Bishop Rick Stika of Knoxville, Tennessee, on Tuesday slammed President Joe Biden for his frequent rosary flaunting, asserting the Virgin Mary does not share his support for “unrestricted abortion.”
“So sad that the President like [sic] to pull out his rosary and touts his devotion of Our Lady of Guadelupe as he forgets another title for her: ‘Our Lady of Life,’” the bishop wrote on Twitter. “He likes to brag on his Catholic background when convenient. So very dishonest!”
Stika was commenting on Biden’s virtual meeting Monday with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in which Biden showed the Mexican president the rosary beads he was wearing, noting that when visiting Mexico he has often “paid my respects to the Virgin of Guadalupe.”
“So how can you judge another on their commitment to the Catholic Church?” Stika wrote in a separate tweet. “Not their words do we judge but rather their actions. Mr. Biden promotes unrestricted abortion and what does he do today? Biden mentions Our Lady of Guadalupe, shows Rosary in meeting with Mexican president.”
In its coverage of the meeting between Biden and López Obrador, Reuters gushed that “the presidents of Mexico and the United States quickly found common ground in a virtual ‘meeting’ on Monday, in the form of the Virgin of Guadalupe.”
“The Mexican bishops’ conference hailed Biden’s ‘devotion’ to the Lady of Guadalupe, a Virgin Mary figure who, according to legend, appeared to an Aztec man in 1531 a decade after the Spanish conquest of Mexico,” Reuters added.
For his part, President López Obrador said Biden’s references to his Catholic faith had impressed him favorably.
“From the outset, this confession that he wears a rosary, the mention of the Virgin of Guadalupe,” López Obrador told a news conference. “I mean, he didn’t come off as a cardboard politician, rigid, but rather as a man of feeling….”
The above comes from a Mar. 3 story on Brietbart.com.
Our President may not understand everything, but, he does understand virtue signalling. In one short video, he waves his Rosary around and points to a bust of Cesar Chavez.
It should be noted that Cesar Chavez was a truly devout Catholic, which, of course, included a commitment to life, including the preborn and their mothers.
(The United Farm Workers Union became pro-abortion only after Dolores Huerta took it over. Please pray for Ms. Huerta, who describes herself as “familiar with spiritual forces.” She is 90 years old, so will likely soon be before her Redeemer and Creator.)
Biden is not a sincere Catholic. He uses Catholicism as a prop. Nobody can be a Democrat and a sincere Catholic. Take heed. Time for a bishop to declare Biden excommunicated.
On April 24, 2007, the same day abortion was legalized in Mexico, after a mass offered for unborn children in the Basilica in which is displayed the miraculous image, a very intense light appeared suddenly on the Tilma. At the level of the womb, the light appeared like a shiny halo, in the shape of an embryo. Experts have testified that it is not a reflection or something added, rather it comes from the Tilma and is in the exact location of a woman’s womb. Witnesses were able to take photographs and even to film the phenomenon that went on for a full hour.
Virgin of Guadalupe,
Patroness of unborn children,
we implore your intercession
for every child at risk of abortion.
Help expectant parents to welcome from God
the priceless gift of their child’s life.
Console parents who have lost that gift
through abortion,
and lead them to forgiveness and healing
through the Divine Mercy of your Son.
Teach us to cherish
and to care for family and friends
until God calls them home.
Help us never to see others as burdens.
Guide our public officials
to defend each and every human life
through just laws.
Inspire us all to bring our faith into public life,
to speak for those who have no voice.
We ask this in the name of your Son,
Jesus Christ, who is Love and Mercy itself.
Amen.
— 2010 Respect Life Liturgy Guide, USCCB Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities.
Our Lady of Guadalupe is the Patroness of the Unborn.
President Biden parades his self-styled devotion to Catholicism for political advantage. That is disgraceful. Even worse, he seems to use it to distract from his disregard of the Church’s teaching that the taking of innocent unborn human life is murder, a grave evil. It may be one thing for him to make no effort to curb the evil of abortion. It is indefensible that he seeks to lift restrictions on abortion already in place through Congressional action or the like, and use funds of Catholic taxpayers to do it—not only in the USA but by export to the rest of the world. Let him keep his rosary in his pocket and not use it as a hypocritical dodge.
Far more offensive–and bewildering–is that so many bishops countenance this hypocrisy, either by their silence or [God save us!] or by actively embracing it.
Good on that bishop…he’s taking his life in his hands. I don’t think hoping/praying for martyrdom is sane, but I pray I’m as brave has Bp. Stitka when the time comes. And you don’t need to die to suffer martyrdom…that’s the kind no one wants….
Pres. Biden swore a secular oath to preserve and protect the laws of the US. So far, Roe is still part of US law. So, whatever he may think privately [far be it for me to judge], he has to protect existing law.
Wha huh?…What does the Mexico City Policy have to do with ‘existing US law”. The president only has to ‘protect’ abortion laws if he wants to. There were plenty of laws the Obama administration didn’t protect.
