Mr. Biden, we hope you are listening. . .

Mary Tedeschi Eberstadt is an American essayist, novelist, and author of several books of nonfiction. Her writing has appeared in publications including Quillette, TIME, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, National Review, First Things, The Weekly Standard, and other venues. In March 2017, she was named senior research fellow at the Faith & Reason Institute.  She is an American essayist, novelist, and author of several books of nonfiction. Her writing has appeared in publications including Quillette, TIME, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, National Review, First Things, The Weekly Standard, and other venues. Since March 2017, she has been senior research fellow at the Faith & Reason Institute.  She is a journalist of some note.

So why mention Mary Eberstadt?  She has spoken out rather clearly to the Biden administration in the areas of life, gender, and religious freedom.  I commend her for it.  She insists on the common wisdom that you are the company you keep.  Biden the Roman Catholic keeps insisting the importance of the faith (at least a private one), the value of life (at least outside the womb vs his comments on the death of George Floyd), and the family (albeit a family whose definition comes from cultural change more than anything else).  But his credibility is questioned because he keeps company with those who refuse to give any value to life in the womb, with those who view faith with suspicion or even amusement presuming religious people to be ignorant, and with those who fall all over themselves to embrace every new invention of gender but whose poisonous words disdain toxic masculinity or femininity content to raise children in the home.

The problem with Biden's picture of himself as a devout Roman Catholic is that he has surrounded himself with people who view orthodox Christianity in general as misogynistic, homophobic, and patriarchal.  It is very hard to hear anything from this administration except what the loudest voices say.  They are the ones who dismiss every argument for the protection of life in the womb, for the freedom not simply of private worship but religion and its voice in the public square, and for the binary shape of gender inherent in everything and humanity according to God's will and purpose.

Furthermore, there has been little effort to engage anyone who disagrees with those loud voices.  Biden promised detente with his political opponents and said he intended to find a way forward to unite what had been divided.  But his operating strategy has done exactly the opposite.  He is vilified his opponents exactly the way Trump did -- if not through his own voice then through the voices of those loud voices who stand for the things Biden once did but now seems to reject.

Mr. President, we pray for you every week in the Divine Service.  We only wish we knew that you were open to hearing voices from orthodox Christianity in addition to the progressive and liberal voices in your administration and in Congress.  We only wish that you heard arguments on both sides of the moral issues of this day.  We only wish that the Biden who bows his head in prayer at mass would show up in the Oval Office, White House, and press briefing room once in a while.  We will keep praying for you but you need to know why we are suspicious.