How Joe Biden Celebrated Planned Parenthood v. Casey

See "Joe Biden is One Sick Pro-Abort" at Catholics Against Joe Biden.

Nice to know Vice President Biden made it to Mass yesterday

Hope and pray he takes the message of Ash Wednesday to heart.

David Schrader

Biden: "I'm Not a Pope John Paul [II] Guy"

(Hat tip: Opinionated Catholic and Whispers in the Loggia)

Sen. Biden sticks his foot in it again over abortion, this time dissing the late Holy Father, Pope John Paul II:

... Q: This [abortion] was an issue for John Kerry, do you see this as being an issue for you?

A: I think it's going to be an issue for everybody. Anyone who's a Catholic, a practicing Catholic, this is a dilemma for. There's an expression in law school: hard cases make bad law. These are just very, very, very difficult moral, social and societal choices.

And for me, I am prepared as a senator to say that the framework of Roe v. Wade based upon this imperfect trimester notion captures the gravity of how you should approach this most serious of decisions relating to life and death. First trimester, the state should stay out of it completely because it's a matter of faith, basically, there. Second trimester, there are competing interests, but they're both legitimate to look at. Third trimester, there's an overwhelming burden to say, there isn't a good reason to abort unless it relates to the mother's health. I'm as comfortable as I can be on a really difficult moral dilemma.

To sum it up, as a Catholic, I'm a John XXIII guy, I'm not a Pope John Paul guy.

(emphasis added)

Well, isn't that special? On the bright side, at least he didn't refer to Pope John XXIII as "Pius the XXIII".


[cross-posted at Catholics Against Joe Biden]

Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl and U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops correct Senator Biden's erroneous statements on science and theology

The fallout to comments made by Senator Biden during a September 7, 2008 Meet the Press interview continues:

Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl sent a letter to the priests of his diocese. While noting the respect due to public officials on policy issues, Archbishop Wuerl also highlighted the difference between science, the theories of St. Thomas Aquinas and faith. An excerpt:

When life begins is not a matter of faith, but a matter of science. The scientific research available to us today confirms that the joining of the human egg and sperm begins a new human life. There is overwhelming empirical evidence that once conceived, that life will continue through its many natural stages, from embryo to fetus to infant to child and on until death. Religious belief does not change this scientific fact.

However, faith and the natural moral law guide us in how we treat this human life. The Catholic Church has been unwavering in its teaching, as we are told in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception…Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.” (paragraphs 2270-2271)

Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, and Bishop William Lori, chairman of the bishops' Committee on Doctrine, also corrected Senator Biden on behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The statement is not yet up on the USCCB's website, but Catholic News Service has the full text.

Echoing prior statements, the USCCB begins by distinguishing the biological question ("when does life begin?") followed by the moral question:

Which living members of the human species should be seen as having fundamental human rights, such as a right not to be killed? The Catholic Church’s answer is: Everybody. No human being should be treated as lacking human rights, and we have no business dividing humanity into those who are valuable enough to warrant protection and those who are not. Even this is not solely a Catholic teaching, but a principle of natural law accessible to all people of good will. The framers of the Declaration of Independence pointed to the same basic truth by speaking of inalienable rights, bestowed on all members of the human race not by any human power, but by their Creator. Those who hold a narrower and more exclusionary view have the burden of explaining why we should divide humanity into the moral “haves” and “have-nots,” and why their particular choice of where to draw that line can be sustained in a pluralistic society. Such views pose a serious threat to the dignity and rights of other poor and vulnerable members of the human family who need and deserve our respect and protection.

According to the Associated Press, "a spokesman for Biden did not immediately respond Tuesday to requests for comment."

Archbishop Chaput corrects Senator Biden on abortion

Jeff Miller reports that Bishop Morlino of Madison, WI spoke about Speaker Pelosi and Sen. Biden in a homily on Sunday.

Today, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. and Auxiliary Bishop James D. Conley released a new letter to the Catholics of northern Colorado, titled “Public Servants and Moral Reasoning.” In the letter, they reaffirm the importance of informed moral reasoning when discerning public action, especially in regard to Catholics who serve their country on the national stage. Click here to read the full letter.

