Joe Biden
Charlie Neibergall / AP Photo US presidential candidate Joe Biden has highlighted his Catholic Faith in a new campaign advertisement released last week.
The Democratic Party representative hopes focusing on religion will boost his ratings after seeing a sharp decline in his poll numbers following recent losses in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.
Mr Biden, who is a baptised Catholic, said that “Faith is what has gotten me through difficult times in my life” including the deaths of his first wife, eldest daughter and son.
“I go to Mass and I say the Rosary,” he said, adding that he found it to be “incredibly comforting”.
“Personally for me, Faith, it’s all about hope and purpose and strength, and for me, my religion is just an enormous sense of solace.”
While Mr Biden profiles his Catholicism, it has been a source of controversy over his political career and he has endorsed policies that are contrary to Church teaching.
Shortly after his election as vice president, Bishop Joseph Martino – the then-bishop of his hometown of Scranton – rebuked Mr Biden for his views on abortion.
“I will not tolerate any politician who claims to be a faithful Catholic who is not genuinely pro-life,” said Bishop Martino in 2008.
During the 2008 campaign, Mr Biden also received a letter from the then-bishop of the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, after he received Communion at a parish in the diocese.
The letter reiterated the Church’s views on abortion and the bishop offered prayers that Mr Biden would “live by the virtue of fortitude as you proclaim your support to the Person of Christ in the most vulnerable of his members: the pre-born child”.
In October 2019, Mr Biden was refused Communion at a Church in South Carolina.
The priest denied him Communion in accord with a 2004 diocesan policy that prohibits politicians, who have been supportive of legal protection for abortion, from receiving the Eucharist.
“Catholic public officials who consistently support abortion on demand are cooperating with evil in a public manner,” said the 2004 decree.
“By supporting pro-abortion legislation, they participate in manifest grave sin, a condition which excludes them from admission to Holy Communion as long as they persist in the pro-abortion stance.”