Ryan v. Biden, the Catholic ‘Thrilla in Manila’
Melinda Henneberger of The Washington Post examines the religious lives of vice president candidates, Joe Biden and Paul Ryan. Henneberger argues that Biden and Ryan represent a division in the American Catholic approach to politics. Henneberger writes, “[They] also almost perfectly embody the split in the American church as well as in American politics, with Biden representing the old-school, union-tied, Vatican II generation of Kennedy-loving Catholics whose focus is social justice and who are comfortable with questioning … Ryan, meanwhile, upholds the younger, more conservative, John Paul II-era, anti-abortion-focused Catholicism of the sonogram generation.”