The letter concludes:

In his Meet the Press interview, Sen. Biden used a morally exhausted argument that American Catholics have been hearing for 40 years: i.e., that Catholics can't "impose" their religiously based views on the rest of the country. But resistance to abortion is a matter of human rights, not religious opinion. And the senator knows very well as a lawmaker that all law involves the imposition of some people's convictions on everyone else. That is the nature of the law. American Catholics have allowed themselves to be bullied into accepting the destruction of more than a million developing unborn children a year. Other people have imposed their "pro-choice" beliefs on American society without any remorse for decades.

If we claim to be Catholic, then American Catholics, including public officials who describe themselves as Catholic, need to act accordingly. We need to put an end to Roe and the industry of permissive abortion it enables. Otherwise all of us - from senators and members of Congress, to Catholic laypeople in the pews - fail not only as believers and disciples, but also as citizens.

Joe Biden channels Nancy Pelosi on Meet The Press -- another "teaching moment" for the Catholic Bishops?

Catholic Senator Joe Biden appeared on Meet The Press this morning. Revisiting the same topic he discussed with Nancy Pelosi, Tom Brokaw inquired Biden's view on the beginning of human life and the matter of abortion and what he would do if Obama sought his counsel on the subject:

SEN. BIDEN: I'd say, "Look, I know when it begins for me." It's a personal and private issue. For me, as a Roman Catholic, I'm prepared to accept the teachings of my church. But let me tell you. There are an awful lot of people of great confessional faiths--Protestants, Jews, Muslims and others--who have a different view. They believe in God as strongly as I do. They're intensely as religious as I am religious. They believe in their faith and they believe in human life, and they have differing views as to when life--I'm prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception. But that is my judgment. For me to impose that judgment on everyone else who is equally and maybe even more devout than I am seems to me is inappropriate in a pluralistic society. And I know you get the push back, "Well, what about fascism?" Everybody, you know, you going to say fascism's all right? Fascism isn't a matter of faith. No decent religious person thinks fascism is a good idea.

MR. BROKAW: But if you, you believe that life begins at conception, and you've also voted for abortion rights...

SEN. BIDEN: No, what a voted against curtailing the right, criminalizing abortion. I voted against telling everyone else in the country that they have to accept my religiously based view that it's a moment of conception. There is a debate in our church, as Cardinal Egan would acknowledge, that's existed. Back in "Summa Theologia," when Thomas Aquinas wrote "Summa Theologia," he said there was no--it didn't occur until quickening, 40 days after conception. How am I going out and tell you, if you or anyone else that you must insist upon my view that is based on a matter of faith? And that's the reason I haven't. But then again, I also don't support a lot of other things. I don't support public, public funding. I don't, because that flips the burden. That's then telling me I have to accept a different view. This is a matter between a person's God, however they believe in God, their doctor and themselves in what is always a--and what we're going to be spending our time doing is making sure that we reduce considerably the amount of abortions that take place by providing the care, the assistance and the encouragement for people to be able to carry to term and to raise their children.

Senator Biden can be commended for his opposition to public-funding for abortions (incidentally, a view which his Presidential running mate supports), but to characterize opposition to abortion as the "imposition of a religious judgement on everybone else" is absolutely false. As George Weigel noted in response to Senator Kerry's use of the same "reluctance to impose my religious opinion" defense in the 2004 election:

... suggesting that this is something analogous to the Catholic Church trying to force everyone in the United States to abstain from eating hot dogs on Fridays during Lent is simpy false. ... You don't even have to believe in God to engage [the pro-life position] because it's a position rooted in basic embryology and in basic logic, and anybody can engage that."

Once again, we are greeted with the curious spectacle of a defiant "pro-choice" Catholic politician appealing to 13th century comprehensions of human development (or rather fourth century BC, since Aquinas's views were based on Aristotle) -- in opposition to the Catholic Bishops' appeal to advancements in human embryology by modern science! While it may be a "matter of faith" for Biden, recognizing that human life begins at "conception" is surely no great obstacle for scientists -- nor American citizens in general.

