Vatican Asks That Biden Not Attend Pope Benedict’s Funeral
BY ROBERT SPENCER
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
The second Roman Catholic president of the United States, Old Joe Biden, will not be present at the funeral of Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday. This is not because Biden would ever pass up an opportunity to flaunt the Catholic piety he so ostentatiously displays for political purposes, but because he was rather pointedly not invited. Are the falsity and hypocrisy of Old Joe’s religious displays finally catching up with him?
On Tuesday, Karine Jean-Pierre fielded a question on the pope’s funeral, and characteristically bobbled it. “So let me just first say, ‘cause we haven’t been able to, uh, be on the record on this, uh, since the passing of the pope. 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, uh —”
Here Jean-Pierre paused and gazed for a few moments at a word she had apparently never seen before and had no idea how to pronounce, “Emeritus,” which she pronounced “Emmer-itis,” as if it were some kind of disease. “—Emmer-itis, uh, Benedict the Sixteenth. He will always, uh, remember the pope’s generosity and me — a meaningful conversation they had when he visited the Vatican in 2011. So, to answer your question, uh, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, Joe Donnelly, will, uh, represent the United States at the funeral of the pope, in line with the wishes of the late pope and the Vatican. This is what, uh, this is what their requests were, this is what their wishes were, uh, and so, uh, that’s what you’ll see from the U.S.”
Now, wait a minute. The Vatican expressly requested that Joe Donnelly be at the funeral. The Joe Donnelly? It’s much more likely that they expressly requested that Old Joe not be present, which is strange in light of Biden’s self-conscious and pretentious displays of his Catholicism. Jean-Pierre herself added: “You know, the president, uh, as you know, he takes, um, uh, his faith very seriously. Uh, this is someone who is, uh, passionate about his faith. That’s not something I even need to tell you. You know this, uh, for yourself.” Yes, Old Joe takes his faith so seriously that he moves heaven and earth to make sure that every baby that can be killed will be killed. Why he’s a regular Saint Francis of Assisi?
On Wednesday, a reporter asked Biden himself why he wasn’t going to Pope Benedict XVI’s funeral. With his increasingly frequent dementia-borne testiness, Biden snapped, “Well, why do you think?” The reporter responded, “You tell me,” to which the ostensible president responded, “You know why.” Quixotically, the reporter persisted: “You can tell me, sir.” Then Biden said: “Uh, the reason I’m not going to the funeral tomorrow is that it would take an entourage of a thousand people to show up, not literally.”
All right, sure. The president, even an addled front man such as Old Joe, can’t travel light; he does have to have a lot of people with him, and Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said Tuesday that “following the wishes of the pope emeritus,” which he likely knew how to pronounce, “the funeral will be held under the sign of simplicity.” Bruni added that it would 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.”
Maybe that’s all there is to it. According to the Daily Wire, only Italy, and Germany, the two countries where Pope Benedict XVI lived and worked, were invited to send state delegations. However, “Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, and Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar are among those who have already confirmed their attendance at Benedict XVI’s funeral in an unofficial capacity. European royals Queen Sofia of Spain and King Philip and Queen Mathilde of Belgium are also planning to attend.” But not Old Joe.
Could it be that the Vatican, or at least the circle of Pope Benedict XVI, didn’t want present at the funeral a man who so cynically uses the Catholic faith to get votes while ignoring its actual content? Was the Vatican’s request that Biden not attend the funeral a shot at his relentless pro-abortion activism and war against his Church’s teaching in this matter? The Vatican is too diplomatic to say, and Biden’s handlers know better than to acknowledge an obvious rebuke. But it’s fairly obvious nevertheless.