A Catholic bishop in Michigan called President Joe Biden stupid while addressing the discrepancy between the president’s policies and his supposed Catholic faith.
During a lecture given earlier this month at the Cathedral of Mary of the Assumption, Bishop Robert Gruss of the Diocese of Saginaw spoke about Biden, while urging the congregation to forgive him for his “stupidity.”
Gruss brought up Biden’s name while he was trying to make the point that the concept of forgiveness should not only apply to known individuals but to public figures and institutions.
“If you’re harboring bad, negative, resentful feelings towards our president, you’re not free. Otherwise, you’re letting him control you and your thoughts and your words and your actions. And I guarantee that if he is a problem for you, then those thoughts, words, and actions are negative — they’re gonna come out and then we commit sin. That’s what sin is,” he said.
“How many times have you confessed your anger towards the president?” he asked the audience, which burst into laughter.
“I’m serious, I’m not kidding. If you have it, you should be confessing it. Otherwise, you’re not free,” he added.
While on the topic, Gruss spoke about how he feels towards Biden amid his support of abortion, gender ideology and other policies that do not align with the Catholic faith despite claiming to be Catholic.
“I don’t have any anger towards the president. I feel sorry for him. I’m not angry at him, he’s just stupid,” the bishop said.
Biden 'doesn't understand the Catholic faith,' bishop says: 'I'm not angry at him, he's just stupid' https://t.co/c9PxeRn8uR
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Amid laughter from the audience, Gruss went further, saying, “It’s not stupidity in the derogatory way, it’s stupidity in the sense of […] he doesn’t understand the Catholic faith.”
After the event, Gruss faced some controversy regarding the use of the word “stupid.” In a bid to clarify his points, he released a statement, saying, “I was speaking in the context of forgiving the president and any people in government who offend us by their words and actions — that we cannot harbor resentment toward them because in doing so, it would be sinful.”
Apologizing for his choice of words, the bishop said, “I used the word ‘stupid’ in reference to President Biden, recognizing that it was poor judgment in my choice of words. It was not meant to be disparaging, and I apologize.”
Gruss would not be the first top Catholic figure to criticize Biden’s abortion views and religious identity. In 2022, Pope Francis himself described the president’s views on abortion and affiliation to Catholicism as incoherent.
“I leave it to [President Biden’s] conscience and that he speaks to his bishop, his pastor, his parish priest about that incoherence,” Francis said at the time.
