Biden Proved Me Wrong

Jill and Joe at Beau’s funeral.

I didn’t expect it either. I condemned Biden as a spent geezer in 2020. The experiences of his life just seemed at steep odds with those of most voters. 

When Biden grew up, Jim Crow ruled the South. Banks wouldn’t lend to women. He was in his 50s before he saw the World Wide Web.

But Biden has proved me wrong over and over. Hope comes from unexpected corners, and this time it’s in the person of a grief-stricken old Catholic with a lifetime of losses who decided to keep faith in this broken country. 

An idea from progressive Catholic theology continues to be useful in thinking about Biden: pater patitur—the father suffers.

It goes like this: A father figure, divine or otherwise, isn’t meant to relieve our suffering. Nor should he suffer for us, which implies condescension. And he certainly shouldn’t inflict suffering on us.

Biden’s rival, who publicly incites violence and has sexually harassed his daughter Ivanka and reportedly knocked his son Don to the floor, is an abusive father, an inflictor of pain and trauma. 

But the father’s job is otherwise. It is to suffer with us, and to help us through.

We’ve seen this gracious and ultimately progressive model of fatherhood from Biden in his astonishingly successful first term as American president.