{"id":2955,"date":"2008-08-25T12:36:00","date_gmt":"2008-08-25T12:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/08\/biden-his-time-at-mass-on-sunday.html"},"modified":"2008-08-25T12:36:00","modified_gmt":"2008-08-25T12:36:00","slug":"biden-his-time-at-mass-on-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/08\/biden-his-time-at-mass-on-sunday.html","title":{"rendered":"Biden his time at mass on Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over at MSNBC, they have the only comprehensive account<\/a> I’ve read so far about how Joe Biden spent the morning after his selection to be Barack Obama’s running mate. <\/p>\n

He went to mass: <\/p>\n

One day after debuting as Barack Obama’s vice presidential pick, Joe Biden plans to spend a quiet day at home, with his only public appearance likely being this morning’s trip to his nearby parish for Sunday mass.<\/p>\n

Monsignor Joseph Rebman said he was pleased to see a member of his flock on the ticket, but said that Biden \u201ccan’t guarantee the Catholic vote\u201d for the Democrats.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don’t vote as a block anymore,\u201d he said, speaking to NBC News at St. Joseph of the Brandywine church, where Biden attended mass. \u201cAnd as you know, the senator has some positions that don’t go along with the Catholic Church.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebman said he understood Biden to be personally opposed to abortion, but that he \u201cdoesn’t want to impose\u201d his views on others and often has voted with abortion rights supporters. He added that some of the other parish priests and the bishop of the diocese have spoken with him about his pro-choice votes, but that they have never refused him Communion, as some other dioceses have done.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bishop’s conference has left it to the individual bishops to decide how they want to handle it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At the small church, Biden and his family sat in the second-to-last pew, with Secret Service agents behind him. Rebman joked that all of the media outside of the church was for a guest speaker for the service, Joseph Sundaram, who was visiting as part of a missionary cooperative from his diocese in South India.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s kind of appropriate that the Almighty God placed him here today because Sen. Biden is here,\u201d Rebman said. \u201cAs you know he has just received a new appointment — and how could we not know about that. The senator has received this appointment, as we understand, because of his expertise in foreign affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

After he said that, Biden’s eyes widened, and he made the sign of the cross.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s nice that he gets a little educating this morning about some of the needs of our church and the community as well in south India,\u201d Rebman continued.<\/p>\n

The pastor later joked about the confluence of distinguished \u201cJosephs,\u201d himself, Sundaram, Biden and St. Joseph. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe won’t forget this day for a long time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Biden was also noted during the prayers of the faithful, as the congregation prayed \u201cthat he may find increased wisdom and strength as he becomes more involved in the presidential campaign as candidate for vice president.\u201d<\/p>\n

After exiting the church, Biden shook hands with many of his fellow parishioners, and could be seen apologizing for the disturbance he was causing. Parishioner Becky Hardy said that Biden was a fairly regular presence at services here, and actually serves as an usher often when he attends. But she was surprised to see him there today.<\/p>\n

Rebman said Biden also occasionally attends services at St. Patrick’s Church in downtown Wilmington, usually because there are Sunday evening masses there, and Biden is often called on to appear on Sunday morning talk shows. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over at MSNBC, they have the only comprehensive account I’ve read so far about how Joe Biden spent the morning after his selection to be Barack Obama’s running mate. He went to mass: One day after debuting as Barack Obama’s vice presidential pick, Joe Biden plans to spend a quiet day at home, with his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-r-us","category-politics-and-politicians"],"yoast_head":"\nBiden his time at mass on Sunday - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/08\/biden-his-time-at-mass-on-sunday.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Biden his time at mass on Sunday - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over at MSNBC, they have the only comprehensive account I’ve read so far about how Joe Biden spent the morning after his selection to be Barack Obama’s running mate. He went to mass: One day after debuting as Barack Obama’s vice presidential pick, Joe Biden plans to spend a quiet day at home, with his…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/08\/biden-his-time-at-mass-on-sunday.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-08-25T12:36:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Deacon Greg Kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Biden his time at mass on Sunday - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/08\/biden-his-time-at-mass-on-sunday.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Biden his time at mass on Sunday - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"Over at MSNBC, they have the only comprehensive account I’ve read so far about how Joe Biden spent the morning after his selection to be Barack Obama’s running mate. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}