What?!?
Did Reverend Thomas Tobin, Bishop of Providence, RI really say that on a national news program?!? I had to rewind it several times, and I still couldn’t believe it. One of his major arguments was “that any Catholic in public office, his first commitment has to be to his Faith.”
Again, “that any Catholic in public office, his first commitment has to be to his Faith.”
To quote someone much more respectable, “I do not think it means what you think it means.”
I’m truly dismayed.
I respect beliefs, especially those grounded in religion, that abortion is wrong — I really do. But what I’m much, much more adamant about when it comes to the religious angle in particular is that it’s ‘your’ angle, not necessarily mine . . or someone else’s.
That separation is one of the greatest inherent beliefs of the United States of America. It’s proved invaluable in strengthening and enriching the United States as a whole, and it’s despicable to diminish or skirt the belief in separation in any way.
Reverend Thomas Tobin, Bishop of Providence, RI has the ability, not right, to say what he said on Hardball with Chris Matthews — in very large part – because of our having established the distinction between Faith and Governance.
And, Folks, I’m sorry, but one of the first huge mistakes the Founding Fathers realized they had made was in not establishing a separation of Church and State. Seriously, look it up — There’s a very, very ugly history to the very early days of this Country with respect to a separation of Church and State having not been established. I’ll endeavor to provide examples, but the try by Reverend Thomas Tobin, a Bishop no less, to blur that separation is an affront to at least one of this Country’s core beliefs that Catholics and non-Catholics should be appalled at.
U wonder – given statistics and where things are headed – we are going to be even more of a melting pot. The predominant religions of the last century may shift over the next. Therefore – any religion should want even stricter rules about church and state to ensure fairness across the playing field.