* * *

Curiously, as Princeton professor Robert P. George noted on the role of religious authority in debates on public policy, it is pro-choice advocates who typically want to transform the question into a “metaphysical” or “religious” one:

It was Justice Harry Blackmun who claimed in his opinion for the Court legalizing abortion in Roe v. Wade (1973) that “at this point in man’s knowledge” the scientific evidence was inconclusive and therefore cold not determine the outcome of the case. And twenty years later, the influential pro-choice writer Ronald Dworkin went on record claiming that the question of abortion is inherently “religious.” (See Ronald Dworkin, Life’s Dominion (Alfred A. Knopf, 1993).) It is pro-choice advocates, such as Dworkin, who want to distinguish between when a human being comes into existence “in the biological sense” and when a human being comes into existence “in the moral sense.” It is they who want to distinguish a class of human beings “with rights” from pre-(or post-) conscious human beings who “don’t have rights.” And the reason for this, I submit, is that, short of defending abortion as “justifiable homicide,” the pro-choice position collapses if the issue is to be settled purely on the basis of scientific inquiry into the question of when a new member of homo sapiens comes into existence as a self-integrating organism whose unity, distinctiveness, and identity remain intact as it develops without substantial change from the point of its beginning through the various stages of its development and into adulthood.

As Catholics we believe in the sanctity of human life -- but this is not to say that the pro-life position can be seriously engaged by anybody.

In "Christian Conviction and Democratic Etiquette (First Things March 1994), Weigel explains:

How are we to make our case to those who do not share that prior religious commitment, or to those Christians whose churches do not provide clear moral counsel on this issue? And how do we do this in a political-cultural-legal climate in which individual autonomy has been virtually absolutized?

The answer is, we best make our case by insisting that our defense of the right to life of the unborn is a defense of civil rights and of a generous, hospitable American democracy. We best make our case by insisting that abortion-on-demand gravely damages the American democratic experiment by drastically constricting the community of the commonly protected. We best make our case by arguing that the private use of lethal violence against an innocent is an assault on the moral foundations of any just society. In short, we best make our case for maximum feasible legal protection of the unborn by deploying natural law arguments that translate our Christian moral convictions into a public idiom more powerful than the idiom of autonomy.

And to think that the Democrats were hoping the abortion debate would somehow "fade away" this election? -- Thank you, Senator Biden, for providing a clear illustration of why Catholics cannot be silent.

Related

• "Abortion poisions everything including reason", by Jeff Miller (Curt Jester).
  
• Ongoing coverage by Thomas Peters @ American Papist
  
• "Dumb and Dumber" Creative Minority Report
  

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.

Joe Biden on McCain, Obama and his Catholic Faith

So Barack Obama has selected Senator Joe Biden as his VP.

Before we get to tackling the serious issues of Biden's record in the days to come, some humor:

Biden on McCain

• Biden, on a post-debate appearance on MSNBC, October 30, 2007: “The only guy on the other side who’s qualified is John McCain.”
  

• Biden appearing on The Daily Show, August 2, 2005: “John McCain is a personal friend, a great friend, and I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off, be well off no matter who...”
  

• On Meet the Press, November 27, 2005: “I’ve been calling for more troops for over two years, along with John McCain and others subsequent to my saying that.”
  

Biden on Obama

• Assessing Obama’s Iraq plan on September 13, 2007: “My impression is [Obama] thinks that if we leave, somehow the Iraqis are going to have an epiphany” of peaceful coexistence among warring sects. “I’ve seen zero evidence of that.”
  

• Speaking to the New York Observer: Biden was equally skeptical — albeit in a slightly more backhanded way — about Mr. Obama. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”
  

• Also from that Observer interview: “But — and the ‘but’ was clearly inevitable — he doubts whether American voters are going to elect ‘a one-term, a guy who has served for four years in the Senate,’ and added: ‘I don’t recall hearing a word from Barack about a plan or a tactic.’”
  

• Also that night, Biden said in a campaign ad, “When this campaign is over, political slogans like ‘experience’ and ‘change’ will mean absolutely nothing. The next president has to act.”
  

Source: ‘Just Words’ That Joe Biden Would Like To Forget: The curse of a loose mouth and Nexis, by Jim Geraghty (National Review)

Biden on his Catholic faith

"If I'm the nominee, Republicans will be sorry," said Biden, a Roman Catholic who ran for president in 1988. "The next Republican that tells me I'm not religious I'm going to shove my rosary beads down their throat."

-- Joe Biden, November 2005.

Threatening to shove one's rosary beads down others' throats is not the sort of thing one says when one has the benefit of the many graces that are promised to those who daily pray the rosary.

-- Paul (Thoughts of a Regular Guy).

Christian Science Monitor Profile of Sen. Joseph Biden's "Frank and Abiding Faith"

The Christian Science Monitor's puff piece claims that Joe Biden's "Catholic ideals of fighting the abuse of power have shaped the life and politics of the presidential hopeful":

Washington - From his childhood bedroom in a treeless industrial suburb of Wilmington, Del., Joe Biden looked out on Archmere, an Italianate mansion and Catholic boys high school that he called "the object of my deepest desire, my Oz."

