Biden's False Catholicism
The head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has publicly reminded the new President Biden that policies he’s pledged to “in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, gender ‘would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity.’”
Of course this was too much for Chicago’s Cardinal Blase Cupich, who angrily complained that the USCCB dared to issue this “ill-considered statement on the day of President Biden’s inauguration.” The cardinal has been a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party, and no doubt thinks that attention on Biden’s lapsed moral positions should be off limits no matter what day it is. On the excuse that the statement hadn’t first been vetted in committee (where it would certainly have been quashed), the Cupich holds the conference guilty of "internal institutional failures." But his real objection to releasing the statement was "that there is seemingly no precedent for doing so, the statement, critical of President Biden, came as a surprise to many bishops, who received it just hours before it was released. '
If the USCCB’s statement is both unprecedented and critical, it might be because Biden is only the second Catholic elected president, and his Catholic predecessor, even giving full demerits for JFK’s midnight skinny-dipping with Fiddle and Faddle, was not making frequent, public, and cranky assurances to voters that, once elected, he intended to pursue the most hostile anti-Catholic agenda in American history. Just as Biden dared black voters not to support him at the risk of their racial identity, Biden dared Catholic voters not to elect him despite his obvious qualifications of personal religiosity and chumminess with the Pope. At the same time his campaign was protecting Biden from chancing specifics about his policy positions, there was a steady stream of video shots of Biden wryly crossing himself, and irreligious news outlets publishing smarmy profiles taking reverent note of the ever-present rosary in Biden’s pocket and his weekly attendance at Mass. At the first White House briefing on the evening of the inauguration, press secretary Jen Psaki batted away a legitimate question about Biden’s promise to restore federal funding for abortion with, “’I will take the opportunity to remind all of you that he is a devout Catholic.’”
But that’s the point: has anyone taken the opportunity to remind Joe Biden about being a devout Catholic? Archbishop Gomez’s statement may have been his attempt to do that.
The archbishop’s full statement, in fact, is still the mildest of reminders, watered down as it is with lots of inoffensive blarney. For instance, it begins with a suitably polite assurance of prayers for “wisdom and courage” for the new president, and an avowal that the Church remains nonpartisan. Then follows an unfounded reference to “Mr. Biden’s piety,” irksome to observant Catholics because it’s the impiety of Biden’s dedication to things, like enshrining child murder in law, that made an unprecedented statement necessary. Archbishop Gomez’s declaration concerning Biden’s promised agenda on abortion and gender is commendably unequivocal in itself, but should have been backed up with a demand, respectful but resolute, that obedience to the faith requires him to abandon those policies.
And why not make the demand? It’s not unusual that interested institutions make demands on officeholders, especially when they entail fundamental principles. Black Lives Matter, whose standing is premised on nothing but thoroughly disproven lies, was making demands on Biden as soon as the election was over. On the other hand, Catholics (like Joe Biden) profess to believe that what the Church teaches was revealed by God Himself. Why wouldn’t the Church demand Biden’s public adherence to the faith he’s spent a lifetime publicly exploiting?
In the end there’s no use hoping for “dialogue” with the likes of Catholics like Biden and the arch-hypocrite, Nancy Pelosi. They’re past dialogue. For years Pelosi’s contempt for Catholic teaching on abortion has earned her personal warnings by the shepherds of the Church, including her own archbishop and the Pope himself. Her response was insolence: She knows “’more about having babies than the pope,’” and pro-life Catholics are “dumb” and “selling out democracy.” Biden’s arrogation of the celestial station of healer of the nation’s soul is borderline sacrilege. Only a person whose own soul is in shambles could, without a particle of self-awareness, gush over the nuns who taught him his religion as a child, “those lovely women,” and at the same time vow to wage unconditional war on the Little Sisters of the Poor.
The mildness of Archbishop Gomez’s statement may be explained by the reluctance of today’s bishops to sound dogmatic. The archbishop may not have noticed how the Left has just recently learned how to proclaim their own most cherished and most destructive positions -- on climate change, on transgenderism, on white supremacy -- as unquestionable, absolute truths, after eons denying that absolute truths even exist. The dogmatic approach empowers them to enforce acceptance of the received truths by punishing heretics who refuse to profess them and declaring anathema any belief that contradicts them.
