President Joe Biden asserted Tuesday that no “mainstream” religion claims to know when human life begins, contradicting his Catholic faith.
Biden made the statement while addressing a leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion signaling that justices will overturn Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide in 1973.
“Roe says what all basic mainstream religions have historically concluded, that the existence of a human life and being is a question,” Biden told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. “Is it at the moment of conception? Is it six months? Is it six weeks? Is it quickening, like Aquinas argued?”
According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the Catholic Church’s pro-life position has remained consistent from the beginning. St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century drew from Aristotle, including his theory that the rational human soul is not present at the start of pregnancy, the USCCB says. But, at the same time, the saint rejected abortion as gravely wrong at every stage, calling it a sin “against nature” to reject God’s gift of life.
“Quickening” refers to the stage when a woman is first able to notice her baby moving in the womb.
Late Monday night, Politico published a 98-page draft majority opinion written by conservative Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. in the closely watched Mississippi abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The document states, “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
Biden, an earlier statement issued on Tuesday, outlined his plans to protect abortion.
“If the Court does overturn Roe, it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose,” the president said. “And it will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November.”
“At the federal level,” he added, “we will need more pro-choice Senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law.”
Full story at Catholic World Report.
Excommunicate this bad Catholic already!
Too late. Bidden’s mind is gone. He cannot string two coherent sentences together, even with a teleprompter.
I said, “too late”, but I found my holy card sent to me by “The American Life League” with the prayer for his conversion and said it. I do not want to be a female version of Jonah the Prophet if he does convert because of my dislike for him.
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus make our hearts like unto thine own.
I’d be easy on him — his Supreme Court nominee also doesn’t know what a woman is!
Collectively, this group has a pretty low IQ.
In fact it is biology that says life begins at conception.
This is a potentially watershed moment for our heretofore feckless bishops– to reject Biden’s position as anti-Catholic and to offer him an opportunity to repent or face excommunication. But as it seems Pope Francis has already characterized Biden as a good Catholic, one can be certain nothing will be done outside of some hand-wringing and whining…. or…or… is it possible am I wrong?
Incandescent with rage doesn’t begin to describe my state of mind! I just sent an email to Biden’s pastor, Msgr. John P. Hopkins at St. Joseph on the Brandywine Church in Greenville, Delaware. I wanted him to know that his favorite parishioner is bringing scandal to our Church by receiving the Holy Eucharist, and that he, Msgr. Hopkins, is contemptible in doing so.
Thank you for contacting his “pastor” in Delaware. You might also consider contacting Rev. C. Kevin Gillespie, S.J., pastor of Holy Trinity Church in DC, where Mr. Biden receives Holy Communion on most Sundays. Fr. Gillespie is at kgillespie@trinity.org or 202-903-2800. I’ve contacted him. However, don’t hold your breath waiting for a response. Pray for shepherds who let their sheep wander far from the fold and are afraid to even say anything. We need shepherds like (King) David.
Bravo, “Silent Observer” and “Wolves in Shepherds’ Clothing!”
The very gay Jesuits don’t care
Thank you! I’m on it.
He’s a Jesuit. What do you expect? Fr. Gillespie isn’t afraid to speak. He just agrees with Applesauce Brains about abortion and gay marriage.
When Mr. Biden touts his Catholic theological expertise to advance abortion, it’s despicable and scandalous. See below to hear from our president himself (as he states “abort a child”). That he continues to present himself for, and receives, Holy Communion, the Body and Blood of our Lord, is bizarre and outrageous. Please continue to pray for our president, other political leaders and our bishops.
And, the president misrepresents “all” “mainstream religions,” when he claims they hold his opinion. Many believers in various religious traditions believe that life begins at conception, as do some agnostics and atheists.
In his own words:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi-czl7ovmA
Lord, have mercy!
I don’t care anymore. The bishops don’t care. Why the %$#@* should I?
Like him or not, Biden is representative of many very lost sheep. If he’s good enough for Jesus to want to bring back in the fold, then I know I must pray for his and others’ return, as well.
You can waste your time praying for this satanic crew of unrepentant apostates, I wont…
It looks more and more like the bishops can’t tie their own shoes.
My friend, you should care because babies are being killed and their mothers are being violently violated. That some bishops seem to not care and are bad bishops is on them, not you or me. Each of us will stand before the judgment seat of Christ and will be judged on how we treated (or failed to treat) the least among us. See what our Lord says in Matthew 25. A Doctor and Father of the Church, St. John Chrysostom, preached that the floor of hell will be carpeted with the skulls of bishops and priests. Our faith must be in Jesus, the Head of His Body, the Church. Please do not lose hope.
