WASHINGTON – As pastor of the Holy Trinity Church in Washington, DC, Rev. Kevin Gillespie used to see then Vice President Joe Biden among the faithful on Sundays. And so, when Biden was elected only the nation’s second Roman Catholic president in November, Gillespie checked the parish archives.
“He is a registered parishioner,” Gillespie told NBC News. “I did some research on him. He’s still there. “
It has been decades since the White House occupant regularly attends church. It is hoped that Biden, who has often said that his faith helped him to go through great personal losses, will end this. But amid increased security and an ongoing pandemic, a permanent routine may have to wait.
Biden attended the midday service at the Holy Trinity on Sunday – one of the few that the church is personally conducting during the health crisis. But government officials did not say whether the new president, for whom mass is a family affair, decided which local church he could do in the next four years.
Going to church virtually or having a priest come to the White House to perform socially distant services are among the alternative options under consideration. Although he decides to love it, President and First Lady Jill Biden will likely receive weekly “spiritual encouragements” via text message, as they did during the campaign.
Gillespie is among those who have been in contact with the White House about the adjusted schedule of weekly services of the Holy Trinity – mass in person held on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon and a virtual mass on Sunday morning. He also offered to send one of the parish’s Jesuit priests to the White House to celebrate Mass, if requested.
“It is up to them to say yes or no,” he said.
Bill Clinton was the last president who regularly attended church in Washington while in office and became a member of a local church. He joined the Foundry United Methodist Church, about a kilometer from the White House. Jimmy Carter also joined a church about a kilometer from the White House, attending First Baptist services on 16th Street almost every Sunday during his term.
Donald Trump attended religious services occasionally, including at St. John’s Episcopal Church near the White House, although his most frequent Sunday destination was a golf club he owns in Potomac, Virginia.
Barack Obama also liked to access the links on Sundays, but attended occasional services in different churches in the area, including St. John’s.
George W. Bush was deeply religious, but he did not become a regular church presence while in the White House.
Like his father, George HW Bush, he spent time in the chapel at Camp David, the isolated presidential retreat in Maryland. After 9/11, there were also security concerns, but young Bush attended religious services when he returned to his home state, Texas.
John F. Kennedy, the nation’s first Catholic president, joined St. Matthews in Washington while he was in office and attended church regularly. After the Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy attended a different church, St. Stephen Martyr, because it was smaller and easier to protect. Part of the reason why Kennedy went to church while in the White House was “he thought a president should,” said presidential historian Michael Beschloss.
Nixon did not go to church, but performed religious services at the White House, which used to invite political allies.
Reagan did not go to church regularly and his team said it was for security reasons after the assassination attempt. But he was a devout church attendant after he left office and returned to California.
“We almost always find that we never really understood a president’s particular religious belief and practice at the time he served,” said Beschloss. “And you usually have to wait decades to find out what he believed in and what he practiced.”
With Biden, this is not necessarily the case.
During the campaign and in the transition, Biden not only rarely missed the weekend service at his Delaware parish, but also attended religious services on holy days and made an effort to attend services while traveling. Her daughter, Ashley Biden, told the Today Show last week about helping her father find a small church to attend mass while he was on the road in the heat of the Democratic primary campaign before the pandemic.
But he also opted for home services. During Christmas, when the Bidens never left their home in Wilmington, a close friend of the family, Rev. Kevin O’Brien, a Jesuit priest who is now president of the University of Santa Clara, virtually celebrated Mass for the Bidens.
O’Brien was invited by the Bidens to celebrate Mass on Inauguration Day – a religious service at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, the Apostle in Washington, which included bipartisan parliamentary leadership and close family and friends. He held smaller private masses for the Bidens before his inauguration as vice president in 2009 and 2013.
“It was so beautiful because it was so familiar,” O’Brien told NBC News. “I was very happy to be able to help offer that – it was really the church that offered it to him.”
O’Brien first met the Bidens at Holy Trinity and then at Georgetown University. Biden attended both services – sometimes morning masses at Holy Trinity, or the later service at Georgetown’s Dahlgren chapel, depending on his schedule.
O’Brien said he kept in touch with Biden after he left the vice presidency and would send him and Jill Biden weekly “spiritual incentives” via text message during the campaign – something he hopes will likely continue with him at the White House. .
“I will be as supportive as I can for them over the next four years,” said O’Brien.