The double standards on William Barr and Joe Biden

William Barr, who is leaving his post as Attorney General of the United States, resumed federal executions after a 17 year lapse and has helped push through a series of state executions during President Donald Trump’s final days in office. 

Barr was also the highest-ranking Catholic to serve in the Trump administration. Less than three months ago, he was fêted by a group called the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast who said he had displayed “exemplary Christlike” behaviour and in remarks prepared for that event Charles Chaput, the retired Archbishop of Philadelphia, praised Barr for having “a thinking Catholic brain, a character of substance and a moral spine.” 

The outgoing Attorney General was honoured despite his public and brazen defiance of Church teaching on the death penalty. The catechism states that the use of capital punishment “is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” and it is something Pope Francis has consistently opposed. He ordered an amendment of the catechism to reflect this teaching for the same reason that the Church opposes abortion: it is the deliberate destruction of human life. 

“What is Christlike about a Catholic believer using his discretionary power as Attorney General to undertake a series of speedy federal executions?” asked Sister Helen Prejean, a long time campaigner against the death penalty whose death row ministry was dramatised in the film Dead Man Walking. “In contrast, those in power before him for 17 years chose not to seek death.”

But compare Barr’s treatment by some of the Church hierarchy in the United States with that of President-elect Joseph Biden, only the second Catholic to be elected to the highest office in the land.  

Before Biden has even set foot in the White House and the United States Bishops’ Conference have effectively put him under investigation. A working group has been established to examine Biden’s position on abortion rights, while Archbishop Chaput says the incoming president should be denied communion. Another bishop even questioned whether Biden is a Catholic. It is likely that attacks the new president, a regular Mass goer, are likely to increase, and he will continued to be denied the Eucharist. 

Biden is personally opposed to abortion, although supports policies which protect a woman’s legal right to have a termination. His position conflicts with Church teaching which states abortion laws must be resisted. Catholic supporters of Biden describe his position on abortion as profoundly disappointing, but that he remains a Catholic in good standing. 

By contrast with some of the US bishops the Pope, who has met Biden on a number of occasions, has shown he is willing to work with the president. As is Cardinal Wilton Gregory, who Francis chose to lead the Archdiocese of Washington DC and who is opposed to denying Biden communion. Soon after his election, the Pope enraged the powerful, culture warrior elite in the US church by saying “we cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods.”

He explained: “The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently.”

Francis does not hold back when it comes to opposing abortion, having compared it to hiring a hitman on more than one occasion. But he does not see the issue primarily as a religious matter, but one of human ethics. In this insightful article, the writer DW Lafferty proposes a new modus operandi for the pro-life movement in the US drawing on the Pope’s latest encyclical Fratelli Tutti. 

Meanwhile, on 14 December, Biden gave a speech where he drew on the resources of his faith to call for reconciliation. Quoting the St Francis prayer, he appealed for unity instead of discord, faith rather than doubt and light instead of darkness. After a bitter presidential election campaign, which saw repeated attacks on his family, Biden has refused to engage in a partisan vindictiveness. He is taking the biblical injunction to “turn the other cheek” seriously, while his plans to tackle poverty, protect the planet and support migrants show a commitment to other pro-life concerns.

The bishops and politicised clergy wanting to deny Biden communion ignore all of this. They also refuse to hold Barr to the same standard. No-one has argued that Barr should be turned away at the altar rails. 

Barr’s support of capital punishment is not the only area of policy which runs counter to pro-life issues. He was silent about the policy of “legal” separation of children from their parents at the US-Mexico border, a policy which the Pope described as “cruelty of the highest form”, and issued a ruling making it more likely for asylum-seekers to remain detained while their cases are being processed. 

Last summer, he ordered anti-racism protestors be cleared from outside the White House so the president could walk to St John’s Episcopal Church and be photographed holding a Bible, a move which was widely condemned by church leaders. The following day, Trump visited the shrine of John Paul II in Washington DC, which is run by the Knights of Columbus, a conservative lay Catholic group of which Barr was once a board member. Washington DC’s cardinal condemned Trump’s visit for allowing a Catholic facility to be “misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles.” 

Barr and his supporters will undoubtedly vigorously defend his actions as upholding the law. They will also argue that Biden’s support for abortion is far worse than anything Barr has done. 

But as we approach the Christmas season, it is worth asking whether Trump’s top legal officer would have approved the separation of the infant Jesus from Joseph and Mary on the grounds they were undocumented migrants. The wildly divergent responses to Barr and Biden show that without consistency, the pro-life cause rapidly loses credibility.