Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 12, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- President-elect Joe Biden made several Cabinet appointments this week, offering insight into the possible policy priorities of his administration, and areas of concern for Catholic institutions.
As CNA reported, Biden already appointed officials to the State Department and Department of Health and Human Services, sensitive departments which could have important repercussions on religious freedom issues both at home and abroad.
Biden’s selection of Obama-era officials Antony Blinken and Linda Thomas-Greenfield as Secretary of State and Ambassador to the United Nations could signal a continuance of that administration’s diplomatic approach to prioritizing LGBT rights while deemphasizing or taking a softer approach to promoting religious freedom.
Biden’s selection of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra as HHS Secretary has also raised serious questions about the possible effect his leadership could have on issues central to Catholic organizations.
Becerra was involved in two Supreme Court cases against pro-life groups and the Little Sisters of the Poor, and aggressively enforced California’s abortion coverage mandate. His office also continued fighting pro-life activist David Daleiden in court for his publishing of undercover conversations with Planned Parenthood officials.
Also this week, Biden tapped Rep. Marcia Fudge to be the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. The agency oversees policy in a number of areas of concern to Catholics, including homeless shelters and fair housing practices.
Rules from that agency have drawn criticism from the U.S. bishops’ conference under both the Obama and Trump administrations.
In 2016, the Obama HUD required shelters partnering with the government to accept clients based on their gender identity and allow them equal access to facilities—through the Equal Access Rule. Under the rule, for instances, biological males identifying as female would have to be housed with women and have access to women’s bathrooms.
The bishops said that the law “impeded” the ability of Catholic shelters to place clients based on their biological sex, and would threaten the security of women in single-sex housing.
Fudge supported keeping this rule, cosigning a July letter from members of Congress to the Trump administration asking them not to change it. She was also an original cosponsor of the Equality Act, which would make sexual orientation and gender identity protected classes in a number of areas, including housing.
This past summer, the USCCB was critical of the Trump HUD’s changes to federal fair housing rules. The conference said that the rule change—supposedly taken as an attempt to deregulate policy—weakened federal oversight against racial discrimination in housing practices.
Fudge has been hailed by groups like the National Fair Housing Alliance for her previous work to ensure equitable access to affordable housing.
Biden has also announced his pick of Susan Rice to head his Domestic Policy Council. Rice served in foreign policy circles in the Obama administration as Ambassador to the United Nations and then as National Security Advisor to President Obama.
Rice made promoting LGBT rights a priority in her work in the Obama administration, and has said that she is “pro-choice.” Planned Parenthood praised her appointment as UN ambassador, saying she would help bring “equality to women and women’s health around the world.”
In an August interview with NPR, Rice discussed her relationship with her son and areas of agreement and disagreement. “We disagree on things like choice. I’m pro-choice. He’s pro-life. That’s the kind of difference that we ought to be able to respect,” she said.
In 2016, Rice addressed an audience at American University about LGBT rights. Rice said that when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, she and her husband took a photo together outside the White House which was lit in rainbow colors.
“That Friday night of the landmark Supreme Court ruling, my husband I took a photo together that we cherish, outside of the White House lit up in the colors of the rainbow to celebrate what we’ve always known—that love is love is love,” she said.
Biden’s White House chief of staff will be Ron Klain, who previously served as his chief of staff when Biden was vice president.
In a June 11, 2019 op-ed in the Washington Post, Klain warned that the Supreme Court could overrule Roe v. Wade and “impose nationwide restrictions on abortion — even in pro-choice states — in the name of ‘fetal rights.’” During the campaign, Biden pledged to enact sweeping federal protections for unlimited abortion access in a bid to preclude future state limitations being placed on the practice.
Biden also made appointments to critical health care positions during the coronavirus pandemic. He tapped Vivek Murthy to be Surgeon General after he served in the position from Dec., 2014 until the end of Obama’s presidency.
Murthy supported the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate; at his confirmation hearing in 2014, he was asked by Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) if he believed “contraception coverage should be mandatory regardless of religion.”
Murthy did not confirm or deny that, but answered that “I respect people’s individual beliefs and religious beliefs” and that as surgeon general he would “bring the science, not just to the public, but to legislators as well” to make policy decisions.
On the subject of vaccine mandates, Murthy spoke out in 2015 of the need for parents to vaccinate their children against diseases such as measles and expressed concern about the spread of disease in areas where large religious communities refuse vaccinations.
“When you’re in a pocket with low vaccination rates, that’s when you find yourself at greater risk of getting measles,” Murthy said in an interview with CBS News.
Biden has also tapped two other Catholics as cabinet heads—Gen. Lloyd Austin who, if confirmed, would serve as the first Black Defense Secretary, and Denis McDonough, former White House chief of staff under Obama, to serve as Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
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To call this sect a Church is not a proper Catholic understanding of the word. It is a non Christian sect. To call it simply “non trinitarian religion” is insufficient. It leaves the only impression that it’s Christian just not Trinitarian.
It’s proper to express condolences but to pray for a man of a different religion is problematic.
