With the exception of Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush, religion has not been a big deal for recent US presidents who were, at best, nominal Christians. For Joe Biden faith is central to who he is.
The only Catholic president before Biden came from Boston Irish wealth, was a Harvard graduate and his father was US ambassador to the Court of Saint James. In contrast to John F. Kennedy, Joseph Robinette Biden was born lower middle class Irish and partly French Catholic in November 1942 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, a small city famous for anthracite mining and heavy industry. The city fell on hard times in the post-World War II period, and when Biden was thirteen the family moved to Wilmington, Delaware, after his father lost his job in Scranton.
There have been lots of successful Catholic politicians in democracies like the US and Australia. Most of them keep their faith private, but Biden is different; he’s right up-front about his Catholicism. ‘It’s foundational to who he is,’ his long-time friend, Senator Chris Coons of Delaware says.
Coons also says that Biden’s stances on social justice, race, refugee and environmental issues are informed by ‘a deeply rooted sense of fairness’ that he learned from his parents and his Catholic formation. He has profoundly assimilated the Christian sense of the importance of the community over individualism, of putting others before self, and he sees politics in the words of Pope Francis ‘as something more noble than posturing, marketing and social spin.’
As well as the Catholic tradition of social justice, his faith is deeply rooted in the church’s spirituality and practice. He attends Mass every Sunday and quite often on weekdays. He prays regularly, often quotes the bible in political speeches and even publicly bursts into popular hymns, as he did in his November 7, 2020 victory speech when he quoted Michael Joncas’ hymn On Eagle’s Wings. ‘In the last days of the campaign,’ he said, ‘I began thinking about a hymn that means a lot to me and my family, particularly my deceased son Beau. It captures the faith that sustains me and…I hope it can provide some comfort and solace to the…Americans who have lost a loved one through this terrible virus this year.’ He then quoted the first verse:
You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord
Who abide in His shadow for life,
Say to the Lord ‘My refuge, my rock in whom I trust!’
And He will raise you up on eagles’ wings
Bear you on the breath of dawn
Make you to shine like the sun
And hold you in the palm of His hand.
It’s this kind of faith that sustained Biden through the death of his first wife Neilia and their thirteen-month-old daughter Naomi, in a car accident in December 1972 and later when his son Joseph (‘Beau’) died from cancer in 2015.
Nowadays when you say someone is a committed ‘Catholic’ in the US (and Australia), you have to be more specific. Biden is a serious post-Vatican II Catholic and it is this that has got him into trouble with conservative (mainly Republican-voting ) Catholics and the majority of the US bishops.
The simple fact is that the US church is deeply divided. Almost all the bishops appointed by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI are conservative and some of them are extreme reactionaries who are openly critical of Pope Francis. While these bishops give lip service to mainstream Catholic moral and social teaching, their focus is primarily on abortion and to a lesser extent on contraception, gay marriage and euthanasia. It also helps as a bishop if you vote Republican. In fact, until recently the US bishops’ conference resembled a local branch of the Republican Party. Pope Francis has appointed better quality bishops with broader perspectives, but the hard-liners still constitute the majority on the episcopal bench.
On abortion and contraception Catholics like Biden – and John Kerry who ran against George W. Bush in 2004 – have had a hard time from many clergy who want to deny them Communion because of their views. Fortunately, Biden’s Wilmington parish priest and the recently appointed Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, have protected Biden from the Communion-denial brigade.
Conservatives accuse Biden of being ‘weak’ on abortion. Early on he was a supporter of the Hyde Amendment which prevented public funds being used for abortion. By 2007 he had moved to say that while he was ‘personally opposed to abortion,’ he couldn’t ‘impose [his] view on the rest of society.’ By 2020 his policy was to codify Roe V Wade by neutralizing state laws that made the right to abortion difficult. He says unequivocally ‘Reproductive rights are a constitutional right’ and ‘every woman should have that right.’ He supports the Affordable Care Act covering contraceptives and, as President, will restore funding to Planned Parenthood.