You should care, so should i,so should all who believe in Christ.
This shows clearly why Catholics can’t be Democrats. Anyone who tries will end up being an apostate. Whether it’s abortion or gay ideology or now the movement to suppress free speech and individual human rights, Democrats always run afoul of Catholic truth and faith because they value being a Democrat more than they value being Catholic.
Your proposal is rank heresy. The definition of apostate as we find it in the Catechism bears no resemblance to Catholics who belong to the Democratic Party or to its candidates: “apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith”. The Christian faith is largely proclaimed via the Sacred Creeds. None of which pertains to Democrats, to those who might support a Constitutional right to abortion, or the civil rights of gay people. To be pro choice doesn’t make one an apostate.
If no less a Doctor of the Church as Thomas Aquinas believes that human life doesn’t exist until around day 40, I think Biden is in good company. Certainly the doctrine that human life begins at conception isn’t something that has been universally held since the time of the apostles, and is therefore not something that someone can be excommunicated over.
Knowledge of biology has increased significantly since the 13th century, wouldn’t you agree?
Aquinas based his opinion on “quickening,” as understood by the science of his day.
Someday people will look back on the “science” of today, like an unlimited number of genders or that children fare just as well without a mother or father, and wonder what we were thinking.
Virtually every generation has an arrogance that they’re smarter, even wiser, than their predecessors. (Of course, our technological knowledge is currently the best, but that’s about it.)
Of course, there are some exceptions among some Jews, some Christians and some in some other religious who view their ancestors as wiser.
If the Angelic Doctor lived (here on earth) today, he would not hold the same opinion. He would even believe in things like human flight and the internet. Good science advances our knowledge.
And, the Apostles did not oppose nuclear war. They couldn’t conceive of it.
Abortion would have been well known to both Jesus and Thomas Aquinas. Yet neither of them thought that a fetus before 40 days was a human being.
Meanwhile, sience tells us nothing about the soul, so I’m not sure how that enters the conversation.
FYI – The Didache (literally “Teaching”, also known as The Lord’s Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations) is from the Apostolic Fathers and is believed to have been written late first century, about the time New Testament was completed. It was put together by those taught by the Apostles themselves and clearly prohibits abortion. Additionally, look at the Jewish punishment for killing a child before birth, “If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life…” (Exodus 21:22-23)
In the 16th century, some claimed that Native American peoples did not have souls. Responding to the continuing debate on Indian humanity, Pope Julius II declared that Indians are descended from Adam and Eve. The Fifth Lateran Council, which the pope assembles in Rome, declared that Indians have souls. I’m virtually certain you would not be okay with exterminating Native peoples because there was debate about whether or not they had souls. Would you? That, as you note, is not a matter of biology.
Jesus, in His humanity, was not a 21st century embryologist. There are numerous issues that they did not teach about, but which violate Christian principles and principles of natural law (IVF, internet fraud, gender fluidity, nuclear war, et al).
The issue is not ensoulment, theology or religion. It’s about human life and human rights.
The people of the didache only know of abortion when they knew there was a pregnancy, which they had no technology to see if there was a pregnancy until about 40 days in. It might be wrong to abort even at conception, but please don’t use ancient sources or science to back you up, because neither of them speak to abortions from the moment of conception, and ancient sources debated when human life began to be present during a pregnancy.
https://www.lifenews.com/2019/07/11/survey-asked-5577-biologists-when-human-life-begins-96-said-conception/?fbclid=IwAR3ESHkPVHVl0_6dVv1F5xrqbiaGeZY0vBMzpnXtnXU4jjjkFZvH0UBJR8U
This is what a devout Catholic says
FATHER TADEUSZ PACHOLCZYK, PH.D wrote a very challenging article a few years back on the issue of when human ensoulment begins: https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/science/ethical-issues/do-embryos-have-souls.html
What a beautiful website, what wonder articles. I will have to explore it further later. Thank you for posting this treasure.
The De’il is afoot.
Then I need to put socks and shoes on my de’ils.
If you are Christian, you believe in the Incarnation. Christ was both fully God (spirit) and fully human (flesh and soul). Both were present in Mary’s womb from the moment of conception: John the Baptist did not leap for joy in his mother’s womb at the presence of a lump of cells. Aquinas and Augustine now know better.