Biden candid on abortion and his presidential ambitions

Joe Biden, the first ever Catholic US Vice President, confirmed today that he was no closer to making a decision on whether to run for the Democratic nomination ahead of the 2016 US presidential election.

Speaking exclusively to the Catholic America Magazine, Vice President Biden said that it was a decision for his whole family.

“I’ve known almost every person that’s run for president since I’ve been 29 years old and it all gets down to personal considerations,” he told Fr Matt Malone SJ in a televised interview. “Because you have no right as an individual to decide to run. Your whole family is implicated. Your whole family is engaged. So for us it’s a family decision.”

In the candid half-hour interview, he also discussed his views on abortion, which are at odds with his Democratic Party policy.

“It has been hard in one sense, because I’m prepared to accept de fide doctrine on a whole range of issues as a Catholic… I’m prepared to accept as a matter of faith, my wife and I, my family, [the Church’s teaching on] the issue of abortion. But he added that he is not prepared to “impose” what he considers “a precise view, that is born out of my faith, on other people.”  

Vice President Biden spoke warmly about Pope Francis who he is due to meet when he speaks at a Joint Session of the US COngress on Thursday.

“I got to meet him … he reached out his hand, shook it and said to me, ‘you know, Mr Vice President, you are always welcome here’," Vice President Biden said. "That is the message he is sending to the World.

“He is the embodiment of Catholic social doctrine that I was raised with: the idea that everyone’s entitled to dignity, that the poor should be given special preference, that we have an obligation to reach out and be inclusive.”

“Look at the encyclical on climate change, it’s all about we have responsibilities, we have to husband this planet.”

“I’m excited as a practicing Catholic that the whole world is getting to see what are the basic essential elements what constitutes Catholicism.”