This is red rag to reactionary bishops. Rather than welcoming the fact that a practising and committed Catholic had been elected US President, the Bishops’ Conference leader, Archbishop José Gomes of Los Angeles, issued a warning that the church was facing ‘a difficult and complex situation…When politicians who profess the Catholic faith support [abortion rights], there are additional problems…It creates confusion among the faithful about what the Catholic Church actually teaches on these questions.’
Despite the bishops’ strictures, according to a 2019 Pew Research survey, 56% of U.S. Catholics said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 42% said it should be illegal. However, two-thirds of regular Mass going Catholics oppose abortion, while 33% said it should be legal.
The problem for Biden and other Catholic politicians is the way in which abortion has been isolated, as though it were the only touchstone for the whole of Catholic morality and belief. For a Catholic in public life like Biden, conscientious decisions on this issue are more complex than for bishops. As President, he is legally and publicly accountable to the electorate where there is clear support for the right to an abortion. Again, according to Pew, ‘currently 61% [of Americans] say abortion should be legal in all or most cases,’ while 38% say it should be illegal.
Clearly, Biden is far more ‘Catholic’ in the true sense of the word – open to others, broad, embracing rather than excluding – than many of the bishops. Mind you, that’s not hard, given the number of ideologues that inhabit the bishops’ bench.
But in the end, Biden as a politician in a democracy has to be able to get things done, above all to rein-in Coronavirus and restore public integrity post-Trump. While goodness, empathy, decency, moral principles, even a deep faith, are important in a leader, in the end, Biden will be judged by his ability to deal with process, compromise, the often-nasty give and take reality of politics, while balancing the difference between religious faith and the secular state.
Given his vast experience, his clear moral compass, his inbred decency and warm humanity, we can be confident that with Joseph Biden a new era is beginning in Washington.
Paul Collins is an historian, broadcaster and writer. A Catholic priest for thirty-three years, he resigned from the active ministry in 2001 following a dispute with the Vatican over his book Papal Power (Harper Collins (1997)). He is the author of seventeen books, the most recent being The Depopulation Imperative (Australian Scholarly (2021)) and Recovering the ‘True Church’ (Coventry (2022)). A former head of the religion and ethics department in the ABC, he is well known as a public commentator on Catholicism and the papacy and also has a strong interest in ethics, environmental and population issues.
Comments
23 responses to “Joe Biden’s Catholicism”
Thank you Paul for a typically astute and insightful article. Really, it is hard to understand many of the US Catholic bishops – but of course most were John-Paul II or Benedict XVI appointments.
In fairness, many American Protestants share the Catholic obsession with abortion as the ONLY pressing moral matter, and were prepared to support fanatically a man who told more than 25,000 lies in office, boasted of his sexual assaults and showed not a single one of the qualities of leadership laid out by St Paul.
Could Biden’s sense of compassion and moral responsibility come rather from his Irish heritage?
Which is strongly Catholic.
Yes barney, but there is far more to the Irish character than Roman Catholicism. Christianity has influenced European civilization but would we be further advanced without it? And Ireland?
Definitely we would be far further advanced without it.
May I recommend Tom Holland’s recent magnum opus Dominion about the influence of Christianity on Western civilisation. He certainly doesn’t shy away from the horrors, but points out unexpected ways in which it continued to shape us. For example, most of the criticism of Christianity is made on the basis of Christian values.
In fact, if you can be bothered, here is my review in The Age:
https://www.theagecom.au/culture/books/christianity-still-shapes-modern-western-mortality-20191107-p5389s.html
change the to .
