We can tell a lot about a president just by knowing something about his Cabinet picks. This takes on special significance for Catholics when we have a Catholic president.
To begin with, we would expect a Catholic president to be faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church, especially on life and death matters. We would also expect that any Catholics who are chosen to be in his Cabinet would also be loyal sons and daughters of the Church.
Biden fails these tests. He is the most ardent defender of abortion rights ever to become president of the United States. That obviously means that his policies are in direct contradiction to the teachings of the Catholic Church. For the most part, his Catholic Cabinet picks also reflect badly on him. He has eight Catholics in his Cabinet.
Lloyd Austin is Secretary of Defense. He has no public record on the subject of abortion. Denis McDonough is Secretary of Veterans Affairs. He has an uneven record on abortion. The other six are all off-the-charts supporters of abortion rights.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services is Xavier Becerra; Jennifer Granholm is Secretary of Energy; Samantha Power heads the U.S. Agency for International Development; Gina Raimondo is Secretary of Commerce; Tom Vilsack is Secretary of Agriculture; and the Secretary of Labor is Marty Walsh. All of them are abortion-rights extremists.
These are the Catholics who serve in Biden’s Cabinet. Most of them work to reinforce each other’s animus against the Church’s pro-life heritage.
