MATTHEWS: * * * Bishop Thomas Tobin joins us now.
Your Excellency, what do you make of that quote from Kennedy back in '60; "I believe in an American-in an America where no public official either requests or accepts instruction on public policy from the pope"?
REV. THOMAS TOBIN, BISHOP OF PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND: Sure. And that's a good reference and a very famous quote, of course.
A little bit of a difference, though. I think what the president, the ex-president, was talking about was the establishment of a national religion. In fact, what we're trying to do is not dictate what the public policy should be in the United States from a purely Catholic doctrinal point of view.
What we're trying to do, most of all, is instill good human values, but also have Catholics who are in political office be faithful to the dictates of the church and the dictates of their conscience and the teachings of the church.
MATTHEWS: I don't see how you read it that way, Your Excellency. "I believe in an America where no public official, no public official either requests or accepts instruction on public policy from the church."
I don't know how you read that any other way than the way Senator-or then Senator Kennedy said it-no instruction on public policy from his church. You think he meant something different than what he said?
(CROSSTALK)
TOBIN: I suppose there are different ways of approaching that.
But the point is that any Catholic in public office, his first commitment has to be to his faith, not just for a Catholic, but for a member of any religious community. No commitment is more important than your commitment to your faith, because it involves your relationship with God.
And if your faith somehow interferes with or your job gets in the way of your faith, as I have said on other occasions, you need to quit your job and-and save your soul. Nothing can become more important than your relationship with God.
MATTHEWS: If you were a member of Congress-and I know you're a political junky, from reading about you and talking to my friends about you, Your Excellency-what would be your voting record on abortion? How would you deal with the issue if you got to vote in Congress?
TOBIN: Well, of course, I'm not a member of Congress.
But, if I were, I certainly would never be in a position of supporting any degree of abortion legislation that enables or facilitates or encourages abortion. Keep in mind what we believe about abortion. Every time an abortion takes place, a baby dies. I don't know how people of good conscience, especially people from a Catholic background, could take that position in good conscience.
MATTHEWS: Well, what law would you pass?
TOBIN: Well, I think laws that preserve and...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: That's what we're talking about here, Your Excellency, the law, not the morality of the issue, but the law. You're-you're coming down on Congressman Kennedy and on other public officials because of the way they're approaching the law. What law would you write if you had the authority to do that on abortion rights?
TOBIN: Sure.
I think I would write laws that pre-I would write laws that preserved and protect human life, to the extent that it's completely possible.
MATTHEWS: Right. That's the value. That's the value you support.
TOBIN: We recognize-right.
MATTHEWS: This isn't about values. This is about behavior.
TOBIN: We...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: What law would you pass? Would you outlaw abortion?
TOBIN: I think that was certainly where our nation would want to move, much like it was before that disastrous decision of Roe v. Wade.
I mean, that was a benchmark, as you know, that...
MATTHEWS: So, you would vote to outlaw it. No, I really want to get...
TOBIN: Sure.
MATTHEWS: We have to get down to this, because your problem with Congressman Kennedy is his position on the law, what the law should read on abortion.
What should the law be? What should a good Catholic, as you would put it, believe about the law? Should the law outlaw, should it ban abortion? Is that what a good Catholic should do?
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Because you're instructing people now how to vote. So, tell Catholics now on television how they should vote as members of Congress.
TOBIN: Sure.
Catholics should vote as members of Congress on laws that preserve and protect human right. I don't know that I'm in a position to comment on specific pieces of legislation, because, as you know, there are hundreds of them and thousands of them.
MATTHEWS: Would you outlaw it?
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Well, let me ask you a broad question. Would you outlaw it?
TOBIN: Absolutely, because abortion is the taking of innocent human life.
MATTHEWS: Right, I know. Right. So that's where your difference is with president-with Congressman Kennedy. He wouldn't outlaw it. Isn't that your difference?