Except the Left is dogmatic and wrong, while the Church is dogmatic and right. And nothing less than the truth -- stated unequivocally, dogmatically -- will be strong enough to purify an atmosphere so toxic with lies as the one Biden and Pelosi have been inhaling and exhaling most of their lives. It’s too late for dialogue. More important, for Biden and Pelosi, who are both visibly declining on the outside and the inside, it could soon be too late for repentance. For the sake of their souls, they deserve better from the Church than wishes for dialogue. We all do.
T.R. Clancy looks at the world from Dearborn, Michigan. You can email him at trclancy@yahoo.com.
200 House Republicans Press Congressional Leaders to Protect Hyde Amendment Blocking Tax Dollars for Abortions
An astounding 200 House Republicans have signed onto a letter from Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) to congressional leaders asking them to protect the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal tax dollars from being used to conduct abortions.
The Republican House members wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:
We write to express our unified opposition to Congressional Democrats’ efforts to repeal the Hyde Amendment and other current-law, pro-life appropriations provisions. As part of their pro-abortion crusade, Democrats have taken direct aim at these long-standing bipartisan protections that generally prevent the federal government from using taxpayer dollars to support abortion procedures. Repealing these pro-life provisions would destroy nearly half a century of bipartisan consensus. Each year since 1976, Congress has included Hyde protections in annually enacted appropriations. No president in American history has ever vetoed an appropriations bill due to its inclusion of the Hyde Amendment. Moreover, President Obama maintained the Hyde Amendment in each of his budget proposals. As recent as June 2019, former Vice President Joe Biden supported the Hyde Amendment and acknowledged that it works harmoniously with federal funding for women’s healthcare.
The letter continues by noting that the public, based on polling, is on the side of the Republicans on this matter and that the Hyde Amendment since its inception in the mid-1970s has protected millions of lives from abortions funded by taxpayers. The letter continues:
Years of public polling indicates that repealing the Hyde Amendment is opposed by most of the American public. Congressional Democrats now seek to further erode public trust in government by ignoring mainstream public opinion in favor of placating the radical Left. The Hyde Amendment alone has saved the lives of over 2 million innocent babies and continues to protect the conscience rights of a vast majority of Americans opposed to publicly funded abortions. We cannot allow the Hyde Amendment and other important pro-life safeguards to be decimated by Congressional Democrats. Accordingly, we pledge to vote against any government funding bill that eliminates or weakens the Hyde Amendment or other current-law, pro-life appropriations provisions.
Banks is the chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), the largest group of House conservatives inside the GOP conference. This is his first major initiative as RSC chairman, a position so influential it is considered informally to be a member of the GOP leadership team, and the fact he accumulated so many signatures—several of which came from members outside the RSC—is a sign of how aggressive Republicans will be on this fight. Banks told Breitbart News exclusively regarding this effort to protect the Hyde Amendment that the strong showing of support—nearly the entire GOP conference, 200 total House members—on this letter is a sign that the Hyde Amendment won’t go down without a fight.
“This letter sends a strong signal to congressional leadership—conservatives won’t be backing down,” Banks told Breitbart News. “We will unite against attacks by the radical left to transform America, and that includes forcing pro-life Americans to pay for abortions.”
What’s more, while McCarthy himself is not one of the signers of the letter, since it is addressed to him and other leaders, his office confirmed to Breitbart News he is supportive of the message contained within it and has made that point clear in recent weeks.
The mere fact that this many Republicans have signed onto this letter demonstrates how unified Republicans are against eliminating Hyde Amendment protections. There are 211 House Republicans in total, and with McCarthy, who is also supportive on this, that means only 10 Republicans did not sign the letter.
But it also means that the Democrats’ push, led by House Appropriations Committee chairwoman Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), to repeal the Hyde Amendment will not be easy.
DeLauro has been pushing to remove the Hyde Amendment from government funding bills during Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration, holding a hearing on it in December at which she attacked the Hyde Amendment using arguments pushed by radical leftists like those at Planned Parenthood.
At that December hearing, according to an NBC News report later in the month, DeLauro pledged that “this is the last year” the Hyde Amendment will be in federal law.
“The time has come in this current moment to reckon with the norm, with the status quo,” DeLauro said.
“The Hyde Amendment is a discriminatory policy,” DeLauro added.
But Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), then the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said there would be strong Republican opposition to DeLauro’s push.
“The Republican caucus would resist it,” Shelby said, according to NBC News. “We’ve had the Hyde Amendment a long time. And I think it’s pretty clearly embedded in the fabric of our legislation. I support the Hyde Amendment.”
Clearly, Republican opposition has solidified as nearly every GOP member of the House has signed onto this letter from Banks. So it remains unclear if Democrats like DeLauro will continue their push against the Hyde Amendment, and if she and others do continue it, then it remains unclear what Democrat leaders like Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, and President Biden will do in the face of serious and unified Republican opposition.
