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The election of Joe Biden brought many changes to the White House after four turbulent years of Donald Trump. It also marked the arrival of one of the most religiously observant US presidents in history.
For only the second time, a Catholic occupies the White House. The first was John F Kennedy, who regularly attended Mass and whose funeral was held in St Matthew's Cathedral in 1963.
Biden, who was raised in an Irish Catholic family, has made no secret of the importance of his faith.
“My idea of self, of family, of community, of the wider world comes straight from my religion,” he wrote in his book Promises to Keep. “It’s not so much the Bible, the beatitudes, the 10 Commandments, the sacraments or the prayers I learned. It’s the culture.”
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He has also spoken about how religion helped him during periods of immense personal tragedy, namely the death of his first wife and infant daughter in a car crash in 1972 and his son Beau’s death from cancer in 2015.
Since his inauguration as president he has attended Mass every week – either at Trinity Church in Georgetown, often on a Saturday evening, or at his local church in Delaware.
But Biden now finds himself in the crosshairs of an increasingly bitter debate within the Catholic Church about whether he is entitled to receive communion.
Last week, Catholic bishops in the US voted to advance a measure that could ban politicians who support abortion from receiving the Eucharist.
The decision, which was announced at the close of a three-day meeting, will address the sacrament more broadly, but is seen as a direct attempt to target Biden.
‘Source of discord’
The Vatican issued a pre-emptory warning ahead of the gathering, saying the vote could "become a source of discord rather than unity within the episcopate and the larger church in the United States".
But the bishops, led by a conservative wing, pressed ahead regardless.
In reality, the conference does not hold the power to ban someone from receiving communion. Instead the decision rests with local bishops in each diocese, and the bishop of Washington, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, has said he won't deny Biden communion. The bishop of Delaware has not commented publicly. Last Sunday, the celebrant at Trinity Church in Georgetown, Fr Benjamin Hawley, denounced the slight against his most famous parishioner, noting that "a considerable number of Republicans, disguised as US bishops, voted this week to assail the integrity of the democratically elected . . . president of the United States".
The threat to deny Biden communion signals not just a growing schism between American Catholicism and Rome but within the church itself. American Catholicism – and other Christian denominations – has long grappled with a conflict between traditionalists and reformers within its ranks.
But the issue has increasingly become politicised. Donald Trump's ability to attract the conservative Christian vote baffled many observers outside the US given the decidedly un-Christian behaviour of the thrice-married former Miss Universe host.
Death penalty
But, in reality, the reason many Christians backed Trump was because of abortion. Whatever his previous views, Trump embraced the anti-abortion movement with gusto, addressing the annual March for Life rally in Washington and winning the support of figures like Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan in New York.
The partisan nature of the abortion debate in America – Republicans are strongly anti-abortion, while Democrats tend to be pro-choice – give a particular political hue to debates about the church in the United States. This is despite the fact that the Catholic leadership appears to throw a blind eye to Christians who support the death penalty – a practice denounced by the Vatican.
Biden’s case is significant not only because of his status as the president of the United States but because he represents an increasingly common style of American Catholic – the liberal type.
According to the Pew Research Centre, the majority of American Catholics believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Biden’s views on abortion have evolved over the years. He previously opposed the Hyde amendment, which bans the use of federal funds for abortion providers, but is now firmly pro-choice.
But most of all, Biden characterises his faith as reflecting a philosophy about the world, rather than one strictly defined by doctrine. He speaks about the importance of human dignity and providing solace to all Americans. For a president who sees religion as a personal rather than public matter, Biden may soon find out if his faith can remain in the private sphere as the debate over the Eucharist intensifies within the Catholic Church.