Catholic League Skeptical of ‘Pathological Liar’ Joe Biden’s Account of Meeting with Pope Francis
ROME — Catholic League President Bill Donohue said Friday he maintains a “healthy skepticism” about President Joe Biden’s unconfirmed claim that Pope Francis called him a “good Catholic” and encouraged him to “keep receiving Communion.”
Biden met with Pope Francis in the Vatican for approximately 75 minutes Friday morning, after which he was asked by reporters if the issue of abortion had arisen during their meeting.
“No, it didn’t,” Biden said. “It came up — we just talked about the fact that he was happy I was a good Catholic and I should keep receiving Communion.”
From what we “know about the Vatican’s handling of the meeting and Biden’s long record of lying about many important matters, we are maintaining a healthy skepticism about the president’s rendition,” Dr. Donohue states.
Pulling no punches, Donohue writes that “Biden is a pathological liar,” which makes his account of the meeting dubious at best.
The president’s promiscuous relationship with the truth goes back over 50 years, Donohue observes, and involves repeated episodes of plagiarism, reversal of facts, misremembering, and arrant tale-telling, all of which have been confirmed by left-wing outlets like Slate and the Washington Post, which are firmly in Biden’s corner.
In 1987, for instance, Slate recounted that Biden had not only plagiarized a speech by British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock, but had appropriated personal biographical facts from Kinnock’s life as if they were his own.
Biden “plagiarized from speeches given by Robert Kennedy, John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey,” Donohue notes, and “confessed to receiving an ‘F’ in a law school course because he plagiarized five pages from a published article.”
The Washington Post documented a series of lies Biden told about his academic credentials, including claims he had graduated with “three degrees” from the University of Delaware. (He received one.) He also stated that he graduated at the top of his class at Syracuse Law School. (He was 76th in a class of 85.)
More recently, the Post also published a list of 78 false or misleading statements Biden had made in his first 100 days in office.
It is for these reasons, Donohue said, “that we are skeptical of Biden’s account of what the pope said to him at their meeting.”
ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Images
For its part, the Vatican has declined to comment on Biden’s rendition of what transpired between him and the pope. Asked if the pope had said Biden should keep receiving Holy Communion, Matteo Bruni, the director of the Holy See press office, said, “I would consider it a private conversation, and it is limited to what was said in the public statement,” which made no mention of such a comment.
US President Joe Biden, left, talks with Pope Francis as they meet at the Vatican, Friday, Oct. 29, 2021 (Vatican Media via AP).
Vatican Mute When Asked if Pope Francis told Biden to Continue Receiving Communion
ROME — The Vatican declined to comment Friday about U.S. President Joe Biden’s claim that Pope Francis had encouraged him to keep receiving Holy Communion at Mass.
Biden met with Pope Francis in the Vatican for approximately 75 minutes Friday morning, after which reporters asked him if the topic of abortion had come up during their meeting.
“No, it didn’t,” Biden said. “It came up — we just talked about the fact that he was happy I was a good Catholic and I should keep receiving Communion.”
A number of U.S. bishops have urged Biden to stop referring to himself as a “devout Catholic” because of his vocal stand against core Church teachings on abortion, same-sex marriage, transgenderism, and religious freedom. Some prelates have said publicly that the president should voluntarily cease receiving Holy Communion.
Democratic presidential candidate and former US Vice President Joe Biden visits Grace Lutheran Church in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on September 3, 2020 (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images).
Asked if the pope had indeed said Biden was a good Catholic and that he should continue receiving Holy Communion, Matteo Bruni, the director of the Holy See press office, said, “I would consider it a private conversation, and it is limited to what was said in the public statement.”
The public Vatican communiqué said the two leaders spoke about climate change, the coronavirus pandemic, immigration, and human rights, including religious freedom.
Breaking the usual protocol for meetings between the pope and a head of state, the Vatican did not allow media to be present for the Biden-Francis meeting, and no video live stream was provided. It is unclear whether the decision to shut out media came from the Vatican or the White House.
Catholic League President Bill Donohue said he is maintaining a healthy skepticism regarding Biden’s account of his meeting with the pope, both because it makes little sense and because Biden is a “pathological liar.”
Biden is only the second Catholic to become president, and U.S. bishops have repeatedly admonished him for his reinstatement of taxpayer-funded abortion domestically and abroad.
A January 20 statement by the president of the U.S. Bishops’ Conference (USCCB), Archbishop José Gomez, lamented that “our new President has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender.”
“Of deep concern is the liberty of the Church and the freedom of believers to live according to their consciences,” the statement said.
Pope Francis has repeatedly condemned abortion as a heinous crime, calling it “murder” and comparing killing the unborn to “hiring a hitman” to take out an enemy.
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