Steven Waldman

Steven Waldman

Biden’s Rosary

posted by swaldman | 12:41pm Saturday August 23, 2008

For those who don’t have time to read the full Christian Science Monitor piece on Joe Biden’s faith, here are the most salient parts.
He went to high school at a Catholic boys school called Archmere, and goes to mass almost weekly. “I get comfort from carrying my rosary, going to mass every Sunday. It’s my time alone,” he says.
He carries a rosary. When he had brain surgery for an aneurism he asked the doctors if he could keep the rosary under his pillow.
In Junior high he briefly considered entering seminary to be a priest but his mother urged him to wait until after he’d had some experience dating girls. “I told him: ‘Wait until you start dating girls, then go,’ ” said Mrs. Biden
When he faced unspeakable tragedy – his wife and daughter were killed in a car accident – he turned heavily to faith. The Monitor reports:

His spiritual crisis was not so readily resolved. “I never doubted that there was a God, but I was angry with God,” he says. “I was very self-centered: How could God do this to me?”
Friends close to Biden during this time credit his faith for helping pull him through the despair. “In times of crisis, he goes to church a lot,” says Ted Kaufman, a former chief of staff who was with Biden for 22 years.
What also helped break his rift with God was a cartoon his father, Joe Biden Sr., gave him. It showed “Hagar the Horrible” blasted by lightning. The bubble read, “Why me, God” – and the answer: “Why not.” Biden says: “I realized, who am I to think that I’m so special?”

He was as Vatican II Catholic, meaning he was encouraged to question and discuss Church doctrine. “Questioning was not criticized; it was encouraged,” Biden says. He recalled a question in ninth-grade theology class at Archmere:

“How many of you questioned the doctrine of transubstantiation?” the teacher asked, referring to the teaching that the bread and wine change into the body and blood of Christ during the Eucharist. No hands were raised. Finally, Biden raised his. “Well, we have one bright man, at least,” the teacher said.
The teacher didn’t say criticizing the church was good. “He led me to see that if you cannot defend your faith to reason, then you have a problem,” Biden says.

More thoughts soon on how Biden’s Catholicism has affected his views on public policy.



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Comments read comments(6)
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Unequivocal

posted August 23, 2008 at 2:10 pm


Church teaching on this issue is frankly unequivocal so that Mr. Biden’s views and those of others may only cause further scandal to the faithful.
Abortion not only kills babies (mortal sin), it is also anti-religious in the sense that Christianity in inseparable from the Church, and that babies are held to be a part of it, and that those non-contraceptive, non-abortive families are usually much more religious than the ones who practice what has been forbidden.



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Paul, seeking wisdom

posted August 23, 2008 at 5:08 pm


What are you going to say if McCain pick a pro-chose candidate like Joe Lieberman as his running mate, or if he takes on Mitt Romney whom many think belongs to an elitist cult?
Joe Biden is the most pro-life (and his record shows it) of the liberal democrats. Don’t listen to all the hype that the Religious Zealots tell you. Joe believes in quality life for working America and is a good Catholic who has a strong faith. But he is not an egotistical Evangelical who believe that the only sin of man is Homosexuality and abortion.
As a single father for many years, Joe Biden understands the hardships of single parents. As the poorest Senator in office he understands the struggles of every American family and that is something that John of Seven Houses McCain can not grasp. Obama and Biden understand Americans, McCain only understands wealth.



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DG

posted August 23, 2008 at 7:51 pm


The abortion issue is all that matters
The abortion issue is all that matters
The abortion issue is all that matters
The abortion issue is all that matters
The abortion issue is all that matters
The abortion issue is all that matters
The abortion issue is all that matters
The abortion issue is all that matters
The abortion issue is all that matters
The abortion issue is all that matters
The abortion issue is all that matters
The abortion issue is all that matters
The abortion issue is all that matters
God save those of us who are Christians
from those who CLAIM to be
from those who claim to be and cheat on their taxes
from those who claim to be and lie to their employees
from those who claim to be and steal from their parents and/or children
from those who claim to be and abuse their spouses and children
from those who claim to be and hate others because of (whatever)
from those who claim to be and still believe that politicians dont lie
from those who claim to be and are really politicians
from those who claim to be and ….
Bush was the anti-abortion candidate in the last election
… look what it got us!!!



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Rob

posted August 26, 2008 at 2:32 am


Is the only way to stop abortion to criminalize it? Are women currently REQUIRED to have abortions?
I’d agree with Paul, seeking wisdom that abortion is a sin. But a false pride that says “Look at me, I don’t need to respond to the needs of mothers, I voted for an anti-abortion politican, mine is to judge them, theirs to obey my perfect understanding of God’s will,” is also a sin.



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Andy

posted August 27, 2008 at 12:59 pm


As has been said before and probably will be again:
“He was as Vatican II Catholic, meaning he was encouraged to question and discuss Church doctrine. ”

I don’t think Vatican II means what you say it means.



