Bishop Tobin: Tim Kaine’s Abortion, Gay Views ‘Clearly Contrary’ to Catholic Teaching and Pope Francis

Although some analysts describe Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential pick, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), as a devout, “Pope Francis Catholic,” whose faith is “central” to his work, Bishop Thomas J. Tobin said Kaine’s pro-choice position on abortion and support for gay marriage and women priests are views “clearly contrary to well-established Catholic teachings.”

Bishop Tobin, head of the diocese of Providence, R.I., added that Kaine’s positions on those issues are also “opposed by Pope Francis.”

“My faith is central to everything I do,” said Sen. Kaine in an interview with the Kingstowne-Rose Hill Patch.

However, in a July 23 post on Facebook, Bishop Thomas J. Tobin wrote the following, 

“VP Pick, Tim Kaine, a Catholic?

“Democratic VP choice, Tim Kaine, has been widely identified as a Roman Catholic. It is also reported that he publicly supports ‘freedom of choice’ for abortion, same-sex marriage, gay adoptions, and the ordination of women as priests.

“All of these positions are clearly contrary to well-established Catholic teachings; all of them have been opposed by Pope Francis as well.

“Senator Kaine has said, ‘My faith is central to everything I do.’ But apparently, and unfortunately, his faith isn’t central to his public, political life.”

A fact sheet on Tim Kaine published by the Religion News Service documents that he supports abortion, supports homosexual marriage and gay adoptions, and he also supports ordaining women as priests in the Catholic Church.

All of those positions are contrary to Church teaching. 

Section 2322 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “From its conception, the child has the right to life. Direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, is a "criminal" practice (GS 27 § 3), gravely contrary to the moral law. The Church imposes the canonical penalty of excommunication for this crime against human life.”  

Section 2357 reads, “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.”  

Section 2335 states, “Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal dignity though in a different way. The union of man and woman in marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh the Creator's generosity and fecundity: ‘Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.’ All human generations proceed from this union.” 

In a 1998 statement from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, it says, “In the apostolic letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, Pope John Paul II reaffirmed that the Catholic Church has no authority to confer priestly ordination on women. This teaching is to be held definitively by all the faithful as belonging to the deposit of faith. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith clarified the authority of this teaching by stating that it is founded on the written Word of God, has been constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church, and has been set forth infallibly by the universal ordinary magisterium.”