WILMINGTON (CNS): Pope Francis called president-elect Joe Biden early on November 12 to congratulate him on winning the United States (US) presidential election.
“The president-elect thanked His Holiness for extending blessings and congratulations and noted his appreciation for His Holiness’s leadership in promoting peace, reconciliation and the common bonds of humanity around the world,” said a readout on the call released by Biden’s transition team in Wilmington, Delaware. It also was all over Twitter.
It said Biden “expressed his desire to work together on the basis of a shared belief in the dignity and equality of all humankind on issues such as caring for the marginalised and the poor, addressing the crisis of climate change and welcoming and integrating immigrants and refugees into our communities.”
Incumbent president, Donald Trump, still has not conceded, and has chosen to litigate in key battleground states, like Pennsylvania, disputing the election outcome, claiming voter fraud and irregularities in ballot counting.
However, Associated Press reported that a coalition of federal and state officials and cyber security experts declared in a November 12 statement that there was no evidence to support the unsubstantiated claims of Trump and his supporters. The statement called the election “the most secure in American” history.
Biden has garnered 290 electoral votes, more than the required 270, to win the presidency, while Trump’s count stands at 217. He also won the popular vote by a margin of more than five million with a percentage of 50.8 the highest since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932.
Biden first met Pope Francis in 2013 when he was vice president to president Barack Obama. In 2015, Biden and Obama welcomed Pope Francis to Washington, where he addressed a joint meeting of Congress September 24 of that year.
Then-vice president also met Pope Francis’ predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, including a meeting in the pope’s Vatican office 3 June 2011.
In a campaign speech in Warm Springs, Georgia, on October 27, Biden referenced Pope Francis’ encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, as he talked about the need to heal the country as it faces the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic and an economic crisis.
“Pope Francis warns us against this phony populism that appeals to the basest and most selfish instinct. He goes on to say politics is more noble than posturing, marketing and media spin. These sow nothing but division, conflict and bleak cynicism,” Biden said in his remarks.
“He (the pope) said for those who seek to lead, we do well to ask ourselves why am I doing this? Why? What is my real aim? Pope Francis asked questions that anyone who seeks to lead this great nation should be able to answer. And my answer is this: I run to unite this nation and to heal this nation,” Biden said.
