Yes, Biden Is Catholic. That’s the Problem

Michie

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Joe Biden is Catholic. This is, apparently, a controversial take these days.

Picking up on the political utility of the label—a much needed counterbalance to the radical and secular spirit that has overtaken the party at large—the Biden campaign has been hammering home “Joe’s Catholic roots” in a last-ditch effort to retain those voters who still attend Sunday services somewhere other than the Church of Woke. In response to this transparent politicking, some have pointed out that Biden spent a good chunk of the last century promoting such anti-Catholic policies as systematic infanticide, government-sanctioned sodomy, and high taxes. Biden, they say, cannot support these things and still be Catholic.

But he is. We have no authority to deny this. To disbelieve the Catholicity of someone who has been baptized and confirmed is to profess doubt over the sacraments’ ineluctable character. Joe Biden cannot choose not to be Catholic, and we cannot choose to stop calling him Catholic, whatever monstrous public sins he may undertake. The determination is above his ability, and ours, to alter. This is no mere semantic distinction: we do a great disservice to the power of the Church when we accept that politics can prevail over her sacraments.

Admittedly, the claims of the campaign go further (as the Democratic Party, I suspect, is none too concerned with the status bestowed by Catholic sacraments. They’re much too caught up in sacraments of their own). It’s not just that Joe Biden is Catholic; what matters is that Joe Biden’s politics are Catholic, at least in the telling of the DNC. A number of journals with Catholic names and progressive politics have been carrying water for the claim. A doting July 30 profile in the National Catholic Reporter sought to enlighten us on “How Joe Biden’s Catholic roots have shaped his public life.” Jesuit magazine America ran a nice little gloss of the DNC that alleged, “Joe Biden’s Catholic faith on display at Democratic convention’s final night.” The genre’s crowning jewel is “Joe Biden’s Catholic politics are complicated—but deeply American,” published in America on August 17th


That last headline is offensive, moronic, and entirely correct.

Joe Biden is the perfect representative of the mainstream current of American Catholicism. He’s a squish who prioritizes the temporal and sentimental over the eternal and the sacred. Sooner or later, we’ll have to reckon with that fact.

Continued below.
Yes, Biden Is Catholic. That's the Problem - Crisis Magazine