Joe Biden is an American politician well-known for his role as the 47th Vice President of the United States. Being in the spotlight; many people wonder about his religious beliefs – so, what religion is Joe Biden?
Joe Biden is a practising Catholic. As a boy, he started his education at the Holy Rosary grade school in Philadelphia before later going on to the Archmere Academy all-boys Catholic school in Delaware.
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1942. No stranger to the American political scene, he is a six-term senator, currently living in Delaware and was first elected back in 1972. He became the 47th vice president to Barack Obama in 2009, holding the post until 2017
In a recent interview with NPR, Biden admitted that that was where he wanted to go to high school from the first time he got close to the 10 foot high wrought iron fence enclosing the campus with its so-called yellow brick road leading to the buildings.
Biden’s first marriage
At the age of 23, Joe Biden was awarded a bachelor’s degree with a double major in history and political science at the University of Delaware in 1965. It was in 1964 while on a spring break in the Bahamas that he began courting Neilia Hunter. Her parents weren’t overly enamored with the idea of their daughter marrying a Catholic, but marry they did in 1966 while Biden was still a law student
Tragically Neilia was killed in an auto accident in 1972, but not before previously having given birth to three children, Beau, Robert Hunter, and Naomi. Sadly, tragedy has dogged Joe Biden. His one-year-old daughter, Naomi, was killed in the same auto accident that took his wife. His two sons survived the accident, but Beau was to die in 2015 at the age of 46 after he lost a two year battle with brain cancer.
Biden wears a rosary in remembrance of son Beau
In memory of his son, Joe Biden wears a rosary on his left wrist. It was a gift to Beau from younger son Robert. The beads came from Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico. To this day, the 77-year-old senator and probable presidential candidate in the 2020 electoral race has reportedly never taken the rosary off.
Biden married for a second time to Jill Tracy Jacobs. They met in 1975 and were later married in 1977 by a Catholic priest at the United Nations Chapel in New York. Together, they have one child, a daughter, Ashley, Blazer, born in 1981.
Biden diced with death
Biden’s run with bad luck resurfaced again in 1988 when he suffered two brain aneurisms. He underwent life-saving surgery on one aneurism at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in February. With Lady Luck still giving him a bad time, during recuperation, he had a pulmonary embolism. He survived and went on to have another operation in May of that year to remove the second aneurism.
Biden’s religious beliefs tested
Joe Biden’s journey with Catholicism has not been an easy one. After the death of his first wife and daughter in 1972, he questioned his faith. Not only that but because of his support for abortion rights, he was denied communion by Father Robert Morey of Saint Anthony Catholic Church, Florence, South Carolina, who said that any public figure advocating for abortion put himself outside church teachings. Biden responded by saying it was a private matter.
In matters of associated religion, Biden has been honored by the World Jewish Congress with regard to his work helping Israel and the Jewish people. All of his children, saving Naomi, of course, married Jewish partners. He once said in 2106 that if he was to switch religions, he knew where he would be headed.