Joe Biden update: a statement from his bishop

From The Dialog, the diocesan newspaper of Wilmington, Delaware:

Biden, campaigning for his 2020 bid for president, was in South Carolina Oct. 26-27 attending a town hall meeting in Florence and a justice forum in Columbia. He identifies himself as Catholic and attends Mass at St. Joseph on the Brandywine in Greenville, Del.

The Diocese of Wilmington issued the following statement: “The Church’s teachings on the protection of human life from the moment of conception is clear and well-known. Bishop Malooly has consistently refrained from politicizing the Eucharist, and will continue to do so. His preference, as with most bishops, is to interact with politicians individually who disagree with significant church teachings.”

Bishop Malooly in the Sept. 4, 2008 edition of The Dialog, the Diocese of Wilmington’s newspaper, addressed the issue shortly before his installation.

“I look forward to the opportunity to enter into a dialogue on a number of issues with Sen. Biden and other Catholic leaders in the Diocese of Wilmington,” the bishop said in an interview that was published four days before he was installed as bishop of Wilmington. “However, I do not intend to get drawn into partisan politics nor do I intend to politicize the Eucharist as a way of communicating Catholic Church teachings. It is critical to keep the lines of communication open if the church is going to make her teachings understood and, please God, accepted. It is my belief that Catholics of all occupations have the same duty to examine their own consciences before determining their worthiness for the reception of communion. I think I will get a lot more mileage out of a conversation trying to change the mind and heart than I would out of a public confrontation.”

The bishop has not wavered from this stance.

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