Joe Biden just turned into the aspirin America needs for its Trump headache

An idea from progressive Catholic theology might be useful for our times: pater patitur — the father suffers. It goes like this: A father figure, divine or otherwise, isn’t meant to relieve our suffering. Nor should he suffer for us, which suggests condescension. And he certainly shouldn’t inflict suffering on us, as too many parents do with their children. Rather, the father’s role is to suffer with us. We’ve seen this gracious and ultimately progressive model of fatherhood from Joe Biden in recent days in his run for the Democratic nomination. Of course, a father is a father, and in this case a white one. Biden doesn’t speak from the political or social margins. Rather he speaks from the head of the table, where — likely as not — he’s having his pot roast served to him by a woman. And that woman may be simultaneously fighting off a lunging animal-rights protester, as Jill Biden, Joe’s wife, and Symone D. Sanders, his campaign advisor, did during Biden’s Super Tuesday speech. But if we must have a white man as president, as we have had all but once in American history, let it be a well-intentioned one, a self-critical one, one who suffers with us.