Joe Biden was at the Vatican as part of his visit to Rome for the G20 summit and exchanged praise with Pope Francis.
Pope Francis received this Friday the President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, in an audience of about an hour and a half. The two were quick to praise each other, with the White House describing the Pope as “very warm” while Francis believes Biden is a “good christian” and deserves to “continue to receive communion”, despite their differences over the right to abortion.
The Supreme Pontiff thus shows once again his more liberal and progressive streak, after the United States Episcopal Conference has already criticized the US head of state due to the cool battle that the country has been living since 2019 due to the attempt by several states to reverse the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision that guaranteed the federal right to voluntary termination of pregnancy.
The division in the US has deepened after the country’s most radical and restrictive law in the state of Texas went into effect in early September, banning abortion after six weeks’ gestation, when most women are still does not know she is pregnant. Biden publicly criticized the law and it has challenged the decision in court, which has earned it criticism from religious organizations.
On Wednesday, on the eve of Biden’s departure for Europe as part of the G20 and the Cop26 climate summit, US Bishop Thomas Tobin asked the Pope to take advantage of the Vatican meeting to “confront” the US President with the their positions on abortion. “The persistent support [de Biden] to abortion it’s a disgrace to the church and a scandal to the world”, condemned the bishop.
Cardinal Raymond Burke, who is one of the main opponents of the Pope’s more modern positions within the Church, also recalled that the US Episcopal Conference will decide in November whether US Catholic politicians should be prevented from making communion for supporting the right to abortion.
Without ever responding directly to the US bishops and cardinals and stressing that he considers abortion a form of murder, the Pope limited himself to praise Biden’s devotion, who is the second Catholic president in US history after Kennedy.
Already from his youth that Biden, who goes regularly to mass, talks about his faith and how it helped him to cope with the death of his first wife Neilia and daughter Naomi, in a car accident, and also of his son Beau, who died in 2015 due to a brain tumor. On the issue of abortion, the head of state has already assumed that he is personally against it, but that as a politician he considers that he has no right to impose his position on society.
Biden considers the Pope a “warrior for peace” and even offered him a presidential medal known as the “challenge coin” relating to the Delaware National Guard, the state from which the current president was born and which he represented in the Senate for 26 years, with his son Beau also serving in that military unit. .
“I know my son would like me to offer it”, the US president told the Pope, then eliciting laughter when he said that the head of the Vatican will have to “pay for the drinks” if he doesn’t have the coin with him the next time the two see each other.
A Vatican statement released after the meeting revealed that it was “friendly” and that the two spoke about climate change and the need to do more to protect the planet, the pandemic and the distribution of vaccines, migratory crises and waves of refugees and human rights, including the right to religious freedom.
“During the conversation, they exchanged views on matters related to the current international situation, in the context of imminent G20 summit, in Rome, and the promotion of peace in the world through political negotiations”, reveals the note.
Later, speaking to journalists, Biden revealed that the two did not discuss abortion and that they spoke only “about the fact that he is happy that I am a good Catholic who continues to commune”, which promises to cause controversy in religious institutions in the country. USA.
After the meeting with the Pope, Biden met with the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and the Secretary for Relations with States, Paul Gallagher.
