One is a despicable homophobe, the other gay-friendly

RIGHT-wing Christian website LifeSiteNews has been writing a lot over the past week in support of beleaguered Rhode Island’s Bishop Thomas Tobin, who caused outrage by tweeting that Pride parades pose a terrible danger to children.

Image via YouTube

But LifeSite is less than happy with another Catholic big-wig who has the same surname – Cardinal Joseph Tobin, above, who leads the Archdiocese of Newark.

Why? Because a Catholic parish in the Newark diocese is hosting its second annual Mass associated with gay pride events later this month.

Our Lady of Grace in Hoboken, New Jersey, along with its merged parish St Joseph, is advertising its 2nd Annual Pride Mass in Support of Our LGBTQ Brothers and Sisters.

The Mass is scheduled for 9 am Sunday, June 30. Advertisements on the Out in New Jersey website and on NJ.com indicate that the parish is encouraging participants in the Mass to then attend the gay pride march in New York City later that day.

LifeSite asked the parish to confirm whether it is encouraging participants to take part in the New York City march and if the parish’s event, whether in the Mass or otherwise, will inform participants of the Catholic Church’s teaching on sexuality. No response had arrived by press time.

Writing for LifeSite, Lisa Bourne grumbled:

Pride events, in particular parades, are known for extremely vulgar dress and behavior, often including public sex acts. Children are also frequently present and exposed to the morally averse displays.

She added:

The Catholic Church holds that while same-sex attraction is not a sin, homosexual acts are sinful. Church teaching further states that ‘homosexual persons are called to chastity’, which is also what its teaching says about all people, since sexual relations are reserved for marriage, which is between a man and woman.

In May 2017, Cardinal Joseph Tobin personally received a group of individuals identifying as LGBT at Newark’s Cathedral-Basilica of the Sacred Heart in conjunction with an inaugural “LGBT Pilgrimage” to the cathedral. Tobin had said he was delighted to welcome the LGBT group and personally approved their flyer for the event.

When asked at the time by the New York Times if he should have taken the opportunity at the event to call the “LGBT pilgrims” out of sin, he responded:

That sounds a little backhanded to me.

Tobin, a 2016 Pope Francis appointee to the cardinalate, is among a handful of Church leaders to endorse LGBT-affirming Father James Martin’s controversial Building a Bridge book.

Bishop Tobin. Image via YouTube

Not mentioned in any of the reports I read about Bishop Thomas Tobin’s hateful tweet was the fact that, in 2018, he found himself enmeshed in a major clerical child abuse scandal – and sparked fury when he used Twitter to make this outrageously insensitive remark:

Despite the egregious offenses of a few, and despite the faults and sins we all have, I’ve very proud of my brother bishops and I admire and applaud the great work they do every day for Christ and His Church.

Writing for the New Boston Post, Kevin Thomas said:

When the Church appears serene about evil actions of its own clergy, it insults the victims, deflates the congregations, and, I assume, undermines most of the clerics that are truly holy.

These words support the many who pointed out, following Tobin’s latest tweet, that children are infinitely more likely to be endangered by priests than they are by being exposed to LGBT Pride events.

The row in Maine coincides with news that the US Catholic Church had spent $10.6 million on lobbyists to prevent victims of clerical sex abuse from suing for damages.