But whatever you think of executive decisions of the president, he doesn’t get to offend the sensibilities of Catholics through unapologetic, scandalous appropriation and desecration of our religious beliefs. I wouldn’t do that for fear of the spiritual consequences, nor would I defend it for the same reasons.
mikem— But Biden, by oath or otherwise, has no duty to EXPAND abortion rights. To wit, his announced plan to codify an absolute right to abortion under federal law so as to remove all states’ rights to limit abortions as are still permitted under Roe v. Wade and its progeny, or to condition assistance to the needy [at home and abroad] on their acceptance of unwanted abortion regimes.
The oath Biden swore was to “protect and defend the CONSTITUTION of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic . . .”, not every federal law. The level of enforcement of federal law not amounting to a Constitutional mandate is up to the discretion of the President in light of the circumstances. Further, Roe v. Wade is not a “US law”, but a judicial decision of the United States Supreme Court which held that the right to abortion is protected by the Constitution’s implied right of privacy [see Griswold v. Connecticut] and thus cannot be entirely prohibited under any federal or state law.
You seem to have a penchant for writing things that just aren’t so in order to defend an opinion. No doubt in good faith, but still in error. Might you be better served by writing less and reading more”? Just a suggestion.
The President swears to faithfully execute his office. His office is to administer the laws of the country. How you ever got the idea that the President doesn’t have to defend every federal law must make your civics teacher weep.
His job is not to defend laws. It is to administer and execute them. What would defending laws mean?
No my civics teacher. He was too busy checking out the girls.
To Anonymous 6 March @ 12: 54
Maybe my civics teacher weeps. But not my law school professors.
Biden is waving his Rosary around, to surround himself with the halo of holiness that Our Lady brings.
He wants to let everyone know just how moral and holy he is.
On the other hand, according to mikem, Joe is preserving the abortion laws of the US.
So mikem, (far be it from you to judge) enlighten us again about this “Holy man”.
Explain how Joe’s Rosary, so frequently visible, reflects the true Catholic faith (in your opinion),
but also includes and supports abortion and gay marriage.
Most of us think it is not only hypocritical, but morally reprehensible.
I do not know the President but the rosary and Our Lady of Guadalupe mention struck me as manipulative and also kind of presumptive. Maybe even rude.
mikem So if slavery were the law of the land…..?
Biden may consider himself morally superior because he carries around a rosary and shows up for Mass. This outward display of piety should not fool anyone. Biden’s support for the destruction of innocent human life is reprehensible.
Hey Biden; you are suppose to pray the rosary, not wear it!
There is so much hatred from Catholics. I am very sad and disgusted with your bad behavior especially during Lent. It shows nothing but disrespect and yes hate for our Lord Jesus Christ. Bishop Stika and other Bishops should know better and stop going after anyone especially our Catholic President. Remember the commandment Love Your Neighbor. Such pettiness criticizing anyone for wearing the Rosary. Of course, if he wears it, he prays it! I pray for all the one issue Catholics and the hatred in your hearts.
You wish to advance the Democratic party, regardless of its support of abortion and gay marriage. Isn’t abortion a hatred of young children? Isn’t Gay Marriage a hatred of the marriage ceremony? And of women and children?
oh brother
Who has hatred in their hearts? When the little girl/boy is dismembered to death in the womb is that considered loving your neighbor now? The only issue is life for without it all other issues are meaningless.
Came off as passive aggressive.
“passive-aggressive”??? are you a psychiatrist? if not, don’t impose your amateur-hour diagnoses on others.
“The president-elect often carries a set of rosary beads with him that once belonged to his son Beau, who died in 2015.
“It’s my connection with him,” Biden told the Today Show in the fall of 2017.”
You are accusing Bishop Stika and other bishops of hating our Lord Jesus Christ?
He wasn’t criticized for wearing a rosary. He is criticized for supporting and expanding abortion.
Why are you shaming people for that?
Since you have a different opinion than pro-life people, that must mean you are anti-life.
Some people are. Some people support a woman’s right to choose to kill a baby or capital punishment or war or bombings or terrorism or police shootings or euthanasia or drunk driving or any of the other sins against human life. Some people even admire school shooters.
I hope you will change your opinion to value human life, unconditionally.
Click the link that says meeting. The press was there for the introductory comments. Two questions and they were removed.
He says he wears his son’s rosary. He does not say that he prays it.
It is interesting how Biden also uses his son Beau’s death for political purposes, just as he uses Catholicism. He doesn’t seem to care for all of the millions of babies at home and abroad that will be killed due to his policies. In particular black babies and babies of color will suffer. Biden is bad news-a despicable man, essentially an animated corpse propped up by the Deep State. Joe Biden cares about Joe Biden, nobody else.
President Biden is no less a Catholic than Bishop Stika. The Bishops need to display a bit of humility, look in the mirror and remember they were on watch when a Cardinal, Bishops, priests and sisters were molesting innocent, young children.
It is interesting the Bishops have never called Former Vice President Pence to tasks for his claims about his Catholicity. Pence once claimed he was “a born-again, evangelical Catholic” although he was attending a Protestant megachurch. Nary a word from any bishop. Additionally, as one of my conservative Catholic friends points out, Pence married a divorce Catholic woman (his wife Karen) who he met at a Catholic Mass and both of them left the Catholic Church to join a Protestant denomination. Again, my conservative Catholic friend notes that the Pences’ marriage is an adulterous one and to leave the Catholic Church is a mortal sin because it is a sin against the Truth. Again, nary a word from any bishop.
Bla bla bla