Telegraph UK.
More, as promised, on Senator Joe Biden (why should Sarah Palin get all the coverage?). Remember, you read it here first: on September 11 this blog reported a mounting backlash from Catholic bishops against Biden, Barack Obama's "Catholic" pro-abortion running mate. At that time I estimated eight bishops had come out to denounce Biden; the total is now 55. Beyond that, Biden is being trashed across every state of the Union by Catholic newspapers, TV and radio stations, and blogs. It is a tsunami of rejection.
Joe Biden has really put his foot in it with the Catholics
The story has now hit the secular media. Last Saturday Time magazine asked: "Does Biden Have a Catholic Problem?" By Wednesday the issue had moved onto the front page of the New York Times. Joe the Jinx has blown it, big time. Biden has only himself to blame: he started this war, with his notoriously undisciplined mouth. He knew the dangers. Last August, Archbishop Raymond Burke, former Archbishop of St Louis and now Prefect of the Apostolic Segnatura in Rome, said communion should be denied to pro-abortion politicians "until they have reformed their lives".
Archbishop Chaput of Denver had already announced Biden should not receive communion because of his pro-abortion views. Defiantly, Biden took communion in his home parish in Delaware in late August. On September 2 the Bishop of Scranton, Pennsylvania (a crucial swing state) banned him from communion in his diocese. That is effective excommunication. Then came the crucial provocation. On NBC's Meet the Press programme on September 7 Biden grossly misrepresented the Catholic Church's teaching on abortion and audaciously cited St Thomas Aquinas in his own cause.
That did it. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had already done the same thing on the same programme, in her instance citing St Augustine. Even the torpid US bishops could not have false doctrine glibly broadcast by public figures, misleading their flock. So the counterattack described here last week began, culminating in a statement from the US Bishops' Conference. The bishops of Kansas City have also issued a pastoral letter on the subject. It is open season on Biden.
There are 47 million Catholic voters in the United States. One quarter of all registered voters are Catholics. At every presidential election in the past 30 years the Catholic vote has gone to the winning candidate, except for Al Gore in 2000. This year 41 per cent of Catholics are independents - up from 30 per cent in 2004. Psephologists claim practising Catholics were the decisive factor in the crucial swing states in 2004: in Ohio 65 per cent of Catholics voted for Bush, in Florida 66 per cent. They were drifting away in disillusionment from the Republicans and split 50-50, until Joe Biden worked his magic. This is electoral suicide by the Democrats.
