RNS) — For a decade, Massimo Faggioli has taught a class on U.S. Catholics and politics, most recently at Villanova University where he is a professor of theology and religious studies. But when it started to look increasingly likely that Joe Biden would become the Democratic nominee, Faggioli began to consider how this time in history is a particularly fraught one for a second Catholic U.S. president.
Out of that thinking grew his new book, “Joe Biden and Catholicism in the United States,” published on Inauguration Day.
The book names four U.S. Catholics who have run for president (Al Smith, John F. Kennedy, John Kerry and Biden) and includes a fifth who may be better known than any of these real-life examples: Jed Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen in the 1999-2006 hit TV series “The West Wing.”
Of these, only Biden has had to deal with a U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that is in the midst of what Faggioli calls a “reactionary” revolt. A number of the American bishops and cardinals supported what is described by some as an attempted coup of Pope Francis by former U.S. nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò in 2018. Others want to undo the reforms of the Second Vatican Council or notch a victory in the culture war by denying Biden Communion for his support of legal abortion.
RNS talked to Faggioli about his new book and how Biden might overcome the USCCB’s early hostility and cooperate with Pope Francis. The interview was edited for length and clarity.
No comments:
Post a Comment