The appreciations for our second Catholic president show much nostalgia for the brand of Catholicism he represents, and despair or (at least concern) for what comes next.
This is natural enough. Joseph R. Biden’s presidency represents an extraordinary moment for all U.S. Catholics and particularly for Catholics sympathetic to the Democrats, who have been stalwarts of the party since the New Deal.
Many of Mr. Biden’s Catholic supporters will miss not only his personal qualities but also the way in which the Biden presidency has symbolized a particularly fruitful reception of the Second Vatican Council in the U.S. church. For them, the end of that era is both regrettable and rather scary, as it is not clear what will come next.
Biden as Catholic Democrat
Anyone watching the 2024 Democratic National Convention would have to say that this is no longer Mr. Biden’s party. And it has not been for some time.
For many Catholics, Mr. Biden represents the long process of Catholic assimilation to U.S. society. The desire to be like and to be accepted by other Americans is nearly as old as Catholicism’s presence on these shores. This longing pervades U.S. Catholicism, cutting across ideological and political divisions, as John Tracey Ellis and other historians have documented. And it manifests itself in partisan politics, where many Catholics reject or ignore aspects of their faith that conflict with the party line.
In some ways, Mr. Biden’s presidency has been the owl of Minerva that flew at dusk: It has signaled something that is already over. For starters, Mr. Biden’s Catholicism did not put him at the center of presidential politics. His nomination in 2020 was of course the high point of his political career, but it was not exactly the high tide for his brand of Catholic politics. As Nate Silver recently wrote of Mr. Biden, “Barack Obama’s campaign was responsible for elevating him to the vice presidency in 2008, without which he’d be known for a long career as Senator but a two-time failure as a presidential candidate.”
And this year’s Democratic National Convention suggested that his influence is in the past, not the future. On some issues, most notably abortion, he followed more than led the party. On other issues, most notably Israel, Mr. Biden’s position is increasingly unpopular, especially among younger Democrats. Mr. Biden seemed to steel his party’s resolve against the death penalty for a time, but the issue is notably missing from the party platform as he exits the presidency, forced off the ticket because of fears he was going to lose to former President Donald J. Trump.
Was Mr. Biden’s politically engaged faith the future of U.S. Catholicism, or was it something that is now fading away and being replaced by something very different? Right now, it looks like the latter.
A new age for U.S. Catholicism?
Mr. Biden’s Catholicism has been difficult to square with journalistic clichés. At times he has been described as the embodiment of post-conciliar Catholicism, seeking to engage the world positively and hopefully, but at other times his piety seems distinctly pre-conciliar. He loves his rosary and in his book Promise Me, Dad wrote that he enjoys the Mass for solitude and quiet.
The bigger point here is that there is more than one way to be Catholic in the United States.
For many Catholic analysts, whether journalists or academics, there are strict limits on what counts as an authentic Catholicism in the American public square, typically explicitly based on ideological claims about Vatican II, but often more implicitly founded on ideological readings of U.S. history and politics. Only a very narrow set of Catholic politicians satisfy the criteria of their highly caveated political Catholicism, whether it is Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan or Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry.
However, there have been many healthy models of Catholicism in U.S. history, and Catholicism has adapted tremendously and repeatedly to changes in society. That is not to deny faults and failings, particularly with regard to slaveholding. But it is quite ahistorical to claim that there is only one model of U.S. Catholicism, even and particularly in the post-conciliar period. To deny that is not just nostalgia for the passing away of something but a rejection of the incredible diversity-in-unity of Catholicism.
For many Catholic Democrats, Mr. Biden is the zenith of American public faith. For many Catholic Republicans, he represents a great betrayal of the Gospel. The truth is somewhere in between, and that is OK. We can say the Biden presidency was fitting as the apotheosis of the Catholic-infused politics of the New Deal and the Great Society. His Catholicism validated key aspects of that agenda, and that agenda had room for his faith. But political parties change, as do candidates, and so does U.S. Catholicism.
The United States has had an enviable tradition of peaceful transfer of political power. Perhaps, on that note, it is good for Catholics that the United States can not only rotate power between parties and ideologies, but also between different brands of Catholicism.
The challenge is for Catholics to allow the faith to become a common coin for their discourse with each other, and to be open to its challenge to their political views.
Sadly, we do not live in a time where such mutual dialogue between faith and politics is particularly valued. Yet our era affords us great opportunities as Catholics active in politics and society. We have the agency and freedom to choose who we want to be in the public square. This should be a time for experimentation and mutual encouragement, not entrenchment and intra-Catholic gutter sniping. Whether it is seeking out unlikely partners for collaboration or engaging in policy areas where we can transcend partisan divisions, like supporting family and children, now is a time of great possibility.
In a world desperately hungry for the good news, we have as a gift not only the full treasure of wisdom from both Athens and Jerusalem, but the freedom of Christians to delve into that treasure and leaven the world with it. If we can free ourselves of nostalgia for past glories and resentment for past wounds, we will find the Spirit waiting patiently to lead us gently and boldly.
When St. Ignatius Loyola was asked what he would do were the Society of Jesus disbanded, he said he would need 15 minutes in the chapel. Then he would get back to work.
This is worth thinking about as Catholic Democrats face the twilight of the Biden presidency.
So take your 15 minutes in the chapel. But then get back to work.
