Although he termed it "the one non-issue of the campaign," his priesthood was a major issue for the people of Rhode Island.

Placide Tapsoba, a 53-year-old physician, was born at home in the village of Satte outside of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, the landlocked West African country that until 1960 was the French protectorate of Upper Volta. He received his medical education at the University of Padua in Ital