Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 10, 2024 / 17:30 pm (CNA).
Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, is accusing President Joe Biden of “making a mockery of our Catholic faith” after he made the sign of the cross while promoting abortion.
Biden, who is the country’s second Catholic president, made the sign of the cross at an abortion rally in Tampa, Florida, more than two weeks ago. In his speech, the president criticized Catholic Gov. Ron DeSantis for signing a bill that restricts abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. The governor had previously helped enact legislation limiting abortion to 15 weeks of pregnancy.
During the rally, Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried said that when DeSantis decided to run for president, “15 weeks wasn’t good enough; we had to go to six weeks,” at which point Biden made the sign of the cross in apparent disapproval of the pro-life laws.
In a May 8 video posted to the diocesan YouTube channel, Paprocki said: “To misuse this sacred gesture is to make a mockery of our Catholic faith.”
“Making the sign of the cross is one of the most profound gestures a Catholic can make in showing reverence for Christ’s death on the cross and belief in the Holy Trinity as we sign ourselves in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” the bishop said.
Paprocki expanded on his criticism of Biden on the diocesan “Dive Deep” podcast the following day, May 9, saying Biden is “mocking the gesture” of the sign of the cross because he was doing it “to promote something that was evil, and that’s what makes it sacrilegious.”
In his original video, Paprocki discussed the provisions by which one could excommunicate himself and provided the definitions for heresy, schism, and apostasy. However, he stopped short of attaching any of those terms to Biden. During the podcast, the bishop said that would require a “canonical process,” which would likely need to take place within his diocese, the Archdiocese of Washington.
Paprocki did say that Biden’s support for abortion is “in effect … rejecting at least part of the Fifth Commandment,” which prohibits murder.
“[Biden] seems to be saying he has no problem with killing babies in the womb,” the bishop added.
“Even the president of the United States is bound by the truths as revealed by God,” Paprocki said later during the podcast. “We live in an age of relativism where people think ‘well you have your truth and I have my truth,’ [but] there really is only one truth as revealed by God.”
At the close of his original video, the bishop cited the sixth chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians.
“Make no mistake: God is not mocked, for a person will reap only what he sows, because the one who sows for his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows for the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit,” St. Paul wrote. “Let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap our harvest, if we do not give up. So then, while we have the opportunity, let us do good to all, but especially to those who belong to the family of the faith.”
Paprocki voiced agreement with comments made by other bishops about Biden’s support for abortion. He said he agrees with Cardinal Wilton Gregory of the Archdiocese of Washington, who said in March that the president “picks and chooses” what elements of the Catholic faith he believes.
“I would say there are things, especially in terms of the life issues, there are things that [Biden] chooses to ignore,” Gregory said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Easter.
“The issues of life begin at the very beginning,” Gregory continued. “And they conclude at natural death. And you can’t pick and choose. You’re either one who respects life in all of its dimensions, or you have to step aside and say, ‘I’m not pro-life.’”
Paprocki also said he agreed with Spanish Bishop José Ignacio Munilla of the Diocese of Orihuela-Alicante, who said last week that Biden making the sign of the cross at a rally in support of abortion was “sacrilegious.”
Munilla said that making the sign of the cross is meant to be used as a sign “in which we remember that Jesus gave his life for us, he gave his life for all the innocents, he gave his life to restore innocence and to make us saints.”
Biden has promised that if he is elected and has a pro-abortion Congress, he will sign a bill to restore the abortion laws set in the now-defunct Roe v. Wade decision. This would prohibit states from enforcing laws that protect life in the womb. The president has also asked Congress to repeal laws that prohibit federal agencies from using taxpayer money to fund abortion.
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I thought a Catholic who is in mortal sin, if he was informed of the teaching of the Church. I also thought that according to canon law is is not longer in the Church. Is this the case?
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was excommunicated latae sententiae decades ago. Unfortunately no Bishop responsible for his soul has ever had the nerve to codify that fact by issuing a ferendae sententiae excommunication.
His life long mockery of the faith will be addressed, finally, during his particular judgment.
Bishop Paprocki had the moral courage [something that should be done without hesitation although a rarity these days among clerics deserving reference as moral courage] to deny pro-abortion congressman Dick Durbin the Eucharist. And I believe he, along with Archbishop Cordileone would likely deny faux Catholic president Biden.
Biden has gone beyond reasoned propriety to expand abortion to extremes, as well as the imposition of disordered sexual behavior on society, religious institutions including the moral rape of children, in cases providing jurisdiction to remove children from parents to have them indoctrinated and sexually mutilated. What’s equally scandalous is that His Holiness doesn’t emit a peep in disapproval. Should there be wonder why we’re witnessing an apostasy? Our bishops and cardinals are left with the obligation to lead the Church out of this cauldron of evil.
