By CNA Staff
Washington D.C., May 7, 2021 / 10:00 am
One U.S. bishop has committed to pray daily for President Joe Biden, because of the president’s pro-abortion policies.
Bishop Joseph Coffey, auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Military Services, U.S.A., has pledged to pray daily for the president. He told EWTN Pro-Life Weekly why the matter is so important to him, in an interview that aired on Thursday night.
“What I would like to say to him, if I could,” Bishop Coffey said, “is that none of us are promised tomorrow. And each day could be the last day on earth, and he has such power as the most important, most powerful man in the world as president.”
“It’s very, very sad, because he said that he is personally opposed to abortion, but wouldn’t want to impose his values on others,” Coffey said of Biden. “Well that makes no sense.”
Biden, he added, has actually “imposed” pro-abortion policies through executive actions. In January, the president repealed the Mexico City Policy, allowing U.S. global health assistance to go to international pro-abortion groups. He also instructed his administration to begin reviewing the Protect Life Rule – the first step toward allowing federal funding of clinics that refer for abortions through the Title X program. The administration in April followed that order by proposing to repeal the pro-life rule.
“That’s exactly what he’s doing, he’s imposing his values on those orders,” Coffey said of Biden’s executive actions on funding pro-abortion groups.
“So for those two reasons, I am committed to praying for this president, that he would change those views,” he told EWTN Pro-Life Weekly.
He emphasized the power both of prayer and of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, in bringing about conversion.
“I always try to remember that whenever I’m preaching on a homily, that those who have had to make a terrible choice that they regret – there’s always redemption, healing, through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, confession. I always stress that,” he said. “And there is always the power of prayer for conversion.”
Bishop Coffey is also episcopal vicar for veterans’ affairs at the archdiocese, and a decorated Navy captain. He told EWTN Pro-Life Weekly that the pro-life cause was close to his heart “for many, many years.”
Coffey said he was 12 years old and one of nine children when the Supreme Court in 1973 struck down state abortion bans in its Roe v. Wade decision, legalizing abortion throughout the United States. His father talked about the issue at the family dinner table the night of the ruling. “That’s when I committed to being a pro-lifer,” Coffey recalled.
He was involved with the group Operation Rescue for years. In 2020, Coffey told the National Catholic Register “We were always peaceful and nonviolent,” adding that he would sit in front of abortion clinics to give sidewalk counselors a chance to reach women as they tried to access the clinic. He was arrested “in about a dozen cities,” he said of his time in Operation Rescue – including one arrest with his mother and several siblings on Good Friday in 1989.
Ordained a priest 25 years ago, Coffey said he prays first for the Holy Father and then the president, at the Prayer of the Faithful during Sunday Mass.
“Throughout various administrations, Republican and Democrat, I have committed to pray for our president every Sunday,” he said. “So I am ramping that up now to pray especially every day for this president, for his conversion, so that he will be more pro-life.”
Biden is just the second Catholic president in U.S. history. While he has taken positions contrary to Church teaching on life and sexuality, the president is still Catholic, Coffey maintained – which makes his positions all the more “tragic.”
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“I think we all hear sometimes ‘he’s no Catholic.’ Well he is. Everyone who is baptized is Catholic,” Coffey said. “That’s why this is so tragic, and that’s why I am asking all Catholics to pray for him, really, every day.”