Hello Barneyzwartz: I do not quite agree. Most of us post-Christians criticise Christianity on the basis of universal values. By the end of my so called catholic education I too had your view. During the 1970’s I came across Jews, humanists, atheists, political activists, women’s liberationists and even, shock and horror, gay activists who impressed me as being decent people. I even came across a devout Jew who taught me that the light on the hill statement of doing unto others was taught by many Rabbis at the time of Jesus. I realized I had been brainwashed.
I am not for a second doubting or denying that the groups you came across in the 1970s and since are decent people. Of course, by and large, they are that, as much as Christians. What I am saying, following Holland and many before him, is that the values those people used to critique Christianity had been part of the Judaeo-Christian moral world view for centuries and they had imbibed them with their mothers’ milk. They are using Christian values to criticise their culture – and they are right to do so. This runs so deep that it is easy to consider them universal values, but a look at other cultures over 2000 years and today shows that this is not so. Christian values were deeply shocking and challenging to the Roman Empire, and it took centuries to change this.
Hello barneyzwartz: I have a question. Are you saying that before January 26th 1788 the First Nations People did not respect their elders, did not not kill, did not not steal, did not not bear false witness, did not not commit adultery, did not not covert their neighbour’s wife and property? And that, the Judaic-Christians of the First Fleet brought respect of parents by destroying their family, reverence for life by slaughtering them, taught honesty by lying to them, taught not to steal by stealing their country, their children and sexually assaulting their women? Maybe neither you nor I should answer this question. Maybe Senator Dobson, or Senator Thorpe, or some incarcerated indigenous person can do the truth-telling on the impact of universal Christian values on their people.
It’s hard to generalise about an entire culture. Certainly respect for elders was built into First People culture, or so I gather. None of us were there at the time, of course, but that tradition continues and did not spring new after 1788. Nevertheless some did steal, some did covet wives and property, some did commit adultery etc. Which, of course, is why there was a need for the elaborate system of law and punishment.
I’m happy to listen to the candidates you mention, and also to some of the deeply honourable and respected Aboriginal leaders who are Christian. Perhaps you’d be willing to listen to them?
yes, of course.
Maybe on some social issues you maybe correct!
The donor class have a tight reign over the candidates that is why they are preselected and vetted before they are offered up for an election! This is not a democracy it is a Plutocracy !
Let’s hope Biden can rise above religion and stick with his avowed interest in science, the USA and the world needs that now!
Paul Collins is correct. All too often our Church Hierarchy seem to be of the opinion that Catholic morality is confined to the bedroom. Thank God that Catholic morality is far more broad and catholic than that limited puritanical view. All too often our Hierarchy’s views are quite often aligned with right wing / so-called Liberal / conservative ideology. What more can one say. They are shrill in denouncing abortion, contraception, IVF etc yet strangely mute on immigration, homelessness, a living wager, unemployment, rampant capitalism, inequitable and immoral CEO packages, industrial justice etc etc.
The criminalisation of abortion is the issue, not abortion itself. Most people don’t like abortion – but are not going to treat women who have to resort to abortion as criminals.
What citizens crave is a bit of decency in its politicians. Joe Biden models Christian decency unlike many of his country’s bishops.
Exactly so, Eric.
He has the blood of a million Iraqis on his hands. He headed up the Democratic Party majority in the Senate in 2002 and was head of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Enormously powerful he virtually lusted after the killing of Iraqis and regime change in 2002. If there is a hell he should rot there.
Skilts, whoever you are; who gave you to right to judge the conscience of another human being? Joe Biden like all politicians, is not a the sole setter or organizer of foreign policy.Many officials fill that role and advise Presidents, not Vice Presidents! It is called collective responsibility .
Your response reminds me of George Pell who took it upon himself to refuse Communion to gay men and women who dared to show their gender preference/lifestyle when attending the Altar Rail . The scriptures clearly show Jesus condemnation of those ” Pharisees” , who decided they knew the will of God and cast harsh judgement on ordinary ‘sinners’ . It is recorded that he said “Judge not least thou be judged”!
