Remarks by President Biden in a Faith and Community Engagement Call
APRIL 01, 2021
Location: Not determined

12:15 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, thank you very much.  That’s a very generous introduction.  (Laughs.)  I hope that’s true, but I’m not so sure.

Look, folks, first of all, I want to — I want to thank you all for this — the faith community leaders getting together.  And I want to thank my buddy, Cedric, for honchoing this for me and — because we both believe that you have profound influence on not only your congregations, but on the public at large.  You are the community leaders.  And Jill and I want to send our warmest wishes to all of you, your families, your congregations, and your communities on this — this holiday and holy season.

You know, what I always find remarkable as one of my avocations is — and I think I drive Cedric crazy and some of you crazy — has been theology and comparative religion.  And one of the interesting things — think — think about the confluence of the — this season marks remarkable confluence of holy days across a number of traditions. 

Jill and I, we’re looking forward to our Easter celebration, where we get to — get to get together with our family.  And because we’ve had the great honor of being vaccinated, we may be able to get together with some of them this Easter.  And — but Passover began last week.  The Hindu holiday of Holi was last week.  Ramadan is right around the corner. 

And, you know it’s not only a time of reverence and celebration, it’s one of the most important opportunities of the year to connect with your congregations and with your communities.  And all of the great confessional faiths have the same notion about the value of human beings and the value in that we’re made in the image of God, and that’s why all of you gotten involved in the — in the way you have.  And no one — no one — no one is — is not important; everyone is important.

And so, you know, everybody is looking to you this season. They — you know, they trust you.  It’s one of the most important opportunities of the year to connect with your congregations.  And I hope that doesn’t sound instructive; I don’t mean to sound that way.  I — you know better than I do. But it’s — but to connect with your congregations and those in your community.

And so, you know, I think they’re looking to you this season.  As I said, they trust you.  And you have a chance to deliver not only a spiritual direction, but comfort and guidance; prayers of joy, love, reflection; you know, rebirth that’s synonymous with these holidays.  Because in the last year, you’ve been through — we’ve been through an awful lot of tough, tough times, particularly all of you in the faith community. 

How many times did you watch on a cell phone a parishioner having to say goodbye to his mother or father in a — in a ward where they couldn’t — they couldn’t be there? A nurse holding up that phone.  And all — how many times have you lamented the fact that leaders in your faith community have not even been able to have the funerals that they deserve and the remembrance that is so important because there’s a finality?  How many of you have not been able to, you know, be at the cemetery site and with the family?  I mean — and there’s so many things that people look to you for comfort for.

And, you know, I said earlier this week, we’re in a race against this virus and the race is far from over.  You know, it’s — we — it’s taken far too many moms and dads; sisters; brothers; you know, grandpops, grandmoms.  You know.  And they — we put dreams and plans on hold, and it’s kept us physically apart, which is — which is not the instinct of human beings.  They want to congregate.  They want to be with other — and they want to be with one another of like — like views, like conscience, like values. 

And so, we all know many families are still going without a familiar comfort to the season.  We know that, despite the progress we’ve made, this fight is far from over. 

We also know that signs of hope have emerged.  I was — we were looking at a mass vaccination site out in — I think it was in Arizona, and the nurse was talking to us — virtual.  And the nurse was saying that — she said — well, I was asking her how many shots had been given, and she said, “These are shots of hope.  These are shots of hope.”  Hope springs eternal.  You’re a source of so much hope.

And more than a — we’ve now given — I’m very proud to say we’ve administered over 130 million shots.  And 75 percent of all seniors now have received the shots, which is a drastic change and increases exponentially the prospect that they’ll live out their lives in the way they anticipated.  And, you know, 100 million of those shots in fewer than nine weeks, and more every day. 

And families are getting the financial relief they need so they can take a breath.  I don’t know how many of you have had to carry people who have been — in your communities — because they’ve been — the food shortages — the failure — people getting thrown out of their apartments or not able to pay their mortgage. 

Well, with the legislation I was able to (inaudible) — with the help of Cedric and so many other people — get passed, it has brought genuine relief — serious, serious relief to people.  It’s about — it’s about, you know, “What you do unto the least of my brethren, you do unto me.”  I mean, it’s — this is really — it is significant.  

And also, you know, we launched a program to — because, you know, this has been an unequal killer.  It has focused monly [sic] — you know, the African American community; the Hispanic community; the AAP- — the Asian Pacific community.  It has — it has damaged them much more than others.  They are three to four times more likely to die if they’ve gotten the COVID.  And they’re about the same percentage likely to get the COVID over the traditional — the remainder of the white population.  And so I’ve been — we’ve set up, in our effort to deal with COVID and the COVID team we put together, a scientist who is nothing but racial equity to make sure we can get to the people.

And, by the way, I need not tell you all I come from a community that has a very large African American population, and I spent a lot of time in the Black church because it does more for my community than most anything else.  And I — I don’t know — you know, I can remember discussions way back — when I was a kid getting started in public life — about how there was a distrust for — for some docs and mass vaccination things.