“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” (Matt 5:44). Not that he was an enemy. But, there you go. You are correct, however, about “Church.” The LDS is not a “Church” in any truly Catholic sense; not even sure it’s an “ecclesial communion,” as the Mormon understanding of God and Christ are both deeply lacking and wrong.
Nice to know you are an expert on what God the Father knows or believes, or that one religion in which you know very little of could be the wrong one. The Nicene Creed destroyed scholarly study of scripture, deleting and dismissing entire passages based upon the desires of a pagan leader in Constantine. So you easily dismiss what we LDS faithful consider in our faith as Christ Himself actually set in place after the resurrection…that’s mighty narcissistic and vain of you to think that the corruption of the faith that draws nearer to Christ with their lips but still have their hearts far from Him, with grandeur and extreme opulence, fine garments and vainness, political gain and an army corps of pediphilics preying on vulnerable young boys and men…what hubris! Sure, The LDS church has some issues in it’s past, and even if you don’t believe our doctrine or tenets are “correct,” but still the Catholic church takes the cake when it comes to abuse of wealth, association with socialist and communist dogma, and even a strong connection with Nazism, not to mention the forced conversion of non-Catholics during the dark-ages, the crusades and inquisition. If one is forced to believe, do they truly believe? Does anyone really need a cleric to commune with God? Believe as you will, but remember…you open it up to criticism of your own faith when you attack another’s. I could give a fig what Catholics believe…I know that our Heavenly Father will sort it out…not a man.
“So you easily dismiss what we LDS faithful consider in our faith as Christ Himself actually set in place after the resurrection”
An idea with which you agree in principle, since you are so easily dismissing what we Catholic faithful believe that Christ Himself actually set in place after the Resurrection.
“The Nicene Creed destroyed scholarly study of scripture, deleting and dismissing entire passages based upon the desires of a pagan leader in Constantine.”
Flapdoodle. And the more so since it is coming from a man the founder of whose religion created his “scripture” from a hodgepodge of the King James version of the Bible and several works of fiction.
“that’s mighty narcissistic and vain of you”
Someone whose sect believes that members will become gods and form and create their own worlds is not really in a position to accuse anybody of narcissism and vanity.
“Does anyone really need a cleric to commune with God?”
For Holy Communion, yes, one does.
“I could give a fig what Catholics believe”
Which of course is why you came galloping into a Catholic board to pitch a hissy fit and throw insults because people on it have stated the plain fact that Mormon beliefs are not those of Christianity, however much they may borrow words from Christianity and then change their meanings.
“the Catholic church takes the cake when it comes to abuse of wealth”
By which you mean what? Give me examples. The Catholic Church has founded and supported charities, hospitals, schools, and many other things.
“association with socialist and communist dogma,”
Again, what exactly do you mean? That’s a nice, general statement that means nothing. Do you mean because the Church encourages sharing one’s wealth with those less fortunate?
” and even a strong connection with Nazism,”
What connection? The Nazis hated the Church, hated the Pope, and persecuted Catholics.
” not to mention the forced conversion of non-Catholics during the dark-ages,”
There were some forced conversions, and that was wrong.
“the crusades”
The Crusades were an attempt to retrieve the Holy Land from the people who took it by military force. They were not a bad thing in and of themselves.
“and inquisition.”
Which Inquisition do you mean? Against the Albigensians? The Roman Inquisition? The Spanish Inquisition? Be specific, so that your accusations can be addressed, instead of flinging words in randomly.
” an army corps of pediphilics preying on vulnerable young boys and men”
There is no “army corps” of pedophiles. There are some priests who have committed horrible sins, against the teachings of the Church. What they have done is evil. It is a sad fact that people sin.
Your founder, Joseph Smith, however, introduced, as an official tenet of Mormonism, polygamy, and convinced some of his “wives” (some of whom were already married to other men) to “marry” him by telling them that they must to secure their and their families’ salvation (Helen Mar Kimball) or by saying that he himself would be killed by an angel if he didn’t commit polygamy. Strange how so many manmade religions seem to include the idea on the founder’s part that “Cool! I get to have sexual intercourse with as many women as I want!” So, someone whose church had an official policy of promoting evil doesn’t exactly have any standing to criticize the Church because some Catholics sin.
The first Mormon who befriended me was called ‘Tiny’ late seventyish so tall he often dangled his left leg out the pickup window pistol on the dashboard and had a girlfriend. Ramah NM my new mission was built on property he sold to the Franciscans inquired where to find him told the saloon. He invite me for a drink. Baptists called drinking Mormons Jack Mormons. They were the only kind around most tough ranchers from Texas. Tiny was delighted to have a priest in the area and said he would like to ring the church bell on Sundays. His horse Hank roaming free at night would tap on my rectory steps until I appeared. Tiny burst in one day as was his wont with just cut beautiful bark timber for my altar. Needless to say I loved the old guy. I can’t say as much for the non Jack Mormon Mormons who tried to proselytize my parishioners except that their towns were neat and clean.