It’s time to notice the extent of the gangrene…
Yes, Bishop Paprocki refers to the Fifth Commandment; yes, Cardinal Gregory identifies Biden as yet another “cafeteria Catholic,” and yes, His Holiness “doesn’t emit a peep.” We might note that the scriptural account of creation not only refers to binary man and woman, but firstly the binary relationship between good and evil.
OUR affliction today is the fluid denial of both binaries. Each denial contained within the other…
BIDEN symbolically signs himself at a pro-abortion rally precisely because the incoherent zeitgeist is already rooted in the (im)purely physical spectrum of gender theory. The discounted “sins below the belt” and Biden’s advocacy of total abortion and the pro-LGBTQ religion are two sides of the same coin.
AND as for the so-called “infinite” value (rather than immense) of the human person, what then of the distinction between the infinite God and finite Man? In Dignitas Infinita why might we detect the language of historical “consciousness” subliminally eclipsing the language of personal consciences? Is the gangrene in the “field hospital” Church so advanced that the patients no longer even comprehend to Judeo-Christian cosmos?
TODAY, our prayers are with “Eucharistic Renewal,” and yet we recall that Archbishop Cardileone’s original proposal was for Eucharistic Coherence—as between faith and actions. A “coherence” now obliterated under the crypto-Aztec Biden’s anti-Catholic/Natural Law agenda. Instead, the spectrum of anti-thought and maybe the ideology of harmonized polarities (the crypto-blessing under Fiducia Supplicans)—but no longer the violation of this or that Commandment, nor the quaint selectivity of merely “cafeteria” Catholics…
The Contradiction of the Cross is replaced by Biden’s fluid “sign of the crossing” of the Rubicon…into Nietzsche’s post-Christian “transvaluation of values.” And, into the rejection of binary human sexuality as now coupled (!) with the rejection of binary GOOD and EVIL.
Fr. Peter, I have long admired your commentary on this website, and I agree with what you say here.
But there is one thing that I would like to call to your attention, since I’m sure that your statement was inadvertent.
You said that Biiden wants to “expand abortion to extremes.”
I want to remind you that there is no abortion that is not extreme. Killing one single baby — at any stage of development — is hideous, unthinkable, extreme in the utmost sense.
Not splitting hairs here, but exactly what is a “ faux Catholic”? No, perhaps he is a real Catholic in deep trouble. To my knowledge he has yet to be publicly excommunicated nor to be publicly declared self excommunicated. Exactly WHY I don’t understand at all, but -if I not mistaken- I believe that is up to the higher clergy, not the lay, to determine. He is a brother who needs much prayer.
James, if and when you’re ordained a priest then you can make that determination in the confessional.
James, I guess I gave a glib response and I apologize. What responsibility I have as a priest references what’s manifest in a person’s behavior. Insofar as judgments, and some are necessary in the external forum there are indicators that guide us to make a moral assessment. With Biden we have direct and blatant statements of ‘disagreement’ with obligatory Catholic doctrine. Furthermore, he has an obvious obsession to dismiss moral justice in favor of a party agenda, that apparently is consistent with his own, perhaps his own even more extreme.
While there was and still is the issue of papal interference with Catholic candidates to the presidency on the Constitutional principle of no [one] religion is to have sway within a government [based on the Church of England prominence in government affairs], the principle of separation of Church and State the Constitution doesn’t prohibit any given religion to freely express its differences or priorities. Nonetheless it has been consistently misinterpreted especially by Democrats that Catholics will be controlled by the Vatican on moral issues particularly abortion, same sex relations.
The enigma now is that we have a presumably Catholic president, evidently sanctioned by his Holiness [visits to the Vatican] who obsessively promotes both abortion and homosexuality to the extent of indoctrination and its legal protection. His Holiness remains silent. As do most bishops except an honest few. As if speaking directly and openly regarding the moral injustices of this president were an abrogation of the Constitution. That is a disordered opinion. Disordered due to reversal in the order of legal right [for a religion to express its differences] and moral right [for a Roman pontiff to chastise a politician be he representative or president]. That, on the most grave issues regarding life or death, salvation or damnation. American bishops seem to be silent regarding Biden because of this misconstrued sense of Church interference in the affairs of State. That line of illegality or moral impropriety does not exist regarding Biden. He should and must be excommunicated. For sake of the truth of our faith and our loyalty to the Constitution.
