Media’s 'Biden Is the Greatest Catholic Since Francis of Assisi' Narrative Is Not Going Well
The establishment media has been pulling out all the stops, as Stephen Kruiser noted Monday, to convince us that Joe Biden is the most serene Catholic monarch since King St. Louis IX. Huffington Post writer Beth Stoneburner even wondered if “Christians will ever allow themselves to admit that a Democratic president is actually doing more for their supposed causes than the Republican Party ever did.” The New York Times hailed Old Joe as “the most religiously observant commander in chief in half a century,” who “regularly attends Mass and speaks of how his Catholic faith grounds his life and his policies.” However, a wrench was thrown into this propaganda machine on Friday by the unlikeliest of sources: the U.S. Catholic bishops.
Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, and Bishop David J. Malloy, chairman of the Committee on International Justice and Peace, issued a statement on Thursday saying that Biden’s executive order removing blocks on funding for abortion providers overseas was “incompatible with Catholic teaching.”
Heinously indifferent to their contravention of the prevailing propaganda, Naumann and Malloy wrote: “It is grievous that one of President Biden’s first official acts actively promotes the destruction of human lives in developing nations. This Executive Order is antithetical to reason, violates human dignity, and is incompatible with Catholic teaching. We and our brother bishops strongly oppose this action. We urge the President to use his office for good, prioritizing the most vulnerable, including unborn children.”
Even before that, Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote on Inauguration Day: “Rather than impose further expansions of abortion and contraception, as he has promised, I am hopeful that the new President and his administration will work with the Church and others of good will. My hope is that we can begin a dialogue to address the complicated cultural and economic factors that are driving abortion and discouraging families. My hope, too, is that we can work together to finally put in place a coherent family policy in this country, one that acknowledges the crucial importance of strong marriages and parenting to the well-being of children and the stability of communities. If the President, with full respect for the Church’s religious freedom, were to engage in this conversation, it would go a long way toward restoring the civil balance and healing our country’s needs.”
The U.S. Catholic Bishops have never been known for their conservatism or for any significant opposition to the Left’s overall agenda, so even the fact that these statements were issued is momentous. But wait. How could something “incompatible with Catholic teaching” issue from the hands of Saint Gropey’s handlers? Well, you see, to their minds there is no contradiction, for, as The New York Times put it, Biden represents “a different, more liberal Christianity” that is, it claims, now “ascendant: less focused on sexual politics and more on combating poverty, climate change and racial inequality.”
Labeling murder of the unborn a matter of “sexual politics” is creative, but it doesn’t succeed in papering over the inconvenient fact that the Ten Commandments has something to say about killing, but relatively little about massively expanding the federal government and turning over one’s obligation of charity to it. Confiscatory socialist policies that reward unemployment and broken families do more to ensure racial inequality than to heal it, but the propaganda machine isn’t about to let sweet reason intrude into its manipulation of your emotions.
We are being hectored into believing that Biden is a good Catholic, an incredible Catholic, the best, maybe ever, as his predecessor might have put it, not because The New York Times or the rest of the media cares one whit about Catholicism or Christianity in general, except as an obstacle to its social agenda that must be cleared away. We are pelted with this propaganda because if the likes of the Times, Beth Stoneburner, and the rest can hoodwink and guilt-trip Christians into thinking that big government socialism, taxpayer-funded abortions, and the destruction of the freedom of speech are as Christian as the cross and the Lord’s prayer, a significant potential source of opposition to the Left’s program could be swept away.
That’s what this is all about. But now the media will do what it always does: vilify Gomez (that has already started, at least among leftist Catholics), Naumann, and Malloy, if it doesn’t ignore their statements altogether, and inundate us with more nonsense about the Holy Wonderworker of Scranton. Nothing ever gets in the way of our moral superiors pushing their agenda.
