Biden speaks about faith and curing cancer at the Vatican [View all]

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. came to this tiny city-state to talk about two of his deepest passions: his Roman Catholic faith and curing cancer.

At the Third International Regenerative Medicine Conference at the Vatican, Mr. Biden spoke about the urgent need to come up with new cures for cancer, a subject that has come to define his final year in office.

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While fiercely committed to the church, Mr. Biden often has seemed to take pride in defying parts of its hierarchy. His mother, he often has said, taught him never to kiss the pope’s ring. And of those who doubted his faith because of his disagreement with Catholic dogma, he once said, in 2005, “The next Republican that tells me I’m not religious, I’m going to shove my rosary down their throat.”

Mr. Biden has met two previous popes: John Paul II and Benedict XVI. He famously told Pope Benedict XVI to be easier on American nuns, the target of a Vatican crackdown for their activism on issues like poverty and health care. But his fondness for Pope Francis is obvious.