Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron will lead a new committee of Catholic leaders to respond to Joe Biden’s pro-abortion agenda, should he be confirmed president of the United States.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) announced the formation of the new taskforce earlier this week to consider how to work with Biden, a pro-abortion Democrat who professes to be a devout Catholic.
Biden has “given us reason to believe that he will support policies that attack some fundamental values we hold dear as Catholics,” said Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles, the president of the USCCB.
According to the Detroit Free Press, Gomez appointed Vigneron to lead the committee to address Biden’s conflicting statements about his faith and public policy.
“These policies include the repeal of the Hyde amendment and the preservation of Roe v. Wade,” Gomez said. “Both of these policies undermine our ‘preeminent priority’ of the elimination of abortion. These policies also include restoration of the HHS (Health and Human Services) mandate, the passage of the Equality Act, and the unequal treatment of Catholic schools.”
While Gomez said Biden supports “some good policies” relating to immigration reform, poverty, the death penalty, the environment and racism, he said Biden’s pro-abortion policies “pose a serious threat to the common good.”
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“We have long opposed these policies strongly, and we will continue to do so. But when politicians who profess the Catholic faith support them, there are additional problems. Among other things, it creates confusion with the faithful about what the Church actually teaches on these questions,” he continued.
“This is a difficult and complex situation,” Gomez said. “In order to help us navigate it, I have decided to appoint a Working Group, Chaired by Archbishop Vigneron, and consisting of the Chairmen of the Committees responsible for the policy areas at stake, as well as Doctrine and Communications.”
Vigneron has spoken out against Biden’s pro-abortion policies in the past.
In 2012, when Biden was vice president under pro-abortion President Barack Obama, he criticized the administration for forcing Catholics to violate their beliefs through the Obamacare HHS mandate.
He also warned Americans in 2009 about Obama’s pro-abortion agenda.
“I share the concern of all of the bishops of the United States that the [Obama] administration has, at least prior to the election, given us indications that they are going to rescind some of the protections of the unborn,” Vigneron said at the time. “And I am very disappointed in that. We are going to have to represent our opposition as forcefully as we can and try to build coalitions to dissuade the administration from moving to that.”
More recently, leftists criticized the archbishop for attending a pro-life fundraiser in September where former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders spoke and some people endorsed President Donald Trump, according to the Free Press.
Biden is being celebrated as the second Catholic to be elected as president of the United States, though votes are still being certified and President Donald Trump filed lawsuits in several states.
Biden’s pro-abortion agenda includes advocating for abortions without limits and forcing taxpayers to fund them. He also opposes religious freedom measures that protect Catholic charities like the Little Sisters of the Poor, which serves the poor and elderly.
Biden said he plans to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law and appoint U.S. Supreme Court justices who will support abortion on demand. He also said he would fight to end the Hyde Amendment and force taxpayers to pay for elective abortions – which could lead to 60,000 more unborn babies’ deaths to abortion each year.
In April, Biden went so far as to call the killing of unborn babies an “essential medical service” during the coronavirus pandemic. His health care plan would expand abortions as well by forcing insurance companies to cover abortions as “essential” health care under Obamacare.
He also promised to undo all of Trump’s progress for life, including restoring funding to the billion-dollar abortion chain Planned Parenthood.
On religious freedom, Biden’s position also is deeply troubling. Biden has endorsed anti-religious freedom policies that would force nuns, religious charities and hospitals to violate their deeply-held beliefs by funding the killing of unborn babies in abortions and potentially even by helping to facilitate their deaths.