None of us have the right to judge the actions of others nor condemn their ‘soul’ to ‘eternal fire’ . A lot of the Catholic Hierarchy as Paul Collins has written, are so stuck in the moralism of Thomas Aquianas, that they fail to realize that his brand of morality is now widely discredited, as it was based on theology not science .They do need to get out of the bedroom and join Pope Francis cry for the poor and disadvantaged which is a huge issue in today’s world . The Church has and continues to ignore this insidious cancer in the human Psyche.
Joe Biden, for all his human faults, and we all have them, is a huge improvement on Donald Trump.
My name is Paul Matters and i am an aged pensioner in Wollongong. I have the right of one small relatively poor person to make moral judgements on the powerful. Because i have a God given conscience. I wont quote Marx but the Second Vatican Council’s “Pastoral
Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.”
In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not
impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning
him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary
speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law
written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it
he will be judged. Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a
man. There he is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths. In a
wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love
of God and neighbor.
In fidelity to conscience, Christians are joined with the rest of men in
the search for truth, and for the genuine solution to the numerous
problems that arise in the life of individuals from social
relationships. Hence the more right conscience holds sway, the more
persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and strive to be guided
by the objective norms of morality. Conscience frequently errs from
invincible ignorance without losing its dignity. The same cannot be said
for a man who cares but little for truth and goodness, or for a
conscience which by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of
habitual sin.
My conscience is outraged by Biden’s war crime.
As for him going to hell, this war criminal should be put on trial and sentenced to years in prison for the the many innocent Iraqi’s he is responsible for their deaths. 500,000 defenseless poor Iraqi children killed by US sanctions? He was the leader of the US Senate and actively encouraged a war against innocent people based on lies. He was also Chair of the US Foreign Relations Committee. Apparently you havent heard of the Nuremberg Judgment?
Hello Paul,
I too am retired.Thanks for disclosing your identity, it is greatly appreciated.
Biden as Vice President can not be held to account to the same extent as the President George Bush .There are countless leaders in the modern world who should be held accountable for their crimes against humanity, but as many are now dead, their deeds are accountable to God alone, the ultimate judge of us all. I watched the SBS ‘Doco’ on the Nuremberg Trial a few days ago .It was very instructive indeed regarding the Nazi Leadership.
I am a Vietnam Veteran, a Conscript.I lost a mate in that immoral conflict as well as a number of other comrades, who have taken their lives since, not to mention the immense pain and suffering of the surviving veterans and their families .I doubt we will ever know the total military/civilian casualties and subsequent deaths due to chemical poisoning by Agent Orange and other vegetation destroying chemicals sprayed over the Vietnamese people.
I would have been about 14 years old when Bob Menzies, through lies and deceit, like John Howard told about Iraq, committed us to Vietnam. I hope and pray that the guys who ‘volunteered’ through enlistment, not coercion to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, both immoral wars fostered by conservative pro U.S . supporters of U.S. Policy at any cost will, in years to come, judge John Howard as the War Criminal he surely would be by your standards . I can not and will not judge the moral state of those men.That remains the Grand Old Designer’s task, not mine
Gavin
Fair enough mate. We have to agree to disagree. Stay safe and healthy on the pension.
Hello Skilts and Gavin, thank you for your passionate comments. For me they raise profound spiritual questions.Was Jesus a pacifist? I suspect yes. Is the authentic church of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and St Paul pacifist? I suspect it is. Is authentic Christianity a pacifist religion? Have the Quakers being right all along? I suspect they have. We buy national security from the American Empire paying for it by assisting in their Wars of Empire. Our body count is three million Vietnamese, one million Iraqis and I do not know for Afghanistan. Does this policy come under the definition of a just war? I suspect no. In a maturing Christianity is pacifism the great idea whose time has now come in the world of real-politics? Was John Lennon right? Maybe he was.
Thank you Paul,Go in peace and enjoy your retirement.
Gavin