Joe Biden's "Pro-Choice Catholicism" - A Liability for Obama and a Scandal to the Church

Obama's Choice of Biden Re-Opens Catholic Wound", according to Fidelis, pointing out Biden's own Bishop's admonishments on the obligation of Catholic legislators to protect life and refrain from profaining the Eucharist:

Biden's own bishop, Bishop Michael Saltarelli of Wilmington, Del., has said that the issues pertaining to the sanctity of human life are the "great civil rights issues of this generation."
Bishop Saltarelli denounced the notion that politicians can 'personally oppose' abortion, but refuse to pass laws protecting the unborn.

"No one today would accept this statement from any public servant: 'I am personally opposed to human slavery and racism but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena.' Likewise, none of us should accept this statement from any public servant: "I am personally opposed to abortion but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena," said Bishop Saltarelli.

In fact, Bishop Saltarelli made clear that pro-abortion Catholic politicians should refrain from receiving the Eucharist.

"The promotion of abortion by any Catholic is a grave and serious matter. Objectively, according to the constant teaching of the Scriptures and the Church, it would be more spiritually beneficial for such a person to refrain from receiving the Body and Blood of Christ. I ask Catholics in this position to have the integrity to respect the Eucharist, Catholic teaching and the Catholic faithful."

In an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, Senator Biden disputed the notion that disobedience to Catholic moral teaching placed one at odds with the Church:

"My views are totally consistent with Catholic social doctrine ... There are elements within the church who say that if you are at odds with any of the teachings of the church, you are at odds with the church. I think the church is bigger than that."

[...]

"There are those who say that Catholics should be robots: There's a formula, and if we don't follow that formula, we shouldn't present ourselves for communion on Sunday morning," says Chris Korzen, executive director of Catholics United. "That's an absolute misuse of Catholic teaching," he says, referring to the call of several Catholic bishops in the 2004 campaign to deny communion to Senator Kerry and other Catholic politicians who did not vote in line with Vatican teachings on abortion.

Without taking a position on how Catholics should vote, Biden makes a case for staying connected to the church and its culture. "If I were an ordained priest, I'd be taking some issue with some of the more narrow interpretations of the Gospel being taken now," Biden says. "But my church is more than 2,000 years old. There's always been a tug of war among prelates and informed lay members."

Biden on Abortion

OnTheIssues.org has a summary of Joe Biden's record on abortion -- on a positive note, he supported the ban on partial birth abortion and disagrees with public funding for abortion. On a negative note, he supports ESCR, opposes parental notification of minors; opposed criminal penalties for harming the unborn during the commitment of another crime; opposed the ban on human cloning.

According to OnTheIssues, NARAL gave him a 36% favorability rating in 2003 (expressing some doubt as to his commitment), but a check of their website reveals that they have rated him 100% on his legislative record as late as 2005. Biden presently carries a 0% rating with the National Right To Life Committe for his 2007-2008 legislative record.

According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Biden "strongly support[s] Roe v. Wade":

He said he is "prepared to accept" the Catholic Church's teaching that life begins at conception but said Roe v. Wade "is as close to we're going to be able to get as a society" to incorporating diverging religious views on the issue. Although he voted in favor of the bill to ban late-term abortions, Biden said the Supreme Court's April 2007 decision to uphold the ban was "intellectually dishonest," saying its language undermined Roe v. Wade.

Biden voted in favor of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005, which was vetoed by President Bush. The bill would have allowed federal funding for research on stem cell lines obtained from discarded human embryos originally created for fertility treatments.