On the matter of faith, President Joe Biden is not shy.
Each weekend that he is in town, he goes to Mass in Washington. A motorcade takes him on Saturday evenings or Sunday mornings to Holy Trinity, the church where President Kennedy, the only other Catholic US president, used to attend services. He makes the sign of the cross at public events, and his Catholicism is woven into his speeches and policies.
Yet Biden’s stance on abortion, and his support for reproductive rights, clash with church teachings. He has seemed to be personally troubled by the idea of abortion. Years ago he wondered aloud whether Roe v Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that affirmed the right in US law, went “too far”. But today he supports a woman’s right to choose whether or not to have a child, one of the core tenets of progressive politics.
Liberal Catholics applaud Biden for his position on abortion while conservative ones denounce him.
