Regarding universal healthcare, like the overwhelming majority American Catholics Senator Biden wants the federal government to guarantee health insurance for all Americans. And like the majority of his co-religionists, he is pro-choice and supports the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Time and time again, he has shown that he understands the importance of keeping Church and state separate.

But for these same reasons Obama's choice of Biden has sent the Catholic Right into a tizzy. Fidelis, unsurprisingly, already has its spin machine going into overdrive. As usual it is trying to use abortion to frame Biden as a heretic while describing McCain veep pick Sarah Palin  as "a natural choice for Catholics"; a rather curious thing to say in light of her recent libertarian-tinged economic comments made to conservative cable television hosts Laurence Kudlow and Glenn Beck.

Is anyone surprised that  abortion is the litmus test. once again?  Economic issues remain unimportant because in their eyes, what happens to the already born is of lesser consequence.

Many on the Catholic Right cite Thomas Aquinas's definition of liberty, as "being able to do what one ought to do." Apparently doing what one ought to do has nothing to do with fair wages, stewardship of the earth or providing basic healthcare; only to abortion and a handful of other biological issues.

Senator Biden presents a danger to the Catholic Right. He better reflects the worldview of most American Catholics than they do. Because that is so, they view him as a one-man referendum on the legitimacy of their movement.

If he is successful, he exposes the reality of the Catholic Right and debunks the idea that a small group of neo and paleoconservative operatives speak for sixty-plus members of the Church in America, funded not by ordinary citizens, but by a variety foundations whose goal is to make the world safe for buccaneer-style capitalism.  Their edifice is built upon the false foundation that sixty-million of the faithful are something close to being a monolithic voting bloc, seeing all major issues of the day in a lock-step vision.

Nothing could be further from the truth. And Senator Joe Biden just may become living proof of that point.