President Biden, during his campaign for the Democrat primary in 2019, flip-flopped against the Hyde Amendment after decades of supporting it. But when White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about his thoughts on it and the Mexico City policy, which bars federal tax dollars funding international abortions, Psaki side-stepped the question and did not give a clear answer.
“Well, I think we’ll have more to say on the Mexico City Policy in the coming days,“ Psaki said. “But I will just take the opportunity to remind all of you that he is a devout Catholic, and somebody who attends church regularly.”
Planned Parenthood Prepares for Payday Under Biden
Abortion provider lost $60 million in taxpayer funding in 2019
Planned Parenthood stands to recover tens of millions of dollars in federal funding as the Biden administration moves to reverse Trump policies that cut off its access to taxpayer dollars.
The organization lost $60 million in 2019 alone after withdrawing from the Title X Family Planning Program, which uses taxpayer funds for contraceptive services to low-income individuals. When the Trump administration changed the policy to exclude any organization that participates in abortion, Planned Parenthood withdrew from the program.
Despite the revenue drop and the subsequent financial struggles of local affiliates, Planned Parenthood spent more than $27.4 million through a main super PAC during the 2020 election cycle. Alexis McGill Johnson, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said the nation's top abortion provider is eager for its "partnership" with the new administration.
"In partnership with the Biden-Harris administration and the pro-reproductive health care majority in Congress, Planned Parenthood Action Fund will work to not only reverse the attacks of the past four years, but boldly expand sexual and reproductive health care and rights for all people in the U.S. and across the globe," Johnson said.
The organization lists the administration's priorities as moving to institute taxpayer funding for abortions in the United States and abroad and reversing the funding restrictions the Trump administration instituted on the Family Planning Program. It also said that it recommended almost 200 staffers for key positions in the administration.
Planned Parenthood is likely to find a receptive audience in the Biden administration. President Biden has not only pledged to restore taxpayer funding to the organization and repeal restrictions on taxpayer funding of abortion but has also stocked his administration with Planned Parenthood allies and politicians who have cashed its checks.
Andrea Palm, deputy secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, came under fire during her time in the Wisconsin Department of Health Services for hiring a former Planned Parenthood lobbyist to help shape state health policy. Soon-to-be-confirmed treasury secretary Janet Yellen was also a member of both NARAL and Planned Parenthood. Jen O'Malley Dillon, Biden's deputy chief of staff, cofounded a marketing company that worked with Planned Parenthood as one of its clients.
Former elected officials also enjoyed the organization's financial support. Incoming secretary of the interior Deb Haaland received $5,000 during her first and only run for Congress, and Department of Health and Human Services pick Xavier Becerra received more than $5,500 over the course of his time in Congress and as California attorney general. Becerra's track record in Congress suggests that he will roll back the Trump administration's protections for religious conscience.
After receiving around $300,000 from Planned Parenthood during his time in the Senate and repeatedly defending federal funding for the group, John Kerry has taken a top position as climate-change adviser to Biden. Marty Walsh, Biden's pick for labor secretary, was a major ally for the organization while mayor of Boston and received hundreds of dollars in donations for his second mayoral run. He led a rally in 2017 in Boston to protest Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, calling those attempts "reckless." He also said that Boston should lead a movement to continue to provide abortions if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
Newly confirmed transportation secretary and former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg also received more than $11,000 in financial support from the organization during his 2020 run and did a "fireside chat" to address the organization's priorities. Incoming energy secretary Jennifer Granholm criticized Republicans for being obsessed with Planned Parenthood and defended federal funding for the organization.
The Biden administration did not respond to a request for comment. The White House put out a statement Friday commemorating the 48th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and pledged the administration's commitment to codifying abortion rights into law.
Pro-life activists lamented the White House's commitment to pushing for expanded access to abortion. "Abortion isn't health care. It is heartbreaking but not surprising that on the day we commemorate the loss of 60+ million Americans to abortion the new administration is already aggressively leaning into abortion extremism," said March for Life president Jeanne Mancini. "Doing so brings more divisiveness at a time when our country needs unity and healing."
"Joe Biden marks the anniversary of Roe v. Wade by saying he is ‘deeply committed' to the intentional destruction of innocent life through the heinous practice of abortion," CatholicVote said. "This represents a major rupture with the Church, only days after his press secretary described Joe Biden as ‘devout.'"
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