In the new decoration of the Oval Office there is a photograph that immortalizes the encounter between Joe Biden and Pope Francis in 2015, with whom he maintains a special bond. The portrait stands out, the first, among the numerous family and personal memories, and among the busts of figures who fought for civil and human rights. Like those of Robert F. Kennedy, the Baptist pastor Martin Luther King, the activist against racial segregation Rosa Parks or the union leader César Chávez. Bergoglio’s image is not by chance and its placement in such a prominent place, behind his desk, surely responds to a highly calculated intention. It supposes a clear ideological bet and has a programmatic value on what is proposed the new resident of the White House, Catholic and practicing, the second after JF Kennedy, 57 years later.
Biden has never hidden his faith, but neither has he flaunted his beliefs, which respond to a cultured and open Catholicism, and very calm, without brandishing the Bible as if it were a weapon or a shield, as Trump did before a church in Washington. Both have and represent opposite styles and different sensibilities, but both share the Bible, showing that contradictory uses of the holy book and opposite readings can be made, some of them fundamentalist. The Bible is the common heritage of the whole world and in the United States it has a recognized symbolic value since the founding fathers landed in that land with a copy in one hand and a rifle in the other.. That is why religion is a major factor that can influence an election, more in America than elsewhere.
The Bible had a leading role in Biden’s inauguration ceremony, beyond his oath on a voluminous and historical specimen of the family from 1893. He had already had it in his victory speech, in November 2020, when he cited the Ecclesiastes, the Book of the Old Testament, as a doctrine to stitch up the wounds of a suffering people. «The Bible tells us that everything has a time: a time to build, a time to reap, a time to sow. And a time to heal. This is the time to heal in America. We are not enemies. We are Americans, “he proclaimed then. Last January 20 he insisted again and mentioned Saint Augustine, father and doctor of the Church, and his book 19 on ‘The City of God’ to contribute to the union of a strongly divided people. And he went to a psalm by King David to convey hope in the face of the Covid-19 tear: “Crying may last all night, but in the morning the cry of joy will come.”
The day was full of religious gestures and winks, already from the very early hours of the morning when the president-elect attended mass with his family and many political leaders. And continued with the blessing of his friend the Jesuit Leo O’Donovan, a prestigious ecclesiastic who was rector of the influential University of Georgetwon and who is its spiritual director. The well-connected member of the Society of Jesus served for a time on Disney’s steering committee and was criticized by religious conservatism because films such as ‘Priest’ were distributed at that time, in which a homosexual priest, or ‘Pocahontas’, in which some saw an apology for paganism. Now he is in charge of the Jesuit Refugee Aid Service.
Winks for everyone
Singers Lady Gaga and Jennifer López, and the poet Amanda Gorman, all three Catholics, also participated in the Capitol ceremony. But it also featured country star Garth Brooks, a Republican, in what was more than just a nod to rural America. And Pastor Silvester Beaman, of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which recognizes thousands of African Americans. A deference to the religious plurality and diversity of the United States. Jill, Biden’s wife, is a Presbyterian, and Kamala Harris is a Protestant. With Hindu roots, the vice president is recognized as a follower of the Baptist Church. She was sworn in before two Bibles, one of them from the woman who took her to church as a child.
In his speeches, Joe Biden relied on his beliefs and his religious culture to reel off a decalogue of political and humanistic ideas, which are in tune with the Social Doctrine of the Church and link with the messages in which Pope Francis is being clear and reiterative. These are issues that have a lot to do with inequality in matters such as immigration, refugees, care for the poor or concern for the environment. This convergence has led the major European and American newspapers to focus on the issue. The Guardian ran a lengthy editorial wondering if the time had come for liberal and progressive Christians, at a time when the Pope is waging “the latest attempt to shift the dial of 21st century Christianity away from cultural wars that have consumed it.
