On Friday US president Joe Biden made an unexpected visit to Ireland’s most eminent Catholic shrine at Knock during his visit to Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Peace Agreement.
As part of the whistle-stop visit, the President took time to visit his ancestral homes in Co. Louth and Ballina, Co. Mayo, before unexpectedly visiting the shrine of Our Lady of Knock in Knock, about 20 miles from Ballina, on the final day of his four-day tour.
During the visit, which was an unexpected – and late – addition to his itinerary, the second Catholic president of the US took some time to learn about the history of the Shrine and the Marian Apparition of 1879. He also took some time for private prayer at the Apparition Chapel, the spot where locals reported a vision of the Lamb of God, Our Lady, St Joseph and St John the Evangelist in 1879.
With the Shrine closed to visitors for obvious security reasons, he was welcomed by Fr Richard Gibbons, parish priest and rector of Knock Shrine, and Mr. John Conroy, manager of Knock Shrine.
In advance of the visit, Fr Gibbons expressed welcome to the United States’ 2nd Catholic President.
“We are delighted to welcome President Joe Biden to Knock Shrine. This is a huge honour and will be the first visit of a US President to Knock Shrine. The shrine is a special and unique place on the island of Ireland. We have previously been honoured by the visit of Saint John Paul II in 1979 and Pope Francis in 2018. We are delighted to have been included as part of the Presidents personal visits to Mayo.”
During the visit, President Biden was presented with an original stone from the Apparition Wall which has reinforced in recent years after becoming damaged due to pilgrims seeking souvenirs, with some of the stone from original wall kept in storage.
“We were trying to think of what to present to the president that would be meaningful and we thought that something with a physical connection with Knock would be of particular significance to him,” Fr Gibbons explained speaking to RTE, the Irish national broadcaster.
“We have mounted the stone in a presentation case and have no doubt that he will appreciate the significance of it,” he added.
The president, who is public in his Catholic faith, is the second Catholic president of the United States after John F. Kennedy who was also a democrat. JFK also visited Ireland when he was president at a time when the country was much more Catholic. Biden, however, is the first US president to visit Knock.
President Biden, who has supported, in line with his political party, the protection and expansion of “abortion rights” in the US has often encountered criticism for the contradiction between his professed Catholic faith and the pro-active support of public policy that is in opposition to the established teaching of the Church.
He has said he is personally opposed to abortion but does not believe he should impose his views on the rest of society. The President attends weekly Mass, often wears his late son’s rosary on his wrist and regularly speaks about the important role his faith plays in his life.
As recently as April 7th this year, the President stated that “Vice President Harris and I will continue to lead the fight to protect a woman’s right to an abortion, and to make her own decisions about her own health”.
In 2019, President Biden was denied Communion at a Catholic Church in South Carolina, stimulating renewed discussion on the compatibility of a public policy position at odds with Church teaching, particularly in relation to abortion which amounts to the taking of human life.
In advance of the President speaking to the Irish Parliament, Irish Senator Ronan Mullen tweeted: “I celebrate America’s contribution to our peace process and wish today’s event well. In conscience, I cannot attend because of @POTUS aggressive promotion of abortion and his ignoring of recent violent attacks on pro-life centres”
Recently, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) released a doctrinal note “On the Moral Limits to Technological Manipulation of the Human Body”, which reinforces the Church’s teaching that “the human person, body and soul, man or woman has a fundamental order and finality whose integrity must be respected” and that surgical or chemical interventions to feminise or masculinise the body “do not respect the fundamental order of the human person”.
Ten days after this document was released on “Transgender Day of Visibility” Biden criticised “extremists [who] are advancing hundreds of hateful and extreme state laws that target transgender kids and their families” placing himself at odds with the Catholic Bishops’ understanding of human dignity, a concept he referenced numerous times on his visit to Ireland.
After his visit to Knock, President Biden departed from nearby Ireland West Airport Knock which was built in the 1980’s primarily through the efforts and vision of Monsignor James Horan, parish priest at Knock Shrine from 1967 to his death in Lourdes in 1986.
(Photo: President Joe Biden and Father Richard Gibbons share an umbrella as President Biden touches the original stone from the apparition gable in the rain during a visit to Knock Shrine, on April 14, 2023, on the last day of a four-day trip to Northern Ireland and Ireland. | Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
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