A CATHOLIC political activist organisation in the US has hit out at Joe Biden's supposed "anti-Catholic agenda" ahead of the upcoming presidential election.
CatholicVote, a non-profit group based out of Wisconsin, have launched a $9.7 million campaign to try and discourage Catholics from voting for Biden in November - despite the former Vice-President frequently referencing his Catholic faith on the campaign trail.
The organisation said on Tuesday that it will be producing an "in-depth report on Biden's record on issues Catholics care about," and that it plans to send it to five million Catholic voters in order to influence their vote.
They're reportedly targeting a number of battleground-states to try and swing the election in President Trump's favour.
Brian Burch, president of CatholicVote, said: "Joe Biden's record makes clear he will not protect our Catholic values or defend our way of life.
"For Catholics who cherish the Faith and their freedom to live it, a Biden presidency represents an existential threat.
Biden has been accused of having an "anti-Catholic agenda" by an American Catholic political activist group. Here he is next to Pope Francis at the US Capitol building in Washington, DC on September 24, 2015."Catholics are less focused on Joe Biden's claims about his personal faith, and instead on what his policies would do to the culture, and their freedom to live out their own beliefs."
Biden quoted the late Pope St. John Paul II during a campaign speech in Pittsburgh last month as he encouraged voters to remain hopeful about the country's future.
"The campaign for the presidency has come down to fear," he said. "But I believe Americans are stronger than that.
"I believe we'll be guided by the words of Pope John Paul II, words drawn from the scriptures: 'Be not afraid. Be not afraid'."
Along with his Catholicism, Biden has also frequently referenced his Irish heritage, with family roots in Louth, Mayo and Derry.
"He's very much in touch with his Irish roots and his Irish family," Biden's Irish cousin Laurita Blewitt told the Irish Mirror in an interview back in June.
"He was reared very much with Irish roots and he’s very much Irish at heart," she added.
"He quotes a lot of Irish poets and Irish writers when he speaks," adding that Mr Biden "spoke about how the Irish were treated when they left Ireland and how he really wants to represent the minority in America," during a campaign rally earlier this year.
