October 31, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a campaign video released this week, Vice President Joe Biden claims that President Obama shares his belief in the social teachings of the Catholic Church.
“As a practicing Catholic, like many of you,” Biden says, “I was raised in a household where there was no distinction between the values my mom and dad drilled into us and what I learned from the nuns and priests who educated me. We call it Catholic social doctrine.”
“I’m here to tell you that President Obama shares those values,” Biden states.
He illustrates the point by quoting the president as having said “time and again” that “we are our brother’s (and sister’s) keeper,” in reference to Jesus’ moral imperative that “what you do to the least of these you do to me.”
Biden says that under the Obama administration, the “middle class” have been given “a dignified opportunity to care for themselves and their families” through “affordable care, quality health care for all Americans.”
“And that’s why we’re asking the wealthy to pay more, while pushing to make permanent the middle class tax cut.”
Biden then attacks Mitt Romney, without naming him, as “someone who would leave a million people without access to health care and education.”
Biden concludes with contact information for “Catholics for Obama.”
While Biden frequently describes himself as Catholic, he has been strongly criticized by Catholic bishops for supporting anti-Catholic causes such as abortion and same-sex “marriage.”
During the 2008 campaign, he faced public reprimands from bishops when he claimed on Meet the Press that there is room for disagreement on the abortion issue in the Catholic Church, and that the idea that life begins at conception is a “matter of faith,” not natural law.
In a controversial “Meet the Press” interview earlier this year, Biden endorsed same-sex “marriage,” saying he was “absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And quite frankly, I don’t see much of a distinction – beyond that.”
In his recent debate with Congressman Paul Ryan, Biden touted his Catholic faith, while expressing his support for abortion.
Biden said that while in his “personal life” he accepts the Catholic Church’s teaching that life begins at conception, “I refuse to impose it on equally devout Christians, and Muslims and and Jews…I just refuse to do that, unlike my friend here.”
“I do not believe that we have a right to tell other people, women that they cannot control their body. It’s a decision between them and their doctor in my view, and the Supreme Court,” Biden said.
Ryan observed in turn: “I don’t see how a person can separate their private life from their public life or their faith. Our faith informs us in everything we do. My faith informs me about how to take care of the vulnerable, about how to make sure that people have a chance of life.
“Now, you want to ask about why I’m pro-life. It’s not simply because of my Catholic faith. That’s a factor of course. But it’s also because of reason and science,” said Ryan.
Deal Hudson, who served as director of Catholic Outreach for George W. Bush, recently wrote about a call from a Catholics for Obama campaign canvasser who claimed that Obama does not support abortion.
The canvasser, who described herself as Catholic, was asked by the person she called, “How can you as a Catholic support a president who supports partial birth abortion and did not support the Born Alive Protection Act when he was a state senator in Illinois?”
The Obama supporter, apparently reading from her call script, responded, “President Obama did not support abortion,” and added for good measure, “Planned Parenthood helps children get health care and prenatal care and does not promote abortion.”
“Stunning, isn’t it?” wrote Hudson. “The lies people are willing to tell.”