(ZENIT News / Dublin, 18.04.2023).- President Biden’s Great Grandfather, Edward Blewitt, came from Ballina, County Mayo, northwest Ireland, which lies at the mouth of the River Moy near Killala Bay, in the Moy valley and Parish of Kilmoremoy, with the Ox Mountains to the east and the Nephin Beg mountains to the west. Edward Blewitt helped to build the cathedral of Saint Muredach and emigrated to the United States with his wife and children during the first half of the 19th century.
On Friday, April 14, the U.S. President visited the Shrine of Our Lady of Knock, after meeting with the priest who imparted the last Sacraments to his son Beau Biden, oldest son of his first marriage to Neilia Hunter Biden. Beau Biden didn’t follow in his father’s steps: he was Attorney General of Delaware for two terms and died in 2015 of brain cancer. Joe and the priest prayed a decade of the Rosary for the Biden Family. Then he addressed a crowd in front of the Cathedral of Sant Muredach in Ballina, and spoke about the importance of peace, family and the ties between Ireland and the United States. He was applauded when he said that he and his siblings were brought up with fierce pride in their Irish ancestry.
Tears in the Catholic Shrine of Knock — place of pilgrimage where, according to Catholic tradition, the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph and Saint John the Evangelist appeared near a stone wall in 1879 –, were Biden’s expression of his feelings, although the life of every person is measured not only by feelings but also by actions.
“He spoke to me about his family, its connection with the faith and also of his son. Suddenly and spontaneously, we realized that we have working here the chaplain that administered the last Sacraments to his son [Beau] in the United States,” said the local parish priest, Father Richard Gibbons. And they called Father Frank O’Grady.
A person’s greatest difficulty is to harmonize his feelings with the direction of his steps. After the visit to the Shrine, Biden dug into his past with a stopover at the Genealogical Studies Center in north Mayo, to investigate the history of his ancestors and explore their connections with County Mayo, one of the main points of Irish emigration. Reflection is elicited given the emotional charge of the President’s interest in his Catholic roots and his political decisions in favour of abortion, homosexual marriage and gender ideology.
Before returning to Dublin to fly to Washington, Joe Biden met with relatives in Ballina. We don’t know if he thought of the fact that he has obliged Catholic institutions in the U.S. to have medical insurance for employees, which covers contraceptive and abortive procedures. Or that Father Robert Morey, parish priest of Saint Anthony’s in Charleston, South Carolina, denied him Communion during a Mass for not living in accordance with the rules of the Church.
