"Throughout my life, I had been told about our Benévol God. Of this God who forgives. Of this God who gave us freedom to doubt, it was a God who loved, a God who comforted. Well, now I did not want to hear From a merciful God. No sermon, no prayer consoled me. I felt that God had played it in a frightful way, and I was bitter. I stopped finding comfort in the church. "
So I described in 2007, in his book 'Promises to Keep' - published for 'launch' its second campaign to the Presidency - Joe bid his crisis of faith. It was in 1972. The now president had everything in life. A happy family, with three children, and a wife, Neila, with whom he had been married for six years and to which the press called "the brain" because of her's ability to lead the rather than her husband's race. On November 7, 1972, Biden, a neophyte in politics, had unpredictably defeated Republican Senator J. Caleb Boggs, who had nothing less than 18 years in office. It was the beginning of a career marked by seven victories followed in the Senate, the vice presidency and, finally, the White House.
And then, six weeks after winning the elections, and one before Christmas day, Neila and the younger of the family, Naomi Christina, who was only one year and a month, died in a traffic accident. The other two children of Biden, Beau and Hunter, were in critical condition. The future president was not in the car.
Biden ended up recovering the faith and attended mass every Sunday. He married again, with his wife, Jill, with whom he has a daughter, Ashley. He lost another son, from the first marriage of him, Beau, a victim of a cancer at 46, in 2015. Since then, he always has a rosary in his pocket.
This Friday, the US president said that the Pope told him at his meeting today in the Vatican that he is "a good Catholic" that must "continue receiving communion," says EFE, after in his country he shuffled to withdraw that Sacrament to be in favor of the right to abortion, an issue that finally did not deal with.
In addition, during the meeting, which lasted 75 minutes, surpassing the 50 that Francisco dedicated Barack Obama and the barely 30 of Trump, Biden told the Pope: "You are the biggest fighter for the peace I have ever known," as he heard in The video of the meeting.
A year ago, Biden became the second Catholic president of the United States history, after John Fitzgerald Kennedy. And today, he is going to have the first 'summit' of him as head of state and government with Pope Francis, although it is the fourth time they meet. The Pope is also a Head of State (Interestingly, the only State of the World in which there is no single private company, something that in principle places it quite far from the US, whose president still yesterday said at Congress that "I I am a capitalist "), so it is worth wondering if this is going to be a meeting of state or spiritual.
"A bit both," has declared the National Security Counselor in the United States, Jake Sullivan. In the end, the same will happen with the other two meetings that Francis has these days, with the president of South Korea, Moon Jae-in, which is Catholic, and with the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, who is Hindu , but he governs a country with 20 million faithful of the Bishop of Rome.
But, next month, Biden could become the first US president who was denied communion. In November, the Catholic Church of the United States will issue a document establishing the conditions under which the country's politicians who support abortion can receive communion. And biden supports abortion. Moreover: The Department of Justice of Him has led the Supreme Court the Law of the Texas State that involves in practice the prohibition of pregnancy interruption. If there is something that unequivocally reflects the so-called 'wars of culture' in the United States is abortion. In 2021, 19 states approved a total of 106 standards by limiting it. All of them are controlled by the Republican Party.
The White House does not want to hear about the question. Officially, Biden and Francis will focus their conversation, something more than half an hour, in "efforts focused on respect for the most fundamental human dignity," and, more specifically, in "poverty, fight against climate crisis, and The end of the Covid-19 ". That leaves aside the abortion.
Francisco has always left things very clear about abortion, who has described as "homicide", and has compared to "hiring a salary killer". Asked about it, the White House spokesman, Jen Psaki, has been limited to insist that "the president believes in the right of women to decide." The Biden thesis is that her faith is private. That of other Catholics, such as the Bishop of Kansas City, Joseph Naumann, that the right to privacy does not enter into this matter. "How can you say [biden] that he is a devotive and practicing Catholic and, at the same time, doing these things that are contrary to the Magisterium of the Church?"
The truth, however, is that the Pope does not sympathize with the attitude of the American bishops. Last month, when he returned from his visit to Hungary and Slovakia, Francisco indirectly discredit the American bishops when he gave that "sometimes bishops do not behave as shepherds, but are inclined to politics." The Pope affirmed that "communion is not a prize for the perfect, communion is a gift, it is a gift," and insisted that he "never" has denied communion to anyone. "It's enough of excommunitions," he said. So, as the magazine 'America Magazine', the company of Jesus - the Order to which Francisco belongs - "The American Bishops will have an invisible presence" in the bilateral encounter.
The debate, so, does not seem to be both Biden and Francis and within the Church itself. In fact, US Catholics are part of the country's society - in fact, Catholic is the largest US church in the number of faithful - and, as such, reflect that environment. An example: According to the Pew Studies Center, an independent organization of analysis of public opinion, 89% of the Catholics who vote Democrat consider Biden as a religious person, while the percentage sinks just half, the 44 %, among the Catholics who vote Republican. In the question of Biden Communion, again, the parishioners are going through a political card. 55% of Republican Catholics believe that Biden should not receive that sacrament. Only 11% of the Democrats say that.
And the meeting, after all, also has a political meaning. US Catholics used to be mostly democrats, but today they are divided into two equal halves between that party and the Republican. It is possible that, if not having been a catholic biden, Donald Trump would have won between that community in 2020. Even so, the Catholic community still does not find a space in the US. The Republican Party is that of the Protestants - before, of the Episcopal and Methodist; Today, of the Charismatics - while the Democrat is on many issues too on the left of what they would like.
But both groups know that the Catholic vote is fundamental. 22% of the population is, 70 million people, declares Catholic. The Church has or manages 10% of hospitals and 5% of country schools, and employ 1.3 million Americans, that is, 300,000 people more than the Wal-Mart supermarket chain, which is the Greater employer of the country's private sector. And the largest owner of Manhattan real estate is the church. Thus, no matter how Psaki he has insisted that Biden "considers her faith as something deeply personal," the meeting between Francis and Biden has a very public side.
Date Of Update: 29 October 2021, 12:11
