On Jan. 20, Joe Biden was inaugurated as president of the United States. About two weeks earlier, on Jan. 3, Congressman Dan Lipinski, the representative from Illinois’ 3rd District, ended his last term in Congress after being defeated in his party primary in March 2020. Both men are baptized Catholics. Both men are members of the Democratic Party, which has historically enjoyed broad Catholic support. Yet in the same month the political career of one man reached its height while that of the other came to an end. An important reason for the difference in the political fortunes of Joe Biden and Dan Lipinski is the different choices each politician has made about how to live his faith and moral beliefs in public life.
Lipinski has been a consistent and principled pro-life voice in the U.S. Congress. He was one of two Democrats to support a ban on abortions after 20 weeks and recently signed a brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. He voted against federal funding for abortion and research which destroys human embryos. He voted to ban abortions based on sex or race, and to ban the transportation of minors across state lines for abortion, a concern in combating sex trafficking.
Biden, on the other hand, has been a vocal supporter of Roe v. Wade throughout his career. A vociferous opponent of appointing pro-life justices to the Supreme Court, he has affirmed on many occasions his support for the “right to choose.” As president he has vowed to codify Roe in federal law – which would transform Roe’s limit on government’s power to ban abortion into a positive “right” to end the life of the child in the womb. The 2020 election found Biden moving even further away from the pro-life position of the Catholic Church as he reversed his long-standing support for the Hyde Amendment, a budget rule which prohibits using taxpayer funds for abortion.
It is no secret that Lipinski’s pro-life stance contributed to his primary defeat at the hands of activists in a Democratic Party increasingly dedicated to abortion-on-demand. Pro-abortion groups like NARAL and Planned Parenthood endorsed and funded his opponent, who characterized Lipinski as an “extremist.” News outlets cast him as a lonely pro-life voice increasingly out of step with his own party.
But in a press conference the morning after his primary loss, he said, “I could never give up protecting the most vulnerable human beings in the world, simply to win an election… My faith teaches, and the Democratic Party preaches, that we should serve everyone, especially the most vulnerable. To stand in solidarity with the vulnerable is to become vulnerable. But there is no higher calling for anyone.”
On the other hand, Biden has long lived by a compromise that has allowed him to rise in his party. At the heart of this compromise is his separation of personal principles from his public life. In the 2012 vice presidential debate, he said that he accepted the teaching of the Catholic Church on abortion: “Life begins at conception. That’s the Church’s judgment. I accept it in my personal life.” Yet he continued: “I just refuse to impose that on others… It’s a decision between them and their doctor, in my view.
And the Supreme Court – I’m not going to interfere with that.” In this approach he follows prominent Democrats like Tim Kaine and Nancy Pelosi who profess the Catholic faith yet disregard the Church’s call for legal protection for the unborn.
When asked why he did not similarly adopt the approach of politicians who separate their personal morals from their public life, Lipinski responded, “if you believe life exists in the womb, you have to support policies that protect that life.”
This expression of consistency between personal belief and public life harmonizes well with the teaching of the Church. St. John Paul II reminded Catholics that even as they live in the world, “There cannot be two parallel lives in their existence: on the one hand, the so-called ‘spiritual life,’ with its values and demands; and on the other, the so-called ‘secular’ life, that is, life in a family, at work, in social responsibilities, in the responsibilities of public life and in culture” (“Christifidelis Laici,” 59).
Catholics can legitimately debate a variety of concrete options for pursuing the common good through politics. Yet we are obliged to stand firm on the fundamental demands of the moral law, rejecting especially the legalization of direct attacks on the human person.
As St. John Paul II wrote: “Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection.” He clarified the obligations of Catholics with respect to these laws: “In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it” (“Evangelium Vitae,” 73).
Biden has crafted a position on abortion that is acceptable to his party and to many voters. It helped him to win the presidency. Lipinski’s pro-life principles cost him his position in Congress. His efforts to protect the vulnerable made him vulnerable. Yet in obeying God rather than men, he has given us a lasting example of Catholic integrity in public life.
Father Peter Ascik is parochial vicar of St. Matthew Church in Charlotte.