Laura Ingraham Slammed For Saying Joe Biden Won’t Uphold Religious Freedom While Citing Blog Post About Canada
Fox News host Laura Ingraham stepped into a Twitter controversy on Friday after sharing a link to an article that falsely claimed the city of Toronto is banning communion in Catholic churches and bringing Donald Trump and Joe Biden into the discussion.
As The Wrap reported, in a tweet Friday afternoon, the host of “The Ingraham Angle” asked her followers a question.
“Will Joe Biden do more to protect religious liberty than Donald Trump? Not a prayer. ‘City of Toronto Bans Catholic Churches From Administering Holy Communion.'”
She then posted a link to a blog post from BigLeaguePolitics with the headline she cited and with the byline, “Politicians use COVID-19 hysteria to escalate the war on Christianity.”
Readers quickly pointed out a rather obvious problem with her assertion.
“if this gets out, Biden will never carry Toronto,” one user jokingly wrote.
Another noted that Biden is a “lifelong practicing Catholic.”
“I think he’s a better Christian than you, even though you wear a cross around your neck on TV for political and fashion purposes. Knock it off, Laura. I don’t think God even even [sic] likes you,” they wrote.
As The Wrap noted, Ingraham’s post was also problematic because the article she linked to wasn’t factual: Toronto is not banning holy communion in Catholic churches.
Although Catholic churches in the Toronto area are, in fact, making some changes to how Holy Communion is distributed to the faithful, those decisions came from the Archdiocese, not the Toronto government.
Specifically, as Global News reported, the new procedure involves the priest delivering his blessing while standing two meters (a little over six feet) away from the congregant, giving him or her the Host (wafer), then the congregant moves two meters away, removes their mask, and eats the wafer. There is no sacramental wine being served for the time being.
Neil MacCarthy, director of public relations and communications for the Archdiocese of Toronto, said that the safety of the congregants is paramount.
“It would be difficult for someone to look at (the Archdiocese’s safety protocols) and say, ‘These guys aren’t concerned about this,'” MacCarthy said.
The matter of religious liberty in the time of the coronavirus pandemic has been a hot-button issue in the United States. For example, early in the pandemic, Louisiana pastor Tony Spell continued to hold in-person worship services in defiance of a mandate that forbade them and was even taken to jail because of it, as reported by The Inquisitr.
