Eleventh International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

Joe Biden is only the second Catholic elected to the US presidency, but his Catholicism has not received the scrutiny that his Catholic predecessor, John F. Kennedy, received. Many may believe that Biden’s Catholicism is unremarkable or unimportant, but I argue that Biden’s Catholicism will matter for his foreign policies, although not in the way that one might expect. I draw two important distinctions: I differentiate between what Biden thinks and how Biden thinks, and I highlight two channels of influence by which Biden’s Catholic religious cultural heritage could shape the decision-making framework. I argue that Biden’s Catholicism has greater influence on the process rather than the content of his thought, and I argue further that the Catholic intellectual tradition rather than the Catholic doctrinal tradition is the channel through which this influence takes effect. The methodology employed in this investigation can be used to study the influence of different types of religious cultural heritage for other leaders and religions.

Presenters

Brian Muzas
Assistant Professor and Director, the Center for United Nations and Global Governance Studies, School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University, New Jersey, United States