Michigan bishop: Biden doesn’t understand the Catholic faith, he is stupid

RELIGIONS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – A Catholic bishop in Michigan weighed in on the discrepancy between President Biden’s policies and his professed Catholic faith earlier this month.

Fox News reported the bishop suggested “forgiveness” for the president’s “stupidity.”

Making speach at the”Forgiveness as the Heart of Christianity,” on Apr. 5 at the Cathedral of Mary of the Assumption, Bishop Robert Gruss mentioned Biden.

“How many times have you confessed your anger towards the president?” the bishop asked, provoking unintended laughter from the audience. But the bishop continued, “I’m serious, I’m not kidding. If you have it, you should be confessing it. Otherwise, you’re not free.”

Gruss compared persistent anger and resentment to a “ball and chain” that harms the self more than the other.

Reflecting on his own feelings towards Biden — who has embraced a public affiliation with Catholicism while also supporting abortion, gender ideology, and other policies contrary to Church teaching — the bishop said he pities him.

“I don’t have any anger towards the president. I feel sorry for him. I’m not angry at him, he’s just stupid,” Gruss said.

“It’s not stupidity in the derogatory way, it’s stupidity in the sense of […] he doesn’t understand the Catholic faith.”

Gruss’ comments are only the latest example of Catholic prelates’ increasingly vocal opposition to Biden’s self-professed Catholic identity.

Following heated debate about the appropriateness of the bishop’s remarks, the Diocese of Saginaw released a statement about the talk in which Gruss clarified his points.

“I was speaking in the context of forgiving the president and any people in government who offend us by their words and actions — that we cannot harbor resentment toward them because in doing so, it would be sinful,” Gruss said.

Gruss did apologize for using the word “stupid” to refer to the president, saying he should have chosen a more precise word.

“I used the word ‘stupid’ in reference to President Biden, recognizing that it was poor judgment in my choice of words,” Gruss said. “It was not meant to be disparaging, and I apologize.”

Pope Francis himself has previously commented on Biden’s “incoherence” on the abortion issue as a professed Catholic.

“I leave it to [President Biden’s] conscience and that he speaks to his bishop, his pastor, his parish priest about that incoherence,” the pope remarked in 2022.