Bishop Blasts Catholic Bishops for Congratulating Pro-Abortion Joe Biden: They “Don’t Speak for Me”

National   |   Steven Ertelt, Micaiah Bilger   |   Nov 25, 2020   |   1:19PM   |   Washington, DC

A Catholic bishop who has been one of the most outspoken on pro-life issues says he will not congratulate Joe Biden if he wins the presidential election because Biden supports unlimited abortion.

The nation’s Catholic bishops have come under fire from pro-life advocates and supporters of President Donald Trump for issuing a message congratulating Biden because Biden not only supports abortion on demand but there are still credible concerns about the integrity of the election that are still playing out in battleground states across the nation.

Speaking during his podcast, Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas said the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops doesn’t speak for him.

He said “the USCCB speaks as an organization but they don’t speak for every individual bishop” and added he “felt obligated to speak out for my flock.”

The Catholic leader added that he “will always speak as a voice for those unborn children that are being slaughtered…[becausevery few are speaking up for them, and the nation is embracing [abortion] more and more vehemently.”

Bishop Strickland slammed Joe Biden last week for supporting “the slaughter of innocents by abortion” up until the point of birth.

“A dark cloud has descended on this nation when the USCCB and Planned Parenthood speak in unison in support of a Biden-Harris administration that supports the slaughter of innocents by abortion for all 9 months of pregnancy,” Strickland wrote on Twitter.

His comments came in response to the leader of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops congratulating Biden for his presidential win despite Biden’s radical pro-abortion views.

The Democrat presidential candidate supports abortions without limits and wants to force 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.

Some Catholic leaders spoke out openly against Biden ahead of the election, and many others, including Strickland, urged Americans to make unborn babies a priority when they voted on Nov. 3.

“USE YOUR VOTE TO STOP ABORTION!” Strickland wrote on Twitter in late October. “It is the greatest moral imperative of our time. The issues that plague us are countless but to vote for a candidate who promotes the killing of unborn children is to support that killing. IT IS THE PRE-EMINENT ISSUE of this election. USE YOUR VOTE.”

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In September, he also endorsed a controversial video by Father James Altman of Wisconsin urging Catholics to reject the Democratic Party because of its radical pro-abortion stance. Strickland also praised Father Edward Meeks of Maryland for telling his parishioners that Democrat presidential candidate Joe “Biden is unabashedly pro-abortion.”

Though Biden claims to be a devout Catholic, his positions on abortion and other issues contradict the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Biden said he plans to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law and appoint 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. It would force insurance companies to cover abortions as “essential” health care under Obamacare.

He also promised to undo all of Trump’s progress for life, including defunding the Planned Parenthood abortion chain through his Mexico City and Title X policies.

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.

Among them, he and his running mate Kamala Harris oppose a religious exemption from the Obamacare contraception mandate for the Little Sisters of the Poor, a nuns’ charity that serves the poor and elderly. The Supreme Court recently granted the Little Sisters relief from the Obama-era mandate, which would have forced them to fund contraception, including forms that may cause abortions, in their employee health plans.