Articulate and measured statement from a straight-talking bishop.
May his tribe increase.
And now it’s time for all the other bishops in the USA to grow a spine and publicly support what Bishop Paprocki has said about excommunicated Catholic Biden. (Just don’t hold your breath waiting.)
It’s an indictment of the horrific state of Catholic faith formation that a Bishop has to state what should be very obvious to any Catholic. The Bishop, rightfully, is fulfilling his teaching mission but, if our priests would give homilies that align with our faith and not namby pamby, “be good” homilies, maybe things will change for the better, namely, not of the world – Satan.
The Saginaw bishop recently said he was just stupid.
It seems that more and more Priests – just plain Priests at first and now Bishops and Cardinals – are FINALLY finding the nerve to speak up about what has been incredibly obvious for a few decades to those of us in the pews who put what we can into the collection plate each and every week. It seems to be Joe Biden, our devout ‘catholic’ president who has unwittingly become responsible for this, and so the democrats’ irony-deficiency continues unabated.
When will they ever learn?
Conservative bishops are very good at making careful statements. While it is true that Bishop Paprocki has taken some a couple of limited actions, like telling Durbin he can’t receive Communion, they are not close to being enough. Granted, the bishop of Springfield, Illinois can only do so much. Perhaps, though, at the very least he can call out the Cardinal Archbishop of DC for enabling and protecting Biden instead of giving the impression that he and Gregory are of a single mind. At this stage in the Francis era, I don’t expect much from hierarchs who have more of less gone along with the entire program. However, if they are going to make declarations that only elicit yawns or laughs from our enemies, they probably should not say anything at all.
This makes me think of Dante’s Inferno. I wonder what level of hell people like Biden will occupy 🤔. God is not mocked.
As for biden, he is a heretic-end of subject. As for the popes below the belt stupidity, I suggest he read about what Mary stated per sins of the flesh.
Biden has a long record of publicly supporting serious sins while simultaneously claiming to be Catholic. At present, though, he clearly does not always know where he is, who he is with, or what is going on. It’s impossible to say what his intentions were when he made the Sign of the Cross, just as it is impossible to know what his intentions were when he said, “God save the queen!”
Why are you making excuses? Biden’s intentions and character have been clearly and consistently revealed in his words and actions for several years at this point.
Who’s making excuses? He was a bad man before he was senile. Now that he is senile, though, it is largely pointless to pretend every action he takes is the result of a clear-headed decision, whether for good or for evil.
I’m more offended by his simulation of the sacrament of marriage when he was V.P. than by him making the Sign of the Cross.
The rich man died and went to Hell not because he had hurt the poor beggar Lazarus, but because he had lived as though Lazarus wasn’t there, as though the suffering of Lazarus wasn’t happening. (Luke 16:19-31)
Christ again makes clear that we will be damned for grave sins of omission when He declares that on judgement day, He will say to those on His left hand, “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire … for I was hungry and you gave me not to eat, thirsty and you gave me not to drink … ” and goes on to list basic human needs the lack of which He Himself had experienced in the suffering of the least of His brethren. (Matthew 25:31-46)
These hard sayings of Christ are the reason why St. Cyprian, in his treatise On Works and Alms exhorts the flock to do good works and to give alms, not by focusing on the dire plight of the needy, but instead focusing on the fact that their salvation is at stake.
Worldwide, over a billion innocent children of God, Christ in the least of His brethren, have been murdered through “legal” abortion. (No state has the authority to legalize the murder of innocent humanity. That fact was established at the Nuremberg Trials, where prosecutors treated “legal” abortion as a crime against humanity.)
Countess temporarily confused children have had their genitalia surgically or chemically mutilated, “legally.” The sex trafficking of children has become a multi-billion dollar a year business in the United States.
Have we been living as though these things weren’t happening to the innocent children of God? Christ Himself is experiencing these things in the least of His precious brethren.
Even though massive civil disobedience is arguably justified by the current situation, many Catholics will rationalize voting for candidates who are advocates of these atrocities or who are unwilling to alter public policy in order to end them.
It is the duty of the Catholic clergy to exhort the flock regarding their obligation to use the political freedom they still possess to end these atrocities for the sake of Christ unjustly suffering again in these little ones; after all, the salvation of the flock is at stake. The clergy will begin that exhortation or one day hear God almighty incarnate say to them “Depart from me, you cursed …”
Read the White House official proclamation on March 30 2024 of March 31 2024 as Transgender Day of Visibility:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/03/30/a-proclamation-on-transgender-day-of-visibility/
MARCH 30, 2023
A Proclamation on Transgender Day of Visibility