Democratic vice-presidential presidential candidate Joe Biden declared last year, “One of my avocations is theology.”

But as with the issue of abortion, the Catholic politician is earning failing grades regarding his comprehension of Church teachings about the nature of marriage.

Appearing Oct. 20 on lesbian comedienne Ellen DeGeneres’s talk show, Biden said “that if I lived in California, I would vote against Proposition 8.”

The Catholic League concisely summed up how Biden’s opposition to Proposition 8 —  which would amend the California state constitution to define marriage as only between one man and one woman — contradicts the basic responsibilities of a Catholic politician.

“Proposition 8 is a civil initiative that would secure marriage as an institution that is exclusively between a man and a woman, and Joe Biden told Ellen DeGeneres that he is opposed to that measure,” Catholic League president Bill Donohue said in an Oct. 20 press release. “In other words, Biden did not tell the truth in his debate with Sarah Palin. He cannot logically be opposed to both gay marriage and Proposition 8, but that is exactly what he is trying to get away with. More important, Biden is openly defying both the pope and the bishops.

“Last year, in his Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, Pope Benedict XVI pointedly said the following about people like Joe Biden: ‘Worship pleasing to God can never be a purely private matter…it is especially incumbent upon those who, by virtue of their social or political position, must make decisions regarding fundamental values such as respect for human life, its defense from conception to natural death, the family built upon marriage between a man and a woman….These values are not negotiable.’ (My emphasis.)”

Continued Donohue, “Last year, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship wherein it said that the family based on marriage between a man and a woman ‘should be defended and strengthened, not redefined or undermined by permitting same-sex unions or other distortions of marriage.’”

Said Donohue, “Biden is in a major jam. He needs to hold a press conference explaining his irreconcilable moral positions, and why he has chosen to defy the pope and the bishops.”

— Tom McFeely