It took California fires to cancel Biden’s meeting with Pope

The severity of the fires in California has prompted US President Joe Biden to cancel his planned trip to Italy, where he was due to meet the Pope today. In fact, a White House memo announced that Biden would remain in the United States "to focus in the coming days on managing the overall federal response" to the dramatic wildfires that are devastating the Los Angeles area, with several deaths already recorded and tens of thousands of people evacuated.

The fact that natural causes have prevented such a visit, however, does not detract from the seriousness of a papal audience - scheduled for 10 January -  to the same Joe Biden for a final parade who, for the last four years, has been the world's greatest promoter of the murder of innocents in the womb and their depravity through LGBT ideology. The incredible Vatican decision parallels the politically motivated decision to appoint Cardinal Robert McElroy, a promoter of declared heresies, to head the diocese of the nation's capital, Washington.  Two clear decisions against President-elect Donald Trump, the American Republicans, as well as a serious discourtesy to Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who will lead the opening prayer at Trump's inauguration on 20 January.

Right up to the last days of his term, the "Catholic" Biden chose to demonstrate his inconsistency on the issue of respect for human dignity by awarding several honours to well-known personalities and activists who are publicly committed to promoting the murder of the innocent, the depravity of children and the LGBT ideology. Among them is historic feminist and pro-abortion activist Eleanor Smeal, who was awarded the US Presidential Citizens Medal for her efforts. The award is given to US citizens who have 'performed exemplary acts of service to their country or their fellow citizens', according to a White House statement on 2 January. The 'award' comes after Biden, the nation's second 'Catholic' president, last November awarded the 'Presidential Medal of Freedom' to former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards, the architect and coordinator of four million abortions during her 12 years at the helm of the multinational Planned Parenthood corporation.

Smeal is president of the Feminist Majority Foundation and former president of the National Organisation for Women (NOW). Smeal led the first national march for abortion rights in Washington, DC in 1986, which drew more than 100,000 demonstrators, and although she was raised in the Catholic faith, since 1987 she has also been 'critical of the Vatican and the Church for its teachings on the sanctity of life, its opposition to birth control, and its teachings on human sexuality'. Smeal also openly opposed Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito because of his Catholic faith when President George W. Bush nominated him in 2005.

But Biden did not stop there. On 5 January, he sought to 'further manifest' his character as a mature Catholic by awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House - among 19 of the most famous names in politics, sports, entertainment, civil rights, LGBTQ+ advocacy and science - to two princelings of the promotion of abortion and the worst anti-human, anti-Christian ideologies: former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Democratic philanthropist George Soros.

For the last time as President, I have the honour of presenting the Medal of Freedom, our nation's highest civilian honour, to a group of extraordinary, truly extraordinary people who have dedicated their sacred commitment, their sacred effort, to shaping America's culture and its cause,' Joe Biden said in his opening remarks. The White House said the Medal of Freedom recipients had made 'exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, to world peace, or to other significant social, public, or private endeavours'.

The Biden administration has been arguably the most pro-abortion administration in US history, working through executive orders, the issuance of administrative rules by federal officials, and many other State Department processes and lawsuits to defend the pro-abortion and LGBT agenda in the US and around the world.

In the face of all this, and despite the fact that Pope Francis has repeatedly spoken out in strong terms against abortion and those who provoke it, the Vatican seems more concerned with emphasising its distaste for the incoming Trump administration. The fires in California have cancelled the last catwalk to the world's biggest promoter of abortion, but not the gravity of such an invitation.