The Consequences of the Church’s Failed Biden Moment

Is Joe Biden just a cafeteria Catholic like most Catholics in the United States? Is he just following JFK’s political “heresy” of keeping faith private and apart from public responsibilities? Or is there something worse going on? Pope Francis often speaks of abortion as hiring a hitman. Is Biden a nationwide, large scale hitman for his extreme advocacy and facilitation of abortion?

On Easter Sunday, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, in whose jurisdiction Biden resides at the White House, reflected:

But like a number of Catholics, he picks and chooses dimensions of the faith to highlight while ignoring or even contradicting other parts. . . There is a phrase that we have used in the past, a ‘cafeteria Catholic,’ [in which] you choose that which is attractive and dismiss that which is challenging.

Quoted by Catholic News Agency, “Washington archbishop: Biden ‘picks and chooses’ parts of Catholic faith.”

That may be true, but it is also a gross understatement. He does not just reject or ignore the Church’s teaching on abortion; he publicly advocates for and facilitates an enormous evil, the killing of millions of innocent babies in the United States and throughout the world. Despite some small protestations against abortion through the years, Biden was instrumental even in the 1980s for keeping Pro-Life justices off of the Supreme Court, such as Robert Bork, who would surely have overturned Roe v Wade decades earlier.

Biden walked the line of many Catholic Democratic over the years of “personally opposed but publicly supportive,” holding that we should reluctantly allow abortion to be “safe, legal, and rare” in the name of constitutional freedom. Biden’s current position reflects the shift of his party that now advocates for abortion as if it were a genuine good. “For God’s sake,” he remarked shamelessly, “vote” for pro-abortion candidates to keep it legal after the Supreme Court’s decision. As the nation’s second Catholic President, he has put the full force of his office behind the defense and promotion of abortion.

Apart from isolated criticism from some bishops across the country, Biden has faced no public censure for his actions directed at facilitating abortion across the country. He remains in good standing with the Church as a regular communicant at the Jesuit parish in Georgetown, Holy Trinity. Cardinal Gregory previously commented that denying Biden communion would entail getting “drawn into partisan politics nor do I intend to politicize the Eucharist as a way of communicating Catholic Church teaching.”

Briefly, it is important to note just how aggressive Biden’s administration has been at upholding and facilitating abortions across the country and globe. The White House itself provides an extensive list of how aggressively he is defending and promoting abortion: FACT SHEET: Biden-⁠Harris Administration Highlights Commitment to Defending Reproductive Rights and Actions to Protect Access to Reproductive Health Care One Year After Overturning of Roe v. Wade. In response to overturning Roe v Wade, he positioned himself as a key defender of abortion, advocating the election of officials to codify Roe v Wade into law, ensuring access to abortifacients, and issuing an Executive Order protecting interstate travel for abortion. Even as recent as last week, his administration adapted the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to cover abortion. He has consistently appointed pro-abortion justices to the courts, including the Supreme Court, and reversed the Federal government’s “decades long” ban on providing Federal funds for abortion. This is no more tolerance of abortion but “impassioned” advocacy with the full weight of the United States government.

How can the United States Catholic Bishops simply sit back and watch all of this happen and allow him to receive the Eucharist each Sunday? How could we possibly place our Lord’s body into the hands of a man with the blood of millions of children upon them? What does that mean for him and for us?

How could it possibly be good for Biden’s own soul to be allowed to receive the sacraments with no impediment? Why would he think conversion is necessary if he is in good standing with the Church? Contrast this with Hans Frank’s conversion after orchestrating the death of millions in Poland during World War II. He knew he had done wrong, he repented and received the sacraments, and even asked forgiveness before his execution. Biden, whose actions have contributed to the death of millions, to some degree, will see no need to ask forgiveness because his own Church did not tell him that he stands in need of repentance (which is not to excuse his own conscience).

What ramifications does the lack of a clear condemnation of Biden have for the Church herself? The tolerance of such grievous actions contrary to God’s law undermines the Church’s ability to witness to the truth, seriously straining her moral credibility. The Catholic Church in the United States needs an examination of conscience.

• Is it politicizing the Church and Holy Communion to insist that someone not facilitate access to murder?
• Do we think Biden is not morally culpable for the death of aborted children while he offers funding, greater access, and protections for abortion?
• Are we in some way granting tacit approval to Catholics in public office as they promote abortion by not challenging them sufficiently to cease? Looking at Biden, other politicians will certainly think they can be Catholic and advocate publicly for abortion.
• If someone with such grievous public sins be permitted to receive Communion, how could anyone be turned away? Is that the point, that we now have open Communion no matter how serious the public sins?
• Do we have any fear of God and his retribution for those who refuse to follow the mandate he has given us? When does it become sinful in and of itself for tolerating serious sin within the Church?

Let me go further here. Paul says that an entire church, such as the community of Corinth, could become polluted by allowing a notorious sinner to remain in communion. Read this passage anew with the current problem in mind:

It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

For though absent in body I am present in spirit, and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment in the name of the Lord Jesus on the man who has done such a thing. When you are assembled, and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

1 Corinthians 5:1-8

By allowing the sin of sacrilege to occur in such a public manner, how could we not experience spiritual consequences? Confronting Biden on abortion is for his good so that he may be saved. It would be for our good as well so that we may be cleansed of the taint of this evil in our own community. If the members of the Body are connected, our sins affect one another, which is why amputation is sometimes necessary for survival.

Biden may symbolize the fact that the Church has turned a blind eye to the moral state of her own people for many decades now. We do not want to confront couples on contraception or divorce and remarriage, for instance. We want to leave these issues, and other controversial ones, as a matter of conscience. This has weakened the Church from within. “For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died” (1 Cor 11:29-30). “Live and let live” has never been the pastoral approach of the Church until recently, and, even if it is the American way, we are suffering the consequences of our unwillingness to guide souls. We are sick. We are compromised. We need conversion and to make reparation for allowing this to occur within the Church.

Allowing hidden sins to remain is one thing, and quite bad enough, but tolerating one of the most prominent and aggressive proponents of abortion in history stands on another order of magnitude. History will remember how we respond. As it stands, we will look back and realize that we have acted dishonorably, scandalously, and without conviction.

On the part of the laity, simply recognizing the problem is not enough. Following Our Lady of Fatima’s guidance, we need deep, collective penance and sacrifice. We should pray in reparation before the Blessed Sacrament, especially using this prayer from Fatima. We should pray the rosary every day and offer acts of penance. Outrage can cause us to sin if we give into bitterness and vicious speech. Let it lead us, rather, to holiness by doing our part to make reparation for our own sins and the sins of all Christians throughout the world, including the President of the United States and our shepherds who fail to act.