So, Why Did The Vatican Limit Coverage Of Biden's Visit?

There hasn't been a whole lot said about Biden's visit to the Vatican, in part I'm sure because by limiting press availability, that was the Vatican's plan. What's leaked out is puzzling. I was particularly taken by this video excerpt, apparently taken by the Vatican and released after the fact:

It partly depicts Biden in a reception line, clearly confused about how this sort of thing works and, taken aback that people are shakng hands with the Holy Father before they get to him, throwing his arms up in a clear "whatever" gesture and later withdrawing his hand and raising it in a strange fist. Dr Jill, who seems to be in the habit of closely monitoring Joe during his public appearances, notices this with a certain hint of anxiety behind her fixed smile.

What strikes me as most peculiar is that I spent formative years in Washington society being groomed by a socially ambitious mother. I've been in reception lines with ambassadors and cabinet secretaries. (My guardian angel whisked me off to LA before this could take full effect.) This sort of routine is just muscle memory, especially for someone like Biden, who spent nearly his whole adulthood in that environment. Yet he acts like a 14 year old, disappointed that he's not Number One. Napoleon handled this stuff better; Hitler simply bypassed it.

Raymond Arroyo suggested something similar on Fox:

Fox News contributor Raymond Arroyo said Friday that an awkward moment between President Joe Biden and Pope Francis showed why the Vatican did not want to broadcast the meeting.

Arroyo joined Fox News host Harris Faulkner to discuss Biden’s meeting with the pope as well as the Vatican’s last minute decision not to televise the event.

. . . “I think the Vatican was concerned that a live meeting, video of a live meeting, might expose Biden to a gaffe. No telling what he might say, and you heard some of the blarney about drinking and whiskey and being an Irishman. They wanted to tamp some of that down,” he continued.

The question yet again is whether this is a result of cognitive decline or whether he's always been that way. Having dealt with relatives with whom this was an open question, in the end, it's just hard to tell. After all, I knew those people when I was a toddler and started out believing that, like all adults, they were perfect. As I grew up and matured, I began to see serious questions of character and judgment. Did they emerge at just a certain age, or had they always been there?

Up to 2020, Biden's public profile had been a mediocre senator in a safe seat, and then vice president. The media never really focused on him, other than the plagiarism episode that ended his 1987 presidential bid, which was revealing in hindsight -- but nobody ever saw him as anything but a wannabe until he wasn't. My guess continues to be that he's always been that way.

It looks as though the Vatican made the best of a bad situation. But then, they have millennia of experience at doing just that. And don't neglect that the Vatican has the best intelligence operation anywhere, with agents in every town and village.