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| Sen. Joseph Biden, who's making his second run for president, says Catholic teachings taught him that 'the cardinal sin was
abuse of power.' Andy Nelson – staff |
Joseph Biden: a frank and abiding faith
How Catholic ideals of fighting the abuse of power have shaped the life and politics of the presidential hopeful.
from the August 27, 2007 edition
Page 4 of 4
Iraq war vote
Despite strong opposition to the war in Iraq from both the Vatican and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Biden voted in 2002 to support the use of force in Iraq.
"Joe Biden is one of the most sincere Catholics I've known in my 40 years as a priest," says Monsignor William Kerr, executive director of the Claude Pepper Center at Florida State University. The two men met by chance outside Biden's Senate office and began a conversation on faith and politics that has continued nearly 30 years. Monsignor Kerr recounts a conversation with Biden on Pope John Paul II's efforts to discourage President Bush from going to war in Iraq. He says that Biden told him: "I just have to tell you the pope's wrong on this, I'm going with the president. That was morality, this is politics."
Looking back on this decision, he writes, "I made a mistake." He had "vastly underestimated" the incompetence of the Bush administration in its conduct of the war. The "fantasy" of remaking Iraq in the US image was a goal that could not be imposed on a "fragile and decimated country," he writes in his new book. Instead, Biden proposes a partition of Iraq along sectarian and ethnic lines to help restore security for Iraqis – and more robust international diplomacy to help sustain it.
Meanwhile, left-leaning Catholic groups aim to expand the debate in 2008 from the church teaching on abortion to Catholic values on social justice and war.
"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 is troubled, too, by ongoing sexual-abuse scandals involving children within the church. But he says his commitment to church remains unchanged. "This is my church as much as it is the church of a cardinal, bishop, or janitor, and I'm not going anywhere," he said. I care a great deal about my faith."
• The first two articles in this series, on Sen. Barack Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney, appeared July 16 and Aug. 9.
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Heading into Election 2008, the Monitor profiles the candidates through the lens of their core convictions – through their values, worldviews, and, when applicable, religious faiths. |
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