NEW YORK (NY)
Huffington Post
June 1, 2019
By Mary Papenfuss
Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin admonished Catholics in an inflammatory tweet on Saturday not to support or attend any LGBTQ Pride Month commemorations in June, warning that such events promote a “culture” and “activities” that are “especially harmful for children.”
Joe Lazzerini, president of Rhode Island Pride, said in a statement to The Providence Journal that his organization “respectfully calls on Bishop Tobin to do some self-reflection, as the majority of Catholic Rhode Islanders in this state reject the idea that to be Catholic is to be complicit to intolerance, bigotry, and fear.” He pointed out that many Catholics are members of or strongly support the pride community.
Pride Month is particularly significant this year because it marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in Manhattan, which fueled the gay — and soon LGBTQ — rights movement.
Tobin’s particularly harsh warning stunned many, given the many revelations in recent years of the Catholic Church’s history of child sexual abuse. The U.S. Catholic Church revealed Friday that allegations of child sex abuse by clerics more than doubled to 1,455 in its latest 12-month reporting period, and that spending on victim compensation and child protection efforts topped $300 million.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.