An anchor on the right-wing site Newsmax attacked President Joe Biden’s religious faith Friday, claiming he isn’t a real believer in Catholicism, Raw Story [1] reports.
Host Grant Stinchfield promoted the latest edition of Newsmax’s magazine. The magazine’s cover story purports that Biden is waging “a new war on Christianity.”
“While it may seem odd that a practicing Catholic would wage war on Christianity, Stinchfield tried to resolve the contradiction by casting doubt on Biden’s faith,” writes Raw Story’s Brad Reed. [2]
Stinchfield is all up in arms because Biden is pro-choice. But this isn’t something Biden decided quickly. Fortune [3] notes Biden had long been in favor of restricting federal funding for abortions but over time his views shifted on abortion and that means conservatives like Stinchfield aren’t happy.
“So Joe claims to be a devout Catholic, right?” said, posing his question rhetorically. “But the church disagrees! A high-ranking U.S. Bishop has warned Biden to stop calling himself devout and acknowledge that his support of abortion disqualifies him of being a devout Catholic.”
This led Stinchfield to conclude that “there’s a strong case against him that he’s not really a Catholic.”
Considering the Catholic Church’s stance on abortion, surely the Church must have spoken out during the holocaust, which was part of WWII, right? Well no. Smithsonian [4] notes that Pope Pius largely swept the wartime horror under the rug, although many supporters within the church itself sheltered thousands of Jews who were being persecuted at the time, so there’s that. Pius, however, kept completely mum.
The fact that Pius said nothing about something this awful makes Stinchfield’s comments on Biden appear pretty pale by comparison.
I’ve included a clip of his comments below.
Newsmax host: "There's a strong case against [Joe Biden] that he's not really a Catholic" pic.twitter.com/dz2tcltIl7 [5]
— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) March 5, 2021 [6]