TOBIN: That's a huge difference. And keep in mind that I didn't go after Congressman Kennedy. I didn't single him out. I didn't look for him. I responded to things that he had said when he initiated his first unprovoked attack on the church, and other things he's written since then. So I haven't gone after him. I've responded to things that he has said consistently.
MATTHEWS: You said that we should go back to where we were before Roe v. Wade in '73. So let's go back to that, if that is the prescription you're offering here. If you outlaw abortion at the state level, say at the Rhode Island level, or the Pittsburgh level in Pennsylvania, where you come from, or anything like that, then you make it illegal for a person to go get on abortion. So what does that do, in fact? What's the effect on human life? You want to respect and preserve human life. What is the effect that has if you say a doctor can't perform an abortion? Would you criminalize it? Would you put people in jail? If it's murder, as you see it, would you criminalize it?
TOBIN: Well, the first effect on human life is that we preserve human life.
MATTHEWS: How would it work? How would it work? That's one of the questions I have. How would it work if you outlawed it?
TOBIN: Sure. Well, again, I think it would depend on the specific piece of legislation that was crafted. And I'm not in a position-I wouldn't even pretend to be in a position to do that.
MATTHEWS: Well, that's what you're doing here. You're saying that Congressman Kennedy has voted wrong. Tell me how he should have voted. Should he vote to outlaw or criminalize abortion? If you say that a doctor can't perform an abortion, then somebody else might do it or they might leave the country to have an abortion or they might do it illegally. Some midwife could do it or somebody who flunked out of med school could do it. Unless you outlaw it, unless you outlaw getting an abortion, I just wonder if you're really preventing it in any way.
I mean, what would be the penalty for a woman getting an abortion in the world you would like to construct here? What would be the penalty for getting an abortion?
TOBIN: I have no idea what the penalty would be, because I'm not-
MATTHEWS: Well, you're talking about-no. But you're telling congress-people how to vote and what laws to pass. What law should be-
TOBIN: What we're trying to do-
MATTHEWS: No, no. Go ahead.
TOBIN: No, what we're trying to do-
MATTHEWS: I think you're intervening. I think you're getting into law here, and you don't like Congressman Kennedy's voting record in Congress. That's what you're really going after, where he stands on the law. A lot of catholics agree or disagree in every poll I've seen about what the law should be. They generally accept the teaching authority of the church, the magistar (ph), your teaching authority, your excellency.
Where the disagreement is where the law should be, what the penalty should be. I've never heard of anybody in the church, in the laity, in the clergy, or in the hierarchy saying a woman should be put in prison for having an abortion. And then I said, wait a minute, if you think it's murder, there's an inconsistency here.
And if there is a hesitancy to punish a woman for having an abortion, maybe that's instructive to you, sir, your excellency, because when you realize you don't really want to punish a woman for having an abortion, under the law, then maybe you should step back from using the law as your tool in enforcing moral authority.
Maybe your moral authority comes from the pulpit and from teaching, and a congressman has a totally different role, which is to write the law. Now, I've asked you three times, your excellency, to tell me what the law should be. And if you can't do it, maybe you shouldn't be involved in telling Congressman Kennedy how to write the law. You say you don't know how to do it. Well, you ought to try before you tell him what he's doing wrong. That's my thinking.
Because when it comes to the law, it's a secular question. It has not to do with the moral-we do a lot of things in this country we don't like, we think are immoral. But the question is, what sanction do you apply to it? And I'm asking you again with respect, because you are here on the show of your own free will, at our request. What should be the penalty for a young woman or a girl, even, to have an abortion? And if there is no penalty for it, are you really outlawing it?
TOBIN: Sure. And it can perhaps be different degrees of penalties, depending on the involvement of the person. There might be some penalty for the woman having the abortion.
MATTHEW: What would be appropriate?
TOBIN: For a doctor performing-
MATTHEWS: No, let's get to the woman. No, you have no idea, and it's not your area. And yet this is the very area you've transgressed in. You've gone into the area of lawmaking, and condemned the behavior of public officials who have to write public policy. And I get back to what John Kennedy said when he was under pressure to explain the separation between church and state, the difference between rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar, which is the law, and rendering to your flock and people like me what is right and wrong.
