Headline Roundup • October 29th, 2021
Biden Says Pope Told Him to Continue Receiving Communion
Summary from the AllSides News Team
President Joe Biden, a lifelong Roman Catholic, met with Pope Francis on Friday for the first time since his inauguration. While the Vatican canceled its live broadcast of the meeting due to COVID-19 protocols, Biden later told reporters that the pope didn’t mention abortion but said he was a “good Catholic” and that he should continue receiving communion. The meeting comes amid a debate among Catholics over Biden’s support for abortion rights; in June, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted to write new guidance on communion that, if approved by a two-thirds vote, could be used by conservative Catholic bishops to justify denying communion for Biden. Biden’s meeting with the pope kicks off a diplomatic trip that includes the G20 summit over the weekend and next week’s COP26 U.N. climate change summit. Biden also met with French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday, calling the U.S. failure to notify France of the AUKUS submarine deal “clumsy.”
Coverage was widespread and mostly balanced across the spectrum on Friday. Coverage in some left-leaning outlets highlighted the upcoming G20 and COP26 summits. One outlet on the right, Washington Examiner, stood out by labeling Biden's statement as “bizarre” in its news coverage.
Featured Coverage of this Story
Vatican Media/via Reuters
As President Joe Biden embarked on only his second overseas trip, he started with a personally poignant audience with Pope Francis on Friday, the first time in more than half a century that a Roman Catholic U.S. leader has met at the Vatican with the head of the Catholic Church.
The White House said the private meeting lasted about 90 minutes, unusually long.
Overshadowing the meeting was criticism from conservative U.S. bishops over Biden's public, political position on abortion, some arguing Biden and others who share his views should be denied Communion.
VaticanMedia/Picciarella/Zuma Press
President Biden, after meeting Pope Francis, said the pontiff told him to continue receiving Communion, amid a controversy among U.S. church leaders over whether the president’s support for abortion rights should disqualify him from receiving the sacrament.
“We just talked about the fact he was happy that I was a good Catholic and I should keep receiving Communion,” Mr. Biden said. The Vatican didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
President Joe Biden delivered a perplexing answer Friday about whether he and Pope Francis discussed abortion during their 90-minute meeting at the Vatican.
“No, it didn’t. It came up," Biden told reporters when asked if "the issue of abortion [came] up at all" during his meeting with the pope. "We just talked about the fact he was happy that I was a good Catholic, and I should keep receiving communion."
Biden's pro-abortion rights stance has rattled some Catholics in the United States, including 168 bishops who sought to block the president from receiving communion....
