Former Vice President Joe Biden’s pick of California Sen. Kamala Harris on Tuesday as his running mate revived concerns that the Democratic ticket is moving in an anti-religious direction.
“Kamala — another abortion extremist,” said Frank Pavone, a Catholic priest who until recently served on the Trump campaign’s outreach arm to Catholics and anti-abortion voters. Pavone is an outspoken critic of Biden, who is Catholic, arguing that his positions on abortion and religious liberty place him in direct opposition to the teachings of the Catholic faith.
The addition of Harris to the ticket does not help that image in the minds of some Catholic leaders. Harris stirred controversy in 2018 when she proposed that a Trump judicial nominee and member of the Catholic organization the Knights of Columbus might not “fairly and impartially” judge cases because of the organization’s allegiance to the Catholic Church. Among her concerns, shared by Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono, were the organization’s positions on “a woman’s right to choose” and “marriage equality,” both of which the organization opposes.
The Senate rebuked Harris and Hirono after Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse introduced a resolution to do so.
The incident, along with Harris’s longstanding support for abortion, fueled Republican attacks on the ticket for being anti-religious, a tack the Trump campaign has been pursuing aggressively. Vice President Mike Pence, in his first remarks on the Harris announcement, told a crowd of Mormon supporters in Mesa, Arizona, on Tuesday that it was “no surprise” that Biden would choose Harris considering her “radical left” positions on a raft of issues, including abortion.
Prior to Pence’s condemnation, CatholicVote.org, an organization that supports President Trump, released a list of alleged anti-religious activities of congressional Democrats and asked Biden to condemn it. The list included Harris’s remarks on the Knights of Columbus. The organization’s president, Brian Burch, doubled down on these criticisms following the pick.
“It is clear that a Biden-Harris ticket threatens the values Catholics in this country hold most dear,” he said.
Rhode Island Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin, following the Harris announcement, joked on Twitter that the Harris pick left out any possibility of Catholic Democrats in the White House.
“Biden-Harris,” he wrote. “First time in awhile that the Democratic ticket hasn’t had a Catholic on it. Sad.”
