Thoughts concerning bishops and bears
By Steve Ahlquist in Rhode Island’s Future- See more at: http://www.rifuture.org/thoughts-concerning-bishops-and-bears.html#sthash.n3XDaTnz.dpuf
Todd Flowerday, writing on the blog Catholic Sensibility, thinks that Tobin might be thinking locally while the Pope thinks globally:
Perhaps Bishop Tobin, recent Republican
convert, is thinking too much in terms of American politics. US Catholics make
up a single-digit percentage of the flock Francis now pastors. Is it realistic
to expect that the man will conform to the American values of the political
pro-life movement: confrontation, contention, fundraising, deception, and the
striving to yell louder than the other side?
Supporting Tobin, Fr. Z’s Blog goes after the National Catholic
Reporter writer Michael Sean Winters saying that “you don’t have to protect
Popes from criticism” and “were the Michael Sean Winters types in charge, the
college of bishops around Pope Francis would look like a meeting of North
Korea’s Communist Party.”
David Cruz-Uribe, writing for Vox Nova, runs down some of this and also notes
that some conservative Catholic blogs are seeing Tobin’s statements as a sort
of conservative backlash against the current Pope.
However, the main point of the Vox Nova piece is that Tobin has
essentially opened the floodgates for sending criticism up the Catholic
hierarchy. Cruz-Uribe thinks this is an unintentional and positive development
of Tobin’s comments, noting that not inviting open, constructive and respectful
criticism smacks of obsequiousness, saying “we can criticize someone even if we
love and respect him/her.”
The Vox Nova piece ends with “Let us pray that all bishops have
both the courage to speak openly and respectfully, and that they have the
humility and openness to listen and reflect when they are on the receiving end
of similar critiques.”
Will Tobin be open to such criticism from the priests under his
leadership? Tobin, in some way, seems to consider himself a prophet, and
prophets historically are good at giving criticism, not taking it. Responding
to a question about the heat he took in the aftermath of the passage of
marriage equality on the opening episode of Dan Yorke’s State of Mind Tobin said,
Yeah, I did take a lot of heat but that’s part
of the challenge of being a prophet. In some ways that is the prophetic role of
the church to challenge evil where we find it, where we see it, to challenge
those in positions of political leadership. The church has a long history even
going back to the Old testament where prophets challenge the kings of Israel,
and John the Baptist and Thomas More and many of the great apostles and
prophets and saints throughout history have played that role of challenging
evil where we think it exists.
I’m reminded of Second Kings, 2:23-24, when the Prophet Elisha
was insulted by some children for being bald.
And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as
he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city,
and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald
head.
And he turned back, and looked on them, and
cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of
the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
The lesson? Watch what you say about prophets or you might be
targeted by wild bears.
Steve Ahlquist is
a writer, artist and current president of the Humanists of Rhode Island, a
non-profit group dedicated to reason, compassion, optimism and action. He also
maintains the blog Caution Church Ahead, where he writes on the intersection of
religion and politics. The views expressed are his own not necessarily those of
any organization of which he is a member.