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WASHINGTON, D.C., December 19, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Joe Biden described himself and his wife as the Obama administration’s “house Catholics” when he discussed Pope Francis on TV.

During the Bidens’ appearance on the Late Show with comedian Stephen Colbert this week, the Democrat presidential candidate said that this is why he and his wife had been asked to accompany Pope Francis during his September 2015 trip to the United States.

“The pope has been incredibly generous to my family,” the former U.S. vice president said.

“When he came to visit, we were the house Catholics, and we were the ones showing the pope around.”

The Bidens’ 46-year-old son Beau had died of brain cancer, four months earlier, and Biden told Colbert that Pope Francis had asked to meet the Biden family at the hanger of the airport.

“We had 16 family members there, and he didn’t just speak about Beau, he spoke in detail about Beau, about who he was, and about family values, and about forgiveness, and about decency,” Biden said.

According to ABC news, Biden thanked Pope Francis in a 2016 speech at the Vatican for “counseling his family” about Beau’s death during his six day visit to the U.S.

“I wish every grieving parent, brother, sister, mother, father would have the benefit of his words, his prayer, his presence,” Biden said.

“He provided us with more comfort than even he, I think, will ever understand.”

Biden, who has long been an ally of the pro-abortion cause, said that he was “a great admirer of His Holiness.” He also told Colbert that he had just had a phone call from “His Eminence,” Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the Archbishop of Washington, D.C., who had recently returned from the Vatican with a book for the Democrat leader, signed by Pope Francis.

The first “wedding” Biden officiated as vice president was between two men, and he campaigned in 2020 on a platform of forcing taxpayers to fund abortion on demand throughout pregnancy. Although the election remains contested as litigation about mail-in votes and fraudulent ballots continues in some swing states, liberal American media have begun to refer to Biden as “president-elect.”

Colbert began the segment by reflecting that in his own youth, American Catholics had an “icon” of President John F. Kennedy and of Senator Robert F. Kennedy on their walls, but that “more hasn’t been made” of Biden’s Catholicism. Reflecting that John F. Kennedy had had to “allay” Americans’ fears that he would take orders from the pope, the talk show host jokingly asked Biden how Pope Francis was going to tell him how to govern.

The joke apparently went over Biden’s head, for instead of responding directly, he volunteered that Pope Francis had “personally called” to congratulate him. As this happened in November, it would seem that there has not been a follow-up call.

In June 2019, The Hill reported that Biden had abandoned his support of the Hyde Amendment. The Hyde Amendment bans most federal funding of abortion. Biden supported the Amendment for decades, but changed his mind a day after restating his fidelity to the measure when pro-abortion Democrats objected. The Planned Parenthood CEO of the time, Dr. Leana Wen, and Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, praised Biden for his about-face. Hogue stated that “support for abortion rights” was a “core” Democratic Party value.  

But the question of whether or not Biden is a Catholic in good standing has been an issue since the 1980s, when he and other Catholic Democrats gave up their inconvenient pro-life stance to appease the abortion lobby. In 2008, Scranton’s Bishop Joseph F. Martino stated that Joe Biden should not present himself for Holy Communion in his diocese. Biden’s own bishop of the time, Bishop Michael Saltarelli of Wilmington, asked pro-abortion Catholic politicians not to present themselves for the sacrament but did not enforce the request. Saltarelli did, however, veto a decision by Biden’s Catholic alma mater to name a student center after him.

In 2004, then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who has since been laicized following revelations that he was a sexual predator, concealed that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had decreed that “obstinately” pro-abortion Catholic politicians should not be given Holy Communion.

But despite the decree, Catholic bishops in the United States are still divided on the question of whether or not the high-profile Biden may receive the sacrament. Recently Cardinal Leo Burke,  Archbishop Charles L. Chaput, and Bishop Samuel J. Aquila of Denver have all indicated that the former Vice-President must not receive Holy Communion. However, the recently promoted Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Wilton Gregory has indicated that he will not bar Biden from the sacrament, noting that Biden received the sacrament in Washington, D.C. as vice president.

Biden was vice president of the U.S. from January 2009 until January 2017, during the tenure of McCarrick protégé Cardinal Donal Wuerl.

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