Going into the 2020 Democratic National Convention, party officials released a 60-second digital ad promoting the presumptive nominee’s Catholic faith. The ad shows former Vice President Joe Biden making Pope Francis laugh during a meeting in St Peter’s Basilica and speaking with a group of smiling nuns on a street in Rome. In a voice over, Biden talks about the importance of his Catholic faith and how, for him, the nuns epitomized the Church’s teaching that “we are our brothers’ keeper,” a biblical idea that shapes his liberal politics. The Democratic Convention tweeted the video to its 68,000 followers, saying, “This is the kind of moral conviction we need in the president of the United States.” It will not be the last time the Democrats spotlight Biden’s lifelong Catholicism. A political action committee announced it will spend $50,000 on ads highlighting religious reasons to vote for Biden and the convention featured a nun and a Jesuit priest in high-profile speaking spots. Experts on the historically complicated relationship between American Catholics and evangelicals say this emphasis—primarily aimed at Catholic and mainline Protestant voters—may not help Biden win over white evangelicals, a core part of President Donald Trump’s base. But it also won’t hurt.
“He is viewed as having an authentic faith,” said Richard Mouw, former president of Fuller Theological Seminary and professor of faith and public life. “He may not be the conservative Catholic that a lot of evangelicals would like him to be, but when he talks about his faith, it rings true.”
Mouw was one of the signers of the historic ecumenical document “Evangelicals and Catholics Together,” along with evangelical leaders Chuck Colson, J.I. Packer, and Bill Bright. According to Mouw, the 1994 statement was partly the result of high-level theological discussions about doctrines such as justification by faith, partly the result of political alliances over issues such as abortion, and partly the result of lay evangelicals responding to the heartfelt faith of their Catholic neighbours and co-workers.
Evangelicals might have a similar response to Biden’s religious commitments, Mouw said.
“Most evangelicals didn’t care about the Catholic-Lutheran dialogue on justification. They said I know a Catholic at work and he loves the Lord,” he explained. “People believe Biden’s faith is real. He has a pastoral tone. A lot of evangelicals who support Trump do worry about his mean-spiritedness and the polarization and we’ve been missing that pastoral tone.”

“I go to Mass and I say the rosary.
I find it to be incredibly comforting,” Biden said. 

Mouw told Christianity Today he plans to vote for Biden, despite some qualms about the Democratic Party’s positions on abortion and religious liberty.
These two issues will be the sticking point for many white evangelicals. When it comes to religious outreach, conservative critics of the Democratic candidate will likely argue that Biden is not Catholic enough, according to Baylor University historian Barry Hankins, who has written about evangelical opposition to the first Catholic candidate from a major party, Democrat Al Smith.
In 1928, Smith said he didn’t believe Catholic teaching (at the time) that pluralism and democracy were inherently anti-Christian. He accepted the American set up that separates Church and state—and thought it was a good thing. Many conservative Protestants, looking at authoritarian Catholic regimes in Europe, didn’t believe him. Biden, in some ways, faces the opposite problem. He disagrees with Church teaching on some issues and evangelicals do believe him.
“He’s more serious about his Catholicism than a lot of Catholics are, but he still found his way to the pro-choice position on abortion,” Hankins said. “A lot of Catholic Democrats seem to be in this tension. The autonomy of the individual is kind of central to what their politics are all about and that’s in tension with the social teachings of the Catholic Church.”
In the video, Biden, a Catholic, narrates how once, after having a brief meeting with Pope Francis at St Peter’s Basilica, he departed the Church and ran into a group of religious sisters. These sisters, said Biden in a voice over, “to me, epitomize everything Pope Francis talked about in his homily and what he stands for. About generosity to other people, about reaching out, about making it a point to understand that we are our brother’s keeper.”
Biden said the idea that people have an obligation to look out for one another had been imprinted on him during his Catholic upbringing and “being educated by the nuns.”
“That’s what those lovely women I’m talking to symbolize to me,” said Biden.
He quipped he thought it was a “good omen” to see the sisters, and said the encounter was an “exciting time and it gave me a lot of hope.”
“Personally for me, faith, it’s all about hope and purpose and strength, and for me, my religion is just an enormous sense of solace,” he added.
“I go to Mass and I say the rosary. I find it to be incredibly comforting,” he said.
While Biden has repeatedly profiled his Catholicism during this election campaign, his faith has been a source of controversy over his lengthy political career, and he has endorsed policies that are contrary to Church teaching.
Shortly after his election as vice president, the then-bishop of his hometown of Scranton, PA, rebuked Biden for his views on abortion.
“I will not tolerate any politician who claims to be a faithful Catholic who is not genuinely pro-life,” said Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton in 2008.
“No Catholic politician who supports the culture of death should approach Holy Communion. I will be truly vigilant on this point.”
White evangelicals may also choose not to vote, said Shaun Casey, former director of the US State Department’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs under Secretary John Kerry, and the author of a book about how John F. Kennedy became the first Catholic president despite Protestant opposition.
“There is a growing dissatisfaction among evangelicals with Trump,” Casey said. “They know Trump’s weaknesses: His immorality, his incoherence, his rage and incompetence. But I don’t see it leading them into the Democratic Party.”
Casey said Biden is smart to talk about his Catholicism in the campaign, regardless. It’s a point of personal connection with many voters. And when Biden talks about how his faith formed his character, sustained him in hard times, and taught him kindness and empathy, many will see a stark contrast with Trump.
Richard Mouw has been invited to two sessions and spoken to multiple evangelical leaders who have met with the Democrats. He will join a listening session later this week. Mouw plans to bring up the party’s positions on abortion and religious liberty.
“There are real issues,” he said. “It’s very important that Biden send out a signal that he cares about communities of faith and people of conviction—even convictions that are different from his own.”
Gestures might not be enough to bring evangelicals and a Catholic candidate together, Mouw said, but they won’t hurt.