Archmere was also the home of financier John Jacob Raskob, who ran the 1928 campaign of Gov. Al Smith (D) of New York, the first Roman Catholic to become the presidential nominee of a major US political party.

Against long odds, Senator Biden aims to be No. 4. He sees faith and values, as well as his own deep experience in public policy, as a key to that race.

"The animating principle of my faith, as taught to me by church and home, was that the cardinal sin was abuse of power," he said in an interview with the Monitor. "It was not only required as a good Catholic to abhor and avoid abuse of power, but to do something to end that abuse." [ED.: And yet, you fight to defend - indeed, it could be said that your role in "borking" Judge Robert Bork is, in part, responsible for - the greatest abuse of power in the world today: the murder of the most innocent and powerless among us via legalized abortion. Save your sanctimonious ******** about defending the powerless, you disingenuous hypocrite!]

The issues that have most engaged Biden in public life draw on those teachings [ED.: Yeah, too bad you've been engaged on the wrong side when it comes to abortion and ESCR.], from halting violence against women to genocide [ED.: Somehow the genocide of the unborn seems to have escaped his notice]. At a personal level, his faith provides him peace, he says. "I get comfort from carrying my rosary [ED.: In case I need to shove it down any Republican throats.], going to mass every Sunday. It's my time alone," he says.

But the interface of faith and policy has long been problematic for Catholic presidential hopefuls. Governor Smith faced withering criticism over whether Catholic politicians are obliged by their church to take policy orders from Rome. John F. Kennedy famously disavowed "outside religious pressures or dictates," swept the Catholic vote, and won the presidency. By the time another J.F.K. from Massachusetts ran for president in 2004, the ground had shifted. Sen. John F. Kerry lost the Catholic vote because many of his faith questioned whether he was Catholic enough, given his strong support for abortion rights.

But Biden believes he can bridge much of that divide. "My views are totally consistent with Catholic social doctrine," [ED.: What a piece of work! "Totally consistent with Catholic social doctrine" - yeah, abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, etc., etc., are just what Catholic social teaching calls for. What chutzpah!] says Biden, a six-term Democratic senator from Delaware. "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." [ED.: Self-serving tripe.]

[More]

(emphasis and editorial commentary added)


UPDATE
A commenter doesn't like what I have to say about Sen. Biden (emphasis and editorial commentary added):

I don't think I've ever read such ugliness on a blog before. [ED.: Riiiiiight. Ever spend any time over at Kos or Democrat Underground? Besides, your comment is rich coming from a defender of a man who threatened to shove his Rosary beads down Republicans' throats.] Your views on abortion have obviously blinded you to all the good things Senator Biden has done as a member of the Senate [ED.: Obviously.] -- helping stop genocide in Bosnia, fighting for passage of the Violenece [sic] Against Women Act, and so much more.

If you call yourself a Christian, you are truly a disgrace to the basic idea of Christianity. [ED.: I will be the first to admit that I - a sinner - am unworthy of the title "Christian".] You can't even carry on a civil discussion about a man who so obviously tries to live his faith every day as he sees his duty. [ED.: Obviously.]

Shame on you. [ED.: Yes, don't look at the full-bodied shamefulness of a man who professes the Catholic faith and claims to defend the powerless against "abuse of power", yet who wholeheartedly supports the legalized murder of the most powerless among us; rather, look at the "ugly" and "shameful" way people point out the man's hypocrisy.]

Look here. When a man proclaims that his "views are totally consistent with Catholic social doctrine" and professes that "the animating principle of my faith" is to defend the powerless against "the abuse of power", but then has this to say about abortion ...

Joe Biden, a Delaware senator, got the next abortion question and indicated he "strongly supported Roe v. Wade" which allowed unlimited abortion throughout pregnancy.

He said he would "make sure that the people I sent to be nominated to the Supreme Court shared my values" and supported pro-abortion rulings like Roe.

"That's why I led the fight to defeat Bork. Thank God he's not on the court or this would -- Roe v. Wade would be gone by now," Biden added about the battle over a pro-life nominee for the high court defeated in the 1980s.

Biden pointed to his opposition to Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, all of whom voted to uphold the partial-birth abortion ban.

... you can damn well bet that I'm going to point out his hypocrisy and disingenuous sanctimony.