Let me repeat the question before attempting to answer it:
Why would the self-proclaimed “devout Catholic” president of the United States banish Catholic priests from a U.S. military hospital just before Christianity’s holiest week of the year?
Let me also say up front that I neither have knowledge of the depth (or lack thereof) of Joe Biden’s religious beliefs nor is my place to judge the sincerity of his oft-repeated “devout Catholic” claim. That said, as you might expect I do have definite thoughts about the matter. Oh, boy, do I have thoughts.
But first, as my colleague Becca Lower reported on Saturday, the Archdiocese For The Military Services said in a press release that Walter Reed National Military Medical Center’s administrators sent a cease and desist order to Holy Name College, “a community of Franciscan Catholic priests and brothers, who have provided pastoral care to service members and veterans at Walter Reed for nearly two decades.”
Walter Reed said the center is a “welcoming and healing environment that honors and supports a full range of religious, spiritual, and cultural needs.” Uh-huh — except for the services of Catholic priests just a week before Easter. As reported by Front Page, Archbishop Timothy Broglio said in a statement:
It is incomprehensible that essential pastoral care is taken away from the sick and the aged when it was so readily available. This is a classic case where the adage ‘if it is not broken, do not fix it’ applies.
Especially, during Holy Week, the lack of adequate Catholic pastoral care causes untold and irreparable harm to Catholics who are hospitalized and therefore a captive population whose religious rights the government has a constitutional duty to provide for and protect.
Walter Reed is reportedly going to replace the priests with a government-approved, for-profit contractor to provide Catholic ministry, which prompted this response from the archdiocese:
The refusal to provide adequate pastoral care while awarding a contract for Catholic ministry to a for-profit company that has no way of providing Catholic priests to the medical center is a glaring violation of service members’ and veterans’ Right to the Free Exercise of Religion.
I’m not a theologian, nor am I an expert on the constitutional right to free exercise of religion, but other than a blatant attempt to placate anti-Christians on the left — and I’m not suggesting that all left-wingers are atheists or anti-Christian — why else would the Biden administration make the call to banish priests from a U.S. military hospital — just prior to Easter?
Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) condemned the Biden administration’s decision on Twitter:
Priests and pastors guided our troops through the darkest days of our toughest battles. The Biden Admin chose Easter weekend to kick Catholic priests out of Walter Reed, violating their First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.
The House will not allow this to stand.
Kudos to Rep. Miller.
Priests and pastors guided our troops through the darkest days of our toughest battles. The Biden Admin chose Easter weekend to kick Catholic priests out of Walter Reed, violating their Fist Amendment right to free exercise of religion.
The House will not allow this to stand. pic.twitter.com/Pdlk6lKS8J
— Rep. Mary Miller (@RepMaryMiller) April 8, 2023
So let’s revisit the question:
Why would “devout Catholic” Biden boot Catholic priests from Walter Reed a week before Easter? Perhaps a review of Biden’s related positions and past comments will shed some light on the mindset of a president who refers to on-demand abortion as an “essential health care service“:
‘Devout Catholic’ Biden Says Zilch, as Attacks on Religious Communities in Roe Aftermath Continue
On the 48th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade Devout Catholic Joe Biden Endorses Abortion On Demand
Now, About Those Thoughts
Joe Biden might be a “devout Catholic,” but his history on the matter suggests he’s an even more-devout so-called “progressive” left-winger who never wastes an opportunity to placate the pro-abortion, anti-Christian crowds — as well as the “gender-affirming” crowd.
In reference to the Florida Board of Medicine finalizing a rule to prohibit health providers in the Sunshine State from offering so-called “gender-affirming care,” including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries, for transgender patients younger than 18, “devout Catholic” Biden called the decision “close to sinful.”
What’s going on in Florida, as my mother would say,[is] close to sinful. I mean, it’s just terrible what they’re— I mean, it’s not just like a kid wakes up one day and says, ‘You know, I decided I want to become a man or I want to become a woman, or I want to change.’
How does Biden know that? He doesn’t.
Biden suggests it’s “sinful” and “cruel” to ban puberty blockers and sex change surgeries for kids. pic.twitter.com/y3OOFdle06
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) March 13, 2023
Again, “close to sinful.” Unbelievable — but not — that the president of the United States includes irreversible mutilation of children’s bodies in that category.
The Bottom Line
The left’s insidious attack against morality and Christian beliefs continues, unabated, and “devout Catholic” Joe Biden is up to his pandering eyeballs in more-than-willful complicity.
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