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Gabriel Kevin Gillen, OP

posted August 27, 2008 at 3:32 pm


To Be A Good Catholic Politician One Needs To Become More Pagan
There was a recent comment made by a Catholic politician that he would
shove his rosary down the throat of someone who says he isn’t
religious. Thankfully, I do not run the risk of becoming the first
Catholic to be martyred in this way because I think he is too
religious and needs to become more pagan. Pope Benedict XVI is calling
for a re-Hellenization of reason. Which basically means going back to
a pre-Christian (pagan) way of reasoning. This is to remedy a modern
way of reasoning which is, at times, unreasonable as it attempts even
to go against science based solely on a brute force of will. Less this
seem too abstract let us return to a very concrete example.
There is a lot of talk today (and certainly more to follow) about
whether certain Catholic politicians should receive communion. What
does it take to be considered a good Catholic? Some politicians say
they are “prepared to accept Catholic Church teaching that life begins
at conception” but will not question the beliefs of others who oppose
this view. Does this make them a bad Catholic? “Yes”. They are a bad
Catholic not because they put too little emphasis on faith but too
much. This is what was at the heart of Benedict XVI’s Regensburg
Address; he is basically asking the question:
Is any belief system above the sanctuary of reason?
To accept or enable any secular or religious position that is contrary
to reason is to be unfaithful
because the pagan or the Pope, any Imam, the Supreme Court and even
God is bound by reason.
A good Catholic, like a good pagan, is open to any source of wisdom
but only accepts it for one reason and one reason only, because it is
true. They are also open minded enough to modify their beliefs if
later proven false. Take for example the great pagan Aristotle’s
belief in a geocentric view of the solar system. He reasoned that if
the heliocentric (sun-at-the-center) view were true, then stellar
parallaxes would be observable in the sky. In other words, there would
be a shift in the position of a star observed from the earth on one
side of the sun, and then six months later from the other side. Even
Galileo was unable to refute this objection and it would take science
two hundred years after Galileo’s death to finally prove the parallax
of a star. Aristotle would have rejoiced at this discovery because his
mind was always seeking to conform itself with reality. He sought
only the truth of reason versus conforming the world to his own
beliefs and concept of the universe. He cannot be blamed for having
asked a reasonable question.
But today the reasoning of Aristotle is replaced with the modern
preference for the freedom of the individual to believe anything they
want even if it denies reason and scientific fact because personal
faith is given priority over the truth of reality. The modern mind
thinks it can create its own reality and this is no more baldly and
forcibly defended than in the judgment in the case of Casey vs.
Planned Parenthood:
At the heart of liberty is the right to define ones own concept of
existence, of meaning, of the universe, of the mystery of human life.
[1]
A lunatic is free to scribble, on the walls of his padded cell, an
image of the earth or even himself at the center of the universe but
what does that have to do with reality? Aristotle was no madman,
living almost two thousand years before Galileo; he had a pretty good
excuse for not accepting the reality that the sun was the center of
the solar system. He simply wanted reasonable scientific proof of a
parallax of a star. The Church’s request for this same scientific
proof from Galileo was not completely unreasonable given that it would
take another two hundred years to proof it. But once it was proven the
truth was accepted because it conformed to reality.
Today the so called “Galileo Crisis”[2] has been reversed; the Church
was once accused of denying reason by refusing to look through a
telescope and accept what science had discovered but today it is the
Church who is questioning those who refuse to look through a
microscope and accept what science has firmly established long ago,
that life begins at conception. A good Catholic is a gadfly never
enabling dysfunctional reasoning but asks, “What is your reason for
denying this scientific fact?” and does not accept the answer of a
lunatic who says reality is whatever I choose it to be. Benedict XVI
calls this the dictatorship of relativism:
“Today, a particularly insidious obstacle to the task of education is
the massive presence in our society and culture of that relativism
which, recognizing nothing as definitive, leaves as the ultimate
criterion only the self with its desires. And under the semblance of
freedom it becomes a prison for each one, for it separates people from
one another, locking each person into his or her own ‘ego’”.
A good Catholic attempts to open the doors of this prison by offering
the pagan key of reason. To say Roe vs. Wade “is as close to we’re
going to be able to get as a society to respecting different religious
views on the issue” is to relegate the issue to faith when it can be
clearly answered by reason. Secular or religious issues should never
be placed above the reproach of reasonable questions. A good Catholic
asks questions in a sincere attempt to open the minds of others to the
light of reason and never forces faith down some ones throat.
[1] Casey v. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania, 112 Sup.
Ct. 2791 at 2807. See Robert Barron’s The Priority of Christ: toward a
post-liberal Catholicism. Grand Rapids, Mich., Brazos Press. Barron
gives an excellent summary of how the modern mind finally came to a
Nietzschian perspective of the will to power.
[2] See The Galileo Affair by GEORGE SIM JOHNSTON
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0005.html
- Show quoted text -



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