As the withdrawal of Christian values from the formation of public policy has accelerated, the religion of progressive secularism has rushed in to fill the gap.  It is to this religion Biden and the Democratic Party have pledged their devotion. It is on the bases of the religion of progressivism they form public policy, domestic and foreign.

Biden certainly demonstrates the symbolic and real embodiment of the progressive idea of the radical separation of church and state. According to radical progressives, Christianity, including Catholicism, is to play no part in public policy. 

Catholicism; indeed, Christianity in general, is to be confined to private domains, expressed entirely in private rituals and ceremonies conducted behind church doors or within one’s own domicile.  Once one walks out of home or church, life in the public arena is guided by the latest progressive principles; which principles progressives hope may be gradually incorporated into an increasingly syncretistic seminaries and churches, Catholic and Protestant.

The policy of absolute separation of church and state embraced by Biden was articulated and affirmed by John Kennedy in his famous speech to Protestant leaders when he was running for president. JFK’s policy has been one of the chief instruments employed by progressives to cordon off Christians, confining them to a cultural preserve where Christian practices can be safely contained and observed as curiously exotic rituals.    

Kennedy believed religious belief is a purely private matter. He said, “I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.”

In addition to making faith a purely personal matter, Kennedy announced his belief in the absolute separation of church and state. Progressives have since interpreted the First Amendment in a similar fashion.

Kennedy stated: “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.”

Kennedy’s speech was rife with false comparisons and red herrings, but the bottom line was that he regarded the Christian religion as merely and entirely a personal matter. The core principles of Christianity were not to extend to public policy in any way. The separation of Christianity and the State was to be severe and complete.  

Joe Biden has absorbed the progressive ideas about separation of church and state articulated by JFK. As the American Independent and other news sources reported, White House press secretary Jen Psaki remarked about Biden’s faith, echoing JFK’s remark that an elected official’s religious views are “his own private affair.”

Psaki said, "It's personal to him. He doesn't see it through a political prism… And we're not going to comment otherwise on the inner workings of the Catholic Church." She said separately, "Joe Biden is a strong man of faith. And as he noted just a couple of days ago, it’s personal. He goes to church, as you know, nearly every weekend. He even went when we were on our overseas trip [in England].”

Because Biden considers the Catholic faith to be merely a matter of interior and completely private and individualistic belief, he can through severe compartmentalization separate out the rituals of faith from public practice of faith. 

The above means he can carry a rosary on his person. He can expect to attend mass and receive the sacrament of the Eucharist.  He can bury his late son according to Catholic funeral rites.

But while acting in the public square he can openly flout longstanding dogma of the Catholic faith.  He can officiate at a same-sex marriage ceremony in direct defiance of the Catholic view of marriage as between a man and a woman; he can appoint to public office a man who claims to have transitioned to the opposite sex in contradiction of the Catholic view of human beings being created in the image of God as male and female; and he can support abortion as an inalienable human right despite the Catholic teachings forbidding the taking of innocent human life.

In short, Biden practices Catholicism through private rituals at home or in the sanctuary but practices the religion of leftist progressivism in public.  The Catholic faith does not speak to his actions. Again, Biden echoes JFK, who said, “For contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me. (Italics mine.)

In other words, Christianity does not inform or even speak to Biden when it comes to public policy, domestic or foreign.  Hence the schizophrenia and resultant chaos and confusion accompanying his policies.

For centuries the Catholic Church has outlined a world view that includes what it means to establish a just and righteous governance according to the foundational beliefs of Christianity. Application of Christian principles to public policy eventually resulted in the abolition of slavery and helped ameliorate many other societal ills.

Be it St. Paul in his letters to the early Church, Augustine’s City of God, Cardinal Newman’s thinking about Catholic academia or countless other expounders of the Christian faith, including Protestants such as Abraham Kuyper, great expositors of the Christian faith have always articulated a weltanschauung that finds Christianity as informing all facets of society.  From its roots in Judaism and onward, throughout its entire history Christianity has had a world view that includes what it means to govern justly, righteously according to the Law of God as revealed in nature, scripture and tradition.

Prophets of old and Christ himself made it abundantly clear that observances of rituals, feasts and formalities mattered little when the greater issues of injustices within society were ignored or flouted. Christ rebuked the Pharisees for their fastidious concentration on minute legalities while they “neglected the more important matters of the law -- justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”

In his rebuke, Christ echoed the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah, who wrote: “This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.”

If we consider only Biden’s wholehearted endorsement of abortion, which is the shedding of innocent blood, it is obvious Biden does not practice the Catholic faith he professes to believe.

Biden continually violates core beliefs of the Catholic Church. In fact, he actively and continually attacks and undermines the Christian faith, as did his predecessor and influencer Barak Obama.

As Christ said of those who faked being his followers, “You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?”

Bottom line: Judged by his fruits, Biden is not Catholic.

Fay Voshell holds a M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, which awarded her the prize for excellence in systematic theology.  Her thoughts have appeared in many online magazines.  She has been a frequent contributor to American Thinker for a decade. She may be reached at fvoshell@yahoo.com

Image: Adam Schultz

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