DENVER (AP) - When Joe Biden underwent brain surgery for a life-threatening aneurysm in 1988, he asked doctors whether he could tuck his rosary beads under his pillow. The six-term Democratic senator from Delaware also has offered to shove his rosary down the throat of the next Republican who tells him he isn't religious.
Barack Obama's running mate is the son of working-class Irish Catholics, a career politician educated at a Catholic prep school who briefly considered the priesthood.
He has turned to his faith to weather personal tragedy — including the deaths of his wife and young daughter in a 1972 traffic accident — and shape his political worldview. Biden attends Mass weekly and didn't miss it on Sunday, either, attending services and taking Communion at St. Joseph on the Brandywine near his home in Greenville, Del.
Biden's selection as Obama's running mate immediately touched off new scrutiny of his support for abortion rights, a position in conflict with a fundamental teaching of his church.
One outspoken prelate, Denver Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput, said in statement to The Associated Press that Biden should refrain from taking Communion because of his stance.
Four years ago, Chaput and a few other U.S. bishops drew notice for suggesting Democrat John Kerry should either be denied the Catholic sacrament or not present himself for Communion because of his abortion-rights stance, triggering what came to be known as the "wafer watch."
By selecting a Pennsylvania-born Catholic as his No. 2, Obama is betting the potential rewards — including swaying elusive lunch-pail Catholics in the Midwest — outweigh the risks.
Catholics have been a swing vote for almost 40 years. Polls show white Catholics, who account for nearly one in five U.S. voters, evenly divided between Obama and Republican John McCain. McCain is leading among Catholics in battleground states Ohio and Florida.
"Having Biden on the ticket covers the Catholic base," said David Gibson, a Catholic journalist and author. "But anytime you pick a Catholic, it's also courting controversy."
Douglas Kmiec, a former Reagan administration official and a Catholic who is supporting Obama, portrayed Biden as a Catholic not just by belief but by culture, someone who can connect with people at a gut level.
"You can't find a more regular guy than Joe Biden," said Kmiec, a constitutional law professor at Pepperdine University. "He would be the kind of guy you would expect to find in the parish hall, in the neighborhood. That kind of personality, when combined with the kind of reflective Christianity Barack Obama has demonstrated, is a winning combination."
Kmiec argues the Obama campaign is "ultimately premised upon Catholic social teaching" like care for working families and the poor and foreign policy premised on peace over war. Democratic efforts to tackle social and economic factors that contribute to abortion hold more promise, Kmiec said, than Republican efforts to criminalize it.
Biden has said that while he is "prepared to accept" Catholic church teaching that life begins at conception, the Roe v. Wade court decision legalizing abortion "is as close to we're going to be able to get as a society" to respecting different religious views on the issue.
Biden has said he strongly supports Roe v. Wade but also voted in favor of a bill to ban late-term abortions, prompting abortion rights groups to downgrade him on their report cards.
"My views are totally consistent with Catholic social doctrine," Biden said in a 2007 interview with the Christian Science Monitor. "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." Continue >>
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fullgospel, we Southern Baptists only have to take credit for Bill, if I'm not mistaken the United Methodists have to take credit for Hillary!!
chris70 "God will not judge lightly those who allow the murder of the innocent babies in womb!"
what about US dropping bombs on innocent peoples in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and next stop- Iran.
Wilderness1, when I read the article and they mentioned Biden and his rosary, I thought "oh boy, here comes a new round of misunderstandings..." First, let me say I understand why taking that text by itself without further explanation would be uncomfortable to say the least.
Mary is not a second Savior, nor a substitute for the original and only. Her message is our message: "Do whatever He (Jesus) tells you." Amen?
In a nutshell, we can join our prayers with others to God on their behalf (Rom. 15:30) while here on earth. There's one body of Christ and death doesn't separate us from that body. If the fervent prayer of a righteous person availeth much and people in heaven have been made perfectly righteous by Jesus, why wouldn't the cloud of witnesses in heaven try and cheer us on with their prayers to God as well? We're all praying to God. No secondary intercessors. Peace, my friend.
You know, believer, I was going to post something about how the Clintons were an embarrassment to the Baptists I love so much. Glad you got it for me.
Article: "...Biden's faith and Catholic teachings..."
It is extremely important in these last days to be careful what faith we embrace and what teachings we accept, lest we be deceived. For example, here is an excerpt from Meditations On The Most Blessed Virgin by Most Hon. Brother Philippe:
"AT the remembrance of the number and grievousness of our sins, and at the thought of the divine justice, our souls are seized with terror, and we exclaim with St. Anselm: 'Whither can I fly to hide myself from the eyes of the Sovereign Judge? Neither the East nor the West, nor the depths of the sea can offer me a secure retreat.'
But let us not forget that an asylum is offered to repentant sinners a safe asylum, always open, and open to all an asylum of easy access, where we are invited and urged to take refuge: that asylum is Mary, the clement Virgin, 'Who,' says St. Chrysostom, 'was chosen from all eternity that those whom her divine Son, in the rigor of justice, could not pardon, might be saved through her mercy.'" [End quote]
Is Mary our refuge? Can we be saved through her mercy? No, Mary has never been given such exalted power in heaven. Compare the above excerpt with these scriptures
Come unto me [Jesus], all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Mt 11:28)
Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. (Ps 62:8)
Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. (Heb 7:25)
As a "Born Again" Catholic, I find Pelosi, Biden, Kerry, Kennedy absolutely REPULSIVE!
Just because you call yourself a Catholic Christian doesn't mean your going to be saved...DEMONCRATS! God will not judge lightly those who allow the murder of the innocent babies in womb!
Real Catholics for McCain! Ala Carte Christians really are lame!
fullgospel, don't feel too bad, we Southern Baptists are stuck with the likes of Bill Clinton and Al Gore.
For the sake of all faithful Catholics out there who DO put God first in their lives, let's set the record straight: Biden, Pelosi, Kennedy, Kerry...not practicing Catholics. You don't judge the faith by those who DON'T follow its teachings, but by those who do.
Let's take another example: someone calls themselves Muslim, but they eat pork, don't believe Muhammad was a prophet, yet they want you to believe that their faithful. Please.
If you want to see what Christianity in action looks like, look at those candidates who follow Scripture:
* Though shalt not kill
* I set before you death and life. Choose life that you may live.
* Before I knit you in the womb, I knew you.
* I came that you may have life and have it to the full
* Be fertile and multiply.
Friends, that means being PRO-LIFE and none of the people I mentioned above are. For the record...