Pope Benedict XVI declined an invitation to Joe Biden to attend his funeral and apparently made the decision to prevent the abortion activist from attending before he died.
Biden was not invited to attend Pope Benedict’s XVI funeral today at the request of the late Pope himself. Instead, the Vatican ambassador will attend the funeral procession today.
“The U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, Joe Donnelly, will represent the United States at the funeral of the Pope, in line with the wishes of the late Pope and the Vatican,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in comments to the White House press gathering yesterday. “This is what — this is what their requests were. This is what their wishes were.”
“So, as the President said in his statement, as I’m sure you saw, he joins Catholics and so many others around the world in mourning the passing of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI,” Jean-Pierre said, adding “he will always remember the Pope’s generosity and meaningful conversation they had when he visited the Vatican in 2011.”
Biden himself got testy yesterday in an exchange with reporters — telling them “you know why” when asked about the reasons he won’t be in attendance.
“Well, why do you think? You tell me,” Biden then said, adding “the reason why I’m not attending the funeral tomorrow is that it takes an entourage of 1,000 people, not literally, but we would move everything in the wrong direction.”
Biden admitted he asked about attending but was told he could not attend.
“We would just get in the way, but I’ve made my views known,” Biden continued. “Any rate, I think he was a fine man.”
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According to the Catholic News Agency, Pope benedict wanted his funeral to be a simple affair.
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni told reporters that “following the wishes of the pope emeritus, the funeral will be held under the sign of simplicity,” stressing that it will be a “solemn but sober funeral.”
“The express request on the part of the emeritus pope is that everything be simple, both with regard to the funeral as well as the other celebrations and gestures during this time of pain,” he added.
While only two state delegations were officially invited to attend the funeral Mass for the pope emeritus, some heads of state and public figures have decided to attend the funeral in an unofficial capacity.
But one additional reason for Biden being uninvited to the funeral is likely because of his radical abortion advocacy and his refusal to follow the pro-life teachings of the Catholic Church — which were vitally important to the late pontiff. The former leader of the Catholic Church was a strongly pro-life leader who condemned the “intrinsic evil” of abortion.
During his time as the leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict was a consistent pro-life voice condemning the evil of abortion. Earlier this year, he condemned the evil of abortion.
He made it clear that children are a blessing and a treasure.
“Children truly are the family’s greatest treasure and most precious good. Consequently, everyone must be helped to become aware of the intrinsic evil of the crime of abortion,” the former pontiff said. “In attacking human life in its very first stages, it is also an aggression against society itself.”
In March, Pope Benedict brought up the conflict between President Joe Biden’s claims of faith and his support for radical pro-abortion policies.
Biden describes himself as a devout Catholic, but he also supports radical pro-abortion and anti-religious freedom policies that contradict his faith. This has caused controversy among Catholics, especially Catholic leaders in America, about whether Biden should be allowed to receive communion if he remains unrepentant.
Benedict brought up this conflict when asked about the Democrat president.
“It’s true, he’s Catholic and observant and personally he is against abortion,” he said. “But as president, he tends to present himself in continuity with the line of the Democratic Party, and on gender politics we have not yet fully understood what his position is.”
Former Pope Benedict XVI warned in a 2004 memo that high profile politicians who persist in their public support for abortion should be denied Communion.
Benedict wrote the memo when he was known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and when former presidential candidate John Kerry, a pro-abortion Catholic, was running for president. Ratzinger warned that “not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia” and said that though Catholics may have diversity of opinion on some topics, there is no “legitimate diversity of opinion” when it comes to abortion and euthanasia.
Ratzinger’s comments are particularly relevant now as Catholic bishops discuss denying President Joe Biden communion for his public support for abortion. Pope Francis has notably not commented on whether Biden should be denied communion, but the pope has repeatedly condemned abortion as evil and the killing of innocent life.
“The minister of Holy Communion may find himself in the situation where he must refuse to distribute Holy Communion to someone, such as in cases of a declared excommunication, a declared interdict, or an obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin,” Ratzinger wrote.
“Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person’s formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist,” the former cardinal continued.
If the “person in question” obstinately persists in presenting himself to receive communion even after all this, Ratzinger wrote, the minister “must refuse to distribute it.”
“This decision, properly speaking, is not a sanction or a penalty,” the former cardinal and pope said. “Nor is the minister of Holy Communion passing judgment on the person’s subjective guilt, but rather is reacting to the person’s public unworthiness to receive Holy Communion due to an objective situation of sin.”
He retired as head of the Catholic Church in 2013.
