In a secular age with an overwhelmingly secular media, cultural, and academic elite, there’s a strange remnant of old-time religion in America’s upper echelons: the baby boomer Democratic politicians who now run the country.
So, on Wednesday’s inauguration, when the party increasingly controlled by the secular Left took control of the White House, the ceremony marking the transition was nevertheless very Christian. Catholic, in fact.
Joe Biden, of course, is the first Catholic president in the lifetime of most living U.S. residents. While Biden, in his policies, rejects core Catholic teachings, in his living, he wears his faith on his sleeve. This showed on Inauguration Day.
Biden came to the inauguration from St. Matthew’s Cathedral. The invocation was delivered by Fr. Leo O’Donovan, the former president of Georgetown University and the priest who presided over Beau Biden’s funeral Mass.
Lady Gaga, who was raised a Catholic and is still vocal about her belief in God, wore on her shirt a massive golden dove that carried a branch of olive leaves. While much of social media compared the brooch to a mockingjay brooch worn by a character in The Hunger Games, the dove with an olive branch is a traditional peace offering. It’s also a profound symbol in both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles.
As told in Genesis, a dove flying with an olive leaf was the first sign to Noah that the flood was receding. And in the New Testament, the dove represents the Holy Spirit.
The oversized Christian imagery didn’t end there. Biden was sworn in with a massive Bible whose clasps had ornate crosses carved out of them.
Biden mentioned God within the first minute of his address and invoked St. Augustine’s definition of love. He quoted Psalm 30: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
Even Biden’s pop-culture references were religious. He cited Norah Jones’s “American Anthem,” quoting, “The work and prayers of centuries have brought us to this day.” And he added, “Let us add our own work and prayers to the unfolding story of our great nation.”
“Amazing Grace” was the final song of the day, and when it came time to memorialize the 400,000 people in America killed by the coronavirus, Biden deviated from the contemporary secular “moment of silence.” He called on the country to provide something more specific.
“My first act as president,” Biden said, “I’d like to ask you to join me in a moment of silent prayer to remember all those who we lost this past year to the pandemic” and for the nation.
That moment of silent prayer was precisely the length of a Hail Mary.
