Uyghur and other Muslim ethnic minorities currently suffer in “political re-education” concentration camps; prisoners of conscience and religious believers are being executed to harvest their organs; the country’s media are completely controlled; and Christians continue to be persecuted, including churches bulldozed, shrines torn down and priests jailed in the shadow of a secret, controversial Vatican-China agreement on the appointment of bishops signed last September. And according to Littlejohn, China’s “war against women” continues, as the Communist Party functions as “womb police,” declaring “life or death over every pregnancy in the land.” Coercive population control has led to the loss of 400 million lives, Littlejohn estimates, in addition to the 65 million killed by Mao Zedong’s creation of “socialist” China. “This is the hallmark of communist regimes,” she said, “the peacetime killing of their own citizens.” It’s a coercion that began under the one-child policy, introduced in 1979 as a population-control program, and continues under the nation’s now-two-child policy that came into force in 2015, as it remains illegal for single women to have babies in China, and a third child for a family is “still illegal.” Continued...
Continued from above.. The Widows’ Plight Littlejohn told the Register May 14 that her organization, which for several years has run a “Save a Girl” campaign to save babies from sex-selective abortion, has now launched a second one called “Save a Widow.” This is in response to what Littlejohn calls a “profoundly sad situation” whereby the one-child policy has left many of the burgeoning elderly population destitute, especially widows. Most of them live in rural areas and struggle to survive because the one child they may have raised has moved to urban areas for work, and they have no extended family to rely on. Such women receive just $20 a month from the government. China has the “highest female suicide rate in the world,” Littlejohn said, adding that, according to one U.S. State Department estimate, around 590 women a day kill themselves in China, most of them in the countryside. “I call widows the invisible victims of the one-child policy because they’re so destitute and desperate,” Littlejohn explained. She recalled that June 23 is International Day of the Widow and said her campaigns are the only ones actively saving girls and widows in China. Many of those who have been helped have been brought to the faith through the work of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, she said. Another scourge that has grown up in the past 30 years is human trafficking and sexual slavery, due to the gender imbalance exacerbated by the one-child policy, which sparked sex-selective abortion and sometimes infanticide of baby girls because of China’s deeply entrenched cultural preference for male children. Littlejohn said this has resulted in 30-40 million men now of marriageable age who will never find wives, leading to “bachelor villages” that are a “recipe for social unrest.” It has also led to women being trafficked to fill the gap and making China a “Tier 3” group in human trafficking — the “worst level,” according to Littlejohn, and applicable where “substantial trafficking is taking place and the government is not doing enough to combat it.” Tiananmen and Religious Repression The extent of government oppression and human-rights violations makes many believe the Vatican’s agreement with China came at the wrong time. Since Tiananmen, “hardliners have been in charge, and nobody has been as hardline as Xi Jinping is now,” said Mosher. “China is moving decisively in the wrong direction.” Father Cervellera attributed the current crackdown on religion directly to Tiananmen, which, he said, “torpedoed esteem” for the Chinese Communist Party and caused many Chinese to seek meaning in religion rather than the state. Beijing’s subsequent oppression of all religions is a “sign” of how the party will wage war against anything that obscures its “absolute power,” he said. Mosher said he would have supported the Vatican’s line regarding its 2018 agreement — that criticism of it is to be expected but China will enter eventually into dialogue with the world — back in 1980. But the Tiananmen atrocity showed the reformers had “lost decisively,” he said. And even though he believes the Chinese capable of self-government, he sees the Chinese Communist Party as “determined not to allow that to happen.” Such a way of governing runs deep in Chinese culture, he said, and long predates Marxism-Leninism. It is a “form of bureaucratic totalitarianism that was invented in China 2,500 years ago and is called legalism,” Mosher explained. He further sees such a “terrifying” tyrannical form of government worsening as “a lot of vulnerabilities” in China’s economy, including escalating debt, hit home. Littlejohn said she is “devastated” by the Vatican-China agreement, not least because its provisions remain secret, allowing the Chinese authorities to manipulate it in their favor to oppress Catholics. She disagrees with the Vatican’s line, saying one has to “start out in the right direction if you want to end up in the right place.” Instead, she said, it is going in “completely the wrong direction,” as Beijing uses the agreement to “decimate Marian shrines and persecute people.” “How do you start out in this terrible direction with this silence from the Vatican?” Littlejohn asked. “The persecution just keeps getting worse and worse.” The Holy See is unlikely to budge from its current position, however, continuing to hope that greater engagement with the West will eventually lead to harmonious relations between Beijing and Rome and an eventual end to the persecution of the Church in China. Today it issued no statement recalling the many pro-democracy protesters who stood up to tyranny and lost their lives in Tiananmen Square 30 years ago.
