{"id":85,"date":"2008-08-23T09:53:12","date_gmt":"2008-08-23T09:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/joe-biden-and-the-catholic-cha.html"},"modified":"2008-08-23T09:53:12","modified_gmt":"2008-08-23T09:53:12","slug":"joe-biden-and-the-catholic-cha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/joe-biden-and-the-catholic-cha.html","title":{"rendered":"Joe Biden and the Catholic Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

By choosing the longtime senator insider and foreign policy expert, Joe Biden, as his running mate, Barack Obama got a well-respected congressional insider to help his prospective legislative agenda as well as sharp-spoken (too much, at times–but good for a veep) campaigner and an opponent of Bush’s foreign policy whose own son is set to be deployed to Iraq. That’s a strong combo. <\/p>\n

But with Biden, Obama is also gambling that having a Catholic on the ticket will draw in some of the fence-sitting Catholics whose votes will be key to success in November. Peeling away a few evangelical votes, or hoping for a low turnout by the Christian right, is a prayer. As I wrote here<\/a>, the white, suburban evangelicals who are the bedrock of the GOP election strategy may respect Obama, at best. But he’s not a member of the tribe, despite his thoroughgoing Christian bona fides, and it seems nothing will convince them otherwise. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Biden, however, is a strong bet in that he could–and should–play well with many Catholics. From abortion to his working-class background, he represents a viewpoint and a culture that resonate with the broad middle of Catholic opinion that finds the assertions of authoritative political opinion from right and left in the church highly dubious. <\/p>\n

Consider Biden’s abortion record, as set out here<\/a> and here<\/a>. Biden supports Roe v. Wade but backed a federal ban on late-term abortions and opposes public funding of abortion. His record is mixed, which was enough to earn him a NARAL rating (currently at 60 percent<\/a>) as low as 36 percent in recent years–and NARAL pointedly has not endorsed<\/a> Biden.  <\/p>\n

Moreover, Biden’s compelling personal history–from his hardscrabble upbringing in a Catholic family (he breifly considered becoming a priest, as many Catholic boys of that era did) to the tragedy that claimed his wife and daugther, as well as his own near-death experience–have given him a broad perspective on life and a passionate commitment to fighting injustice. Much of his views, in fact, are grounded in Catholic social justice principles, which Obama seems to share intuitively. But Biden can speak to them much more cogently–and perhaps make up for his penchant for shooting from the lip. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A primary source would be this 2007 Christian Science Monitor profile, “A Frank and Abiding Faith<\/a>,” as well as this Pew biography<\/a> and David Brooks’ column from this week, “Hoping it’s Biden<\/a>.”  <\/p>\n

Will the choice convince any of the knee-jerkers in the McCain camp? Of course not. For too many, ideology and party loyalty trump deliberation and introspection, especially at this point in the campaign. You can already see the silly ads and dumb commentary all over the Web. Will the selection tip the “average voter”? Not so much. A Washington Post poll<\/a> shows that three-quarters of voters said picking Biden would not sway their votes one way or the other. And about as many said they would be more apt to support Obama with Biden on the ticket as said the choice would make them less likely to vote Democratic on Election Day (13 to 10 percent). <\/p>\n

But Biden’s Catholic, working-class roots, especially in a key region like Scranton in a “keystone” state like Pennsylvania could play well not just there, but in other similar regions in other battleground states, as well as with Catholics as a whole–the true swing vote.<\/p>\n

The risky part of Obama’s gamble on Biden is that by picking a Catholic–and it wouldn’t matter who–he risks reigniting the “wafer wars” (an unfortunately commonplace phrase which–this is an update of earlier posting–I’ll refrain from promoting further on advice of good counsel) that divide the faithful even more than they are. Given Biden’s background and record, however, the Wafer Warriors will have to go some ways to dirty up Biden on the faith issue. As the Pew bio has it:<\/p>\n

\n

When the Diocese of Wilmington’s bishop, Michael Saltarelli, came under pressure in 2004 and 2005 to deny communion to Biden and other Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, the bishop refused, saying through a diocesan spokesman that he “prefers prayer and active engagement” with politicians who take positions contrary to church doctrine; Biden refused to comment on the issue. Once again running for president, Biden said in April 2007 that his party must demonstrate it is “not afraid to deal with the faith issue.” <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On the other hand, Saltarelli’s replacement, Bishop W. Francis Malooly<\/a>, takes office on Sept 8, and his approach to Biden is unknown. Would he want to start his own term by courting such controversy? Most bishops–and Malooly is considered a deliberate fellow–would want to get to know one of their flock before making any drastic public moves, and that may be tough given Biden’s coming campaign agenda.<\/p>\n

Still, it’ll be telling to see what blasts come at Biden from the usual Catholic suspects–and whether they will backfire in a way that would earn Obama-Biden more support than the ticket would have otherwise.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By choosing the longtime senator insider and foreign policy expert, Joe Biden, as his running mate, Barack Obama got a well-respected congressional insider to help his prospective legislative agenda as well as sharp-spoken (too much, at times–but good for a veep) campaigner and an opponent of Bush’s foreign policy whose own son is set to be deployed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,12,66,1,13,18,9,3,26],"tags":[67,483,68,5],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-catholics","category-death-penalty-2","category-election-08","category-evangelicals","category-international-relations","category-religion-in-the-public-square","category-u-s-constitution","category-war","tag-biden","tag-catholics","tag-communion","tag-obama"],"yoast_head":"\nJoe Biden and the Catholic Challenge - 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He came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, during a longer-than-expected sojourn in Rome in the 1980s. Gibson began his journalistic career as a walk-on sports editor and columnist at The International Courier, a small daily in Rome serving Italy's English-language community. He then found a job as a newscaster and writer across the Tiber at the English Programme at Vatican Radio, an entity he describes as a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope. The Jesuits who ran the radio were charitable enough to hire Gibson even though he had no radio background, could not pronounce the name \"Karol Wojtyla,\" and wasn't Catholic. Time and experience overcame all those challenges, and Gibson went on to cover dozens of John Paul II's overseas trips, including papal visits to Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States. When Gibson returned to the United States in 1990 he returned to print journalism to cover the religion beat in his native New Jersey for two dailies. He worked first for The Record of Hackensack, and then for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, winning the nation's top awards in religion writing at both places. In 1999 he won the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, and in 2000 he was chosen as the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year. Gibson is a longtime board member of the Religion Newswriters Association and he is a contributor to ReligionLink, a service of the Religion Newswriters Foundation. Since 2003, David Gibson has been an independent writer specializing in Catholicism, religion in contemporary America, and early Christian history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Boston Magazine, Commonweal, America, The New York Observer, Beliefnet and Religion News Service. He has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN and other networks and has traveled on assignment to dozens of countries, with an emphasis on reporting from Europe and the Middle East. He is a frequent television commentator and has appeared on the major cable and broadcast networks. He is also a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Catholicism, religion in America, and journalism. Gibson's first book, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco), was published in 2003 and deals with the church-wide crisis revealed by the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The book was widely hailed as a \"powerful\" and \"first-rate\" treatment of the crisis from \"an academically informed journalist of the highest caliber.\" His second book, The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World (HarperSanFrancisco), came out in 2006 and is the first full-scale treatment of the Ratzinger papacy--how it happened, who he is, and what it means for the Catholic Church. The Rule of Benedict has been praised as \"an exceptionally interesting and illuminating book\" from \"a master storyeller.\" Born and raised in New Jersey, David Gibson studied European history at Furman University in South Carolina and spent a year working on Capitol Hill before moving to Italy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter and is working on a book about conversion, and on several film and television projects.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/dgibson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}