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PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (ChurchMilitant.com) - A Rhode Island bishop is calling out fellow bishops for being quick to listen but slow to teach. The straight talk was enough to make Vaticanista Marco Tosatti all the way in Italy take notice.

In a Thursday column in The Rhode Island Catholic, Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence criticized shepherds of the Church for being too willing to engage in listening sessions of "special interest groups" while failing to preach the hard truths.

"From many quarters today we keep hearing that the Church has to 'listen' more — to millennials, the LGBTQ community, the transgendered, feminists, and lots of other groups with particular agendas," he commented. "I get it. It's important that we talk and listen to one another, and I know as well as anyone that consultation is an indispensable part of the life of the Church today. However, when Jesus commissioned the Apostles to go forth, he instructed them to teach, not listen, didn't he?"

When Jesus commissioned the Apostles to go forth, he instructed them to teach, not listen, didn't he?

Tobin went on, "And while it's instructive for the Church to listen to special interest groups, it's also necessary that those groups listen to the Church, since the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, preserves and promotes the truths of the Gospel and the teachings of Christ."

"Encounter and welcoming are virtuous practices, but not at the expense of the truth," he added.

The Vatican, in preparation for its 2018 Synod on the youth, has launched a website asking for millennials' feedback. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is also encouraging a similar initiative, with a number of bishops agreeing at their most recent conference June 14–16 that bishops must listen to youth.

"The Church in the U.S. is poised to engage this conversation for and with young people," said Cdl. Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, who went on to say listening to youth is essential to the conversation. The Newark prelate recently caused scandal by explicitly giving his blessing to an LGBT pilgrimage and Mass at his cathedral.

Bishop Tobin of Providence also made jabs at leftists and limousine liberals. "[T]he negative reaction to President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord has been over-the-top, hysterical even," he commented. "While we can agree on the need to control global warming and protect the environment, whether or not the Paris agreement is the best or only means of achieving that goal is a legitimate debate. In his encyclical, Pope Francis said, 'The Church knows that honest debate must be encouraged among experts, while respecting divergent views.'"

Tobin continued, "It also seems to me that some of the liberal politicians and Hollywood types who attacked President Trump over his climate decision could do a lot more themselves to protect the environment if they would just forego their frequent international travels, private jets, splendid yachts, palatial homes, and lavish lifestyles."

Celebrity Leonardo DiCaprio, an outspoken advocate of climate justice, is known for flying around the world in private jets or sailing in yachts, both of which consume far more fuel and release more toxins into the air than your average land vehicle. The hypocrisy has been noted by critics, with a number of Twitter comments — in response to DiCaprio's tweet that he'd be speaking at D.C.'s April 29 Climate March — asking whether he'd be flying there in his private jet.

Former Vice President Al Gore, a crusader against global warming, who has urged Americans to reduce their carbon footprint, was shown in 2007 to own a 20-room Tennessee mansion with an annual utility bill 20 times more than the average: a whopping $30,000.

"If this were any other person with $30,000-a-year in utility bills, I wouldn't care," said Drew Johnson, president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. "But he tells other people how to live, and he's not following his own rules."

Gore, a strong critic of fossil fuels, was also called out for his double standard for selling his Current TV network to Al Jazeera for $500 million, while pocketing $100 million from that sale. Al Jazeera is funded by Qatar, a country whose wealth is built on fossil fuels.

And President Obama was paid $3.2 million to speak in May at a Food Innovation Summit in Milan, Italy to discourage people from eating beef, which he claimed increases carbon emissions because of the large amount of methane produced by cattle — even though Obama was known for his penchant for $100-per serving wagyu steak served him in the White House on thousands of occasions.

Bishop Tobin also poked fun at the notion of married clergy and Protestantism. "In commenting on the declining number of priests in the Diocese," he said, "a recent letter in the Providence Journal suggested that the answer to the clergy shortage is to allow married priests and women priests. 'Evolve or become extinct,' the letter writer advised."

"In other words, the Church has to change its teachings if it is to survive and prosper. 'Prosper ... you mean just like the mainline Protestant churches?' I said to myself."

The negative reaction to President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord has been over-the-top, hysterical even.

Vatican expert Marco Tosatti commented on his blog Saturday, "Catholics in Providence, Rhode Island are lucky, who have a bishop who is not afraid to speak up and say wise things openly, without feeling the need to kowtow to the dominant culture."

In August 2013, Tobin admitted that as a lifelong Democrat, he had decided to switch to the Republican Party.

"Then there was last year's Democratic Party Convention," he commented at the time. "Abortion and same-sex 'marriage' and the involvement of Planned Parenthood were not only accepted — they were promoted. The party has become more aggressive in promoting activities and commitments that are foreign to me. Finally, I decided that I could not in conscience maintain my party affiliation."

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