30 September 2019
The Most Reverend Thomas Joseph Tobin, Bishop of the Diocese of Providence
Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence
1 Cathedral Square
Providence, RI 02903
Your Excellency:
As news events roll around throughout the day with one member of the Trump Administration getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar after another, we start looking at what Rhode Island will look like after Trump. Undoubtedly, there will be a settling of accounts. Many friends and I suggest you resign before that happens.
You need to face reality. Under your leadership, people leave the church each day. That causes churches to close each week. Sometimes you cause this to happen privately. Sometimes you do this publicly as you did with your comments about gay folks back in June.
Let me help you. It is clear that Pope Francis is pro gay like about 70% of Catholics. It is clear that Pope Francis is pro Priests getting married like most Catholics. He may not be Pro Choice but the next Pope will be or there not be a church. One only needs to look at how Catholics vote, how millennials vote, and how millennials view church in general to come to this conclusion. You do not fit.
Then again, you never fit. When you were in Pennsylvania, your sole job was to protect Pedophile Priests from ever being brought to Justice. When you arrived in Rhode Island, you proceeded the same way. However this time you brought in friends.
Just keeping Priests out of trouble was not good enough. You had Sue Carcieri, through Jeff Grybowski, run interference for you at the State Police level. This is why some of the cases we know happened, see Father Cardente in North Providence, did not make that release a while ago. Using you to squash Mr. Grybowski’s Gubernatorial hopes is going to be highly entertaining. Whether we decide to do anything regarding Dan Yorke and John DePetro for the assistance they gave you during that period is still up in the air. Their lives have both taken downward spirals.
You never learned who we were as a people. You never tried to make peace with anything. As long as Priests could rape altar boys at will, you were happy.
Based on all that, you might imagine that at the top of any “Trump is gone, let’s get even list” your name would appear. However, this is a secondary reason.
There are a lot of us who like the Eucharist and the words of Christ. We appreciate the Pro Choice statement he makes in Matthew 5:18. We relish in the idea that he obviously performed miracles for gay people and did not ask them to repent. While we do not share much with the older fixed income folks who will do whatever the Priest says, even if such instruction is bigoted trash, closing churches on them no longer seems like fun. Your own incompetence, and mouth, has taken the sport out of it.
Please do the Diocese, the Church overall, and the entire state a favor. Just resign and go away. Nobody wants you. Nobody needs you. Over 70% of the state can’t stand you. At least if you left now, you might have the opportunity before you die to repent in some way for all the altar boys you allowed to be raped. How you came to the decision that destroying lives to keep “employees” happy was worthwhile is beyond me but you did it. You owe the people you harmed an opportunity at justice and you are running out of time.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Robert T. Oliveira
315-864-1229
Quahogs United 