Many of the analysts who observe this new time consider that the future management of Biden, and his connection with Francisco, will not only have results in the United States, but that it will have repercussions on a global agenda with political implications, but also in other areas, including religion, with theological consequences. For example, in China’s relations with the world. And on the horizon of the conflict zones. The eastern patriarchs have already asked Biden to lift sanctions on Syria due to the risk of “famine” among the population. And Francisco travels to Iraq the first week of March.
“This relationship could constitute a new important axis of liberal influence in the West”, ventured ‘The Guardian’, and not only through diplomatic channels, but also culturally. “The breakdown of the alliance between Christianity and right-wing populism has significant implications not only for the United States, but also for the battles against global poverty, the climate emergency and the migratory crisis,” the British website stressed.
To undertake his program, Biden is assembling a very diverse Cabinet that includes Christians, Jews, Hispanics, natives and immigrants with a clear Catholic and progressive stamp. Starting with the African-American Lloyd Austin, elected Secretary of Defense and chief executive of the Pentagon. The general is a practicing believer, as is John Kerry, appointed special envoy for the Climate and renowned publicist of the green encyclical ‘Laudato si’. So are the indigenous Debra Haaland, Secretary of the Interior; Samantha Power, head of the Development Agency; Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce; Xavier Becerra, head of the Department of Health and Human Services or the Mayor of Boston, Marty Walhs, appointed Secretary of Labor. “There has never been a more Catholic Administration in the history of the United States,” said Steven Millies, director of the Bernardin Center of the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago.
Common cause
Biden’s connection to Francisco is clear. The Argentine pontiff is a leader with moral authority who promotes equality, dignity, tolerance, plurality, decentralization and acculturation, among other things. The new president of the United States places religious values alongside political, civic and ethical values. They can make a common cause. That is why many observers have been surprised that the bishops “threw cold water on the most Catholic inauguration in history,” in the words of Michael Sean Winters, an analyst for the National Catholic Reporter, who interpreted Biden’s speech “more Catholic than the classical liberalism of the founding fathers. ‘
Sean refers to the statement distributed by the president of the North American Episcopate, José Horacio Gómez, archbishop of Los Angeles of Mexican origin, who greeted Biden’s arrival promising “close collaboration” on some issues, but warning that there will be confrontation on others. Gómez and a part of US Catholicism remain strong misgivings about the position of Biden, but especially that of Kamala Harris, on issues such as abortion and homosexual unions, which have become a political issue. Some sectors ask them to look beyond reproductive rights and sexuality.
Like the country, the North American Church is very divided, as is the Catholic vote, which has been divided into two almost equal halves at the polls. It is also severely weakened by the child abuse scandals. In the National Catholic Reporter, Monsignor Gómez’s statement was described as “rude and out of character.”, concocted without consulting all the bishops. “Biden did more in 24 hours to remind the American people that the Catholic Church can be a force for the good of our country than the Conference of Bishops has done in 10 years,” wrote journalist Sean Winters, also contributing in ‘The Washington Post’.
Some specialists interpret it as an attack on Pope Francis because the pontiff called Biden and made it clear that he wants to work with the new Administration. The historian and theologian Massimo Faggioli considers that “Certain benevolence of Catholics towards the delegitimization of the Obama presidency allowed ‘Trumpism’ to triumph”. In an interview with Religión Digital, the author of ‘Joe Biden and Catholicism on the United States’ assures that ‘Trumpism’ has infiltrated the North American Catholic Church.
In fact, Cardinal Pell, aligned with Francis, wrote in his day that “Trump is a barbarian, but in some important respects he is our (Christian) barbarian.” Faggioli, one of America’s leading ecclesiologists, believes that “there is a coup and traditionalist Catholicism for which both Biden and Francisco are the enemies. It is not only a question of political identity, but also ecclesial and theological. Those who now oppose Biden are the same ones who tried to get the Pope to resign in 2018: to make it clear that these Catholics are not playing by the rules in politics or in the Church.
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source https://pledgetimes.com/a-catholic-in-the-white-house-57-years-later/
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