And I would contest that your problem is you haven't gotten people to obey your moral code through teaching, and you have resorted now to use the law to do your enforcement for you. And the problem with that is you are hesitant, even here, your excellency, to state for me now what the punishment should be under the law for having an abortion, because you know, deep down, if you said one minute in prison, you would be laughed at, because the American people, catholic and non-catholic, do not think it's a criminal act to have an abortion.
They may not like it. They may think it's immoral. But they don't think it's criminal. And yet you are here bringing the force of the law, the authority of the police, and the bench, the law, the judiciary. You want to bring it all to bear, including the Constitution, to enforce your moral beliefs, which are very valid, and I happen to share them. But how do you do it under the law, your excellency? And I'll give you plenty of time to do this. How do you do it under the law?
TOBIN: Thank you. And I appreciate-appreciate the time to try to explain it. I think it's not unusual, and you would understand this, I think, to have the moral law reflected in the laws of a land. We do that all of the time when we say that you may not kill somebody. You may not steal something. You may not beat somebody up. It's not at all unusual to have the moral law reflected in the laws of the land.
Now, exactly how that is played out, that's not the job of the church, much as we're involved in the question of health care. We're trying to establish some very basic principles about health care. We're not involved in the great details of the 2,000 page piece of legislation. And the same approach would be taken perhaps to abortion. We believe that abortion is wrong. It's a matter of the natural law and our legislation often reflects principles of the natural law.
I'm not a legislator. I can't begin to write those laws. My job is to try to promote the truth of the moral law, and to encourage members of my church who freely choose to be catholic to follow the dictates of their faith.
MATTHEWS: I-your excellency, thank you for coming on. I believe you expressed a hesitancy of the clergy to intervene in terms of what sanctions should be. Words like murder and killing are used in the case of abortion, but they do not seem to apply in terms of writing the law, and you've made that very clear. And I would urge you to consider the possibility of error here, because in getting into telling public officials how to set public policy, you're stepping beyond moral teaching, and you're basically assuming an authority, which I don't think is yours. Anyway, thank you very much.
TOBIN: Obviously, we disagree on that point. Thank you.
MATTHEWS: About the authority of the church. And I do believe that Jesus had it right when he said "render under Caesar the things that are Caesar." And as you admitted tonight on four or five occasions, you don't know how to write law. And writing law is very tricky in a secular society, in which you and I live, even with our moral conduct, I hope acceptable to god. Thank you.
TOBIN: Sure. I will reflect on that, if you reflect on the teachings of the church.
MATTHEWS: Thank you, sir. Very much your excellency.
In my opinion, everything Tobin was saying demonstrates exactly why there needs to be a complete separation between Church and State. Yes, our own personal moral codes do help to determine what we do and don't believe in. However, when you are elected to public office, you are not there to represent yourself, you are there to represent your constituency. It is possible to be "pro-choice" and religious. The fact that it took so much for Tobin to say he'd outlaw abortion (citing Roe v. Wade as if that's the only abortion decision that's been handed down), yet he couldn't say what the "punishment" would be for people who do get abortions should they be outlawed is illustrative of the point that the Church (or any other religion) should not be involved in making laws.
And while we're talking about "preserving life" why doesn't the Catholic Church come out as forcefully against the death penalty? That's DEFINITELY taking a human life (and not an nonviable group of cells, which is what abortion has been reduced to absent extenuating circumstances).
Abortion is not an easy topic, but no one is FORCING anyone to get an abortion. It's your CHOICE. That is what we want to preserve, the CHOICE to have an abortion if you so choose. Right now, abortions are legal medical procedures, and they should be preserved as such. While I personally don't see myself ever getting an abortion, I don't think it's my right to tell someone else they can't get one if that is what's best of her.