Introduction : Catholicism and public life in the United States -- Four Catholic candidates : from Al Smith (1928) to Joe Biden (2020) -- The White House, American Catholics, and Francis's Vatican -- The Catholic crisis of globalization : religion and politics in America -- Biden between the past and the future of American Catholicism

A powerful examination of the role of Catholicism in U.S. politics and in the life of Joseph R. Biden. After a dramatic election amid a raging pandemic, racial violence, economic collapse and historic national divisions that have threatened our democracy, Joe Biden succeeds Donald Trump as the 46th President of the United States. For Catholics, this is a momentous occasion in US public life, as he is the second Catholic to be elected to the nation's highest office, joining John Fitzgerald Kennedy. In 2021, Joe Biden becomes president in a very different situation than Kennedy's America. Today, Catholics play a much broader and more visible role in the public life of our country, and the triangle of relations between the White House, the Vatican, and the US Catholic Church is an essential dimension for understanding the political and religious urgency of this moment in our history. In this ground-breaking book, historian and theologian Dr. Massimo Faggioli provides an insightful overview of Catholicism in US politics, and its place as an anchor in the life of the man elected to lead the country at a decisive crossroads, an unprecedented moment in US history