{"id":49112,"date":"2021-01-22T15:21:51","date_gmt":"2021-01-22T22:21:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/biden-goes-to-st-matthews-before-inauguration\/"},"modified":"2021-01-22T22:21:51","modified_gmt":"2021-01-22T22:21:51","slug":"biden-goes-to-st-matthews-before-inauguration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/biden-goes-to-st-matthews-before-inauguration\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden goes to St. Matthew\u2019s before inauguration"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"President-elect
President-elect Joe Biden and Jill Biden pray Wednesday at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle.<\/span>Jabin Botsford\/Washington Post<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Biden, just the second Catholic to become president of the United States, is deeply religious and attends Mass every Sunday, referring to his faith as \u201call about hope and purpose and strength.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though he supports abortion and other actions that go against church doctrine, Biden has said his Catholic faith has given him hope during the darkest times in his life, especially after his wife and young daughter were killed in a car crash just days before he became a U.S. senator in 1973.<\/p>\n

\u201cFaith sees best in the dark,\u201d he said in a campaign ad last year.<\/p>\n

St. Matthew\u2019s, less than a mile away from the White House, is the seat of the archdiocese of Washington and important symbol of Catholicism in American political life.<\/p>\n

The funerals for President John F. Kennedy, the nation\u2019s first Catholic president, and Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist were held there. In 2015, Pope Francis delivered a homily there during his trip to Washington. When he was vice president, Biden would sometimes quietly drop in for Mass.<\/p>\n

Biden arrived there Wednesday just before 9 a.m. with his wife, Jill, the flashing lights of police and security vehicles illuminating a cold morning. Inside, they were met by Congressional leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Charles Schumer.<\/p>\n

Soon-to-be Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, also attended.<\/p>\n

The Rev. Kevin O\u2019Brien, the president of Santa Clara University, delivered the homily.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet all of us hear the good news today: The Lord is near, so no need to worry or to be afraid,\u201d O\u2019Brien said. \u201cOne of the surest signs of God\u2019s nearness to us are the people whom God sends our way.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien also offered a reminder of \u201cthe Lord\u2019s promise, so beautifully proclaimed in the second reading from Paul\u2019s letter to the Philippians (chapter 4, verses 4-9): \u2018The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. \u2026 Then the God of peace will be with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sean Riley, a 39-year-old flight attendant and parishioner at St. Matthew\u2019s, waited early in the morning to get into the service.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m honored and excited,\u201d Riley said. \u201cI can\u2019t wait to be a part of history.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Washington Post\u2019s Hannah Natanson contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President-elect Joe Biden and Jill Biden pray Wednesday at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle.Jabin Botsford\/Washington Post Biden, just the second Catholic to become president of the United States, is deeply religious and attends Mass every Sunday, referring to his faith as \u201call about hope and purpose and strength.\u201d Though he supports abortion and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-49112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49112"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=49112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}