"We, not the Senate, were all he cared about … Five years later, we married my mom, Jill. Together they rebuilt our family.""So even though Dad worked in Washington, he's never been part of Washington. He always sounded like the kid from Scranton, Pa., he is. And even that is a story of overcoming."
Shedding light on that Catholic "kid from Scranton," Biden once affirmed:
"The animating principle of my faith, as taught to me by church and home, was that the cardinal sin was abuse of power. It was not only required as a good Catholic to abhor and avoid abuse of power, but to do something to end that abuse."
As with Senator Obama, Biden views faith as an "active, palpable agent"; you can't just talk about values, you have to "do something" to realize those values. This approach helps explain Biden’s leadership in ending abuse in homes around our country by writing the Violence Against Women Act, which has allowed countless women to restart their lives after domestic violence. Joe Biden’s faith has also informed his advocacy on issues such as genocide, universal health care, equal pay, and helping America's struggling work force. By promoting policies that value and strengthen families, as well as advancing a tough, smart, and principled foreign policy, his life's work contains the raw spirit of faith in action.
As Biden works to support American families and causes in this campaign and as the next Vice President, he’ll continue to draw strength from his faith and his roots.As Alexia Kelley, director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, noted:
Joe Biden's "Catholic and working class roots have been a source of solidarity for him with hard-working American families who are suffering the most from the current economic crisis."
Joe Biden gets it because his iife wasn't easy, either. In the words of C.S. Lewis, he went through moments of difficulty and crisis "not without pain, but without stain." When Biden went to Washington, he sought to end the abuse of power, empowering Americans in the process. Speaking on his personality, Doug Kmiec, a professor at Pepperdine University, related, "You can't find a more regular guy than Joe Biden. He would be the kind of guy you would expect to find in the parish hall, in the neighborhood." Not as someone running to be Vice President of the United States.
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