Bishop Malooly of Wilmington, Delaware stands up against Biden and tells it like it is. Biden actually said the following in an October 19 interview:
… Q: This [abortion] was an issue for John Kerry, do you see this as being an issue for you?
A: I think it’s going to be an issue for everybody. Anyone who’s a Catholic, a practicing Catholic, this is a dilemma for. There’s an expression in law school: hard cases make bad law. These are just very, very, very difficult moral, social and societal choices.
And for me, I am prepared as a senator to say that the framework of Roe v. Wade based upon this imperfect trimester notion captures the gravity of how you should approach this most serious of decisions relating to life and death. First trimester, the state should stay out of it completely because it’s a matter of faith, basically, there. Second trimester, there are competing interests, but they’re both legitimate to look at. Third trimester, there’s an overwhelming burden to say, there isn’t a good reason to abort unless it relates to the mother’s health. I’m as comfortable as I can be on a really difficult moral dilemma.
To sum it up, as a Catholic, I’m a John XXIII guy, I’m not a Pope John Paul guy.
Bishop Malooly quickly fired back with a statement on October 24, here’s an excerpt:
In his interview with the News Journal published on October 19, 2008, Senator Biden presents a seriously erroneous picture of Catholic teaching on abortion. He says, “I know that my church has wrestled with this for 2,000 years,†and he goes on to claim repeatedly that the Church has a nuanced view of the subject that leaves a great deal of room for uncertainty and debate.
This is simply incorrect. The teaching of the Church is clear and not open to debate. Abortion is a grave sin because it is the wrongful taking of an innocent human life. And the Church has always opposed abortion. The Church received the tradition opposing abortion from Judaism. In the Greco-Roman world the early Christians were identifiable by their rejection of the common practices of abortion and infanticide. The “Didache,†probably the earliest Christian writing apart from the New Testament, explicitly condemns abortion without exceptions. It tells us that there is a “way of life†and a “way of death†and that abortion is a part of the way of death. This has been the consistent teaching of the Church ever since. It was also the position of Protestant reformers without exception. It was the teaching of Pope John XXIII as well as Pope John Paul II. It is the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI and the bishops of the universal Church, including myself as shepherd of this diocese.
Catholics Against Joe Biden is a great website documenting Biden’s anti-Catholic ignorance/statements. He actually said the following:
“The next Republican that tells me I’m not religious I’m going to shove my rosary beads down their throat”
Good Ol’ Joe. Down with the people.