When it comes to being faithfully Catholic in the public square, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has accomplished a deeply deplorable distinction: His record in office is so bad that it manages to make President Joe Biden look good in comparison.

Indeed, as Trudeau prepares to leave office due to his unpopularity with Canadian voters, it’s a sad irony that this nominally Catholic politician was quite possibly the most anti-Catholic prime minister in his nation’s history.

Consider first his appalling misconduct with respect to the libelous “mass graves” residential-school narrative that has deeply and unjustly tarred the Church’s reputation in Canada. When this controversy erupted in 2021 — triggered by unfounded claims of unmarked “mass graves” supposedly located alongside some of Canada’s no-longer operational, government-mandated residential schools for Indigenous children — Trudeau knew full well there was no credible foundation for the claims being circulated that Catholic priests, religious and laypeople working in the schools had covered up the deaths of numerous students.

Trudeau was also fully aware that the only reason there wasn’t a comprehensive accounting of the unmarked burial sites of children and staff who had died at the schools, primarily due to infectious diseases, was because his Liberal government had refused to fund such an accounting — despite being specifically advised to do this by the commission that investigated the legacy of Canadian residential schools. If the Trudeau regime had done so, the 2021 controversy would never have occurred.

But instead of moving to set the record straight, Trudeau instead “as a Catholic” unleashed a stream of harsh invective castigating the Church for its role in operating many of the residential schools. His nakedly political misrepresentations, intended to shift blame away from his own mishandling of the residential-school file, contributed directly to the hateful campaign of arson and vandalism that subsequently victimized more than 100 Canadian churches, most of them Catholic. To this day, even as mounting evidence continues to discredit the “mass graves” claims, Trudeau has not retracted his slurs against the Church.

Consider next Trudeau’s unbridled support for legal abortion throughout his nine-plus years in office. Just as Biden did in his successful 2020 bid for the White House, Trudeau made his backing of abortion a trademark campaign issue in each of his three election triumphs. But while Biden retained some minimal residue of Catholic discomfort about promoting abortion during his term as president, preferring to delegate his administration’s overt pro-abortion cheerleading to Vice President Kamala Harris, Trudeau has never evinced a trace of personal regret while serving as prime minister about his political advocacy for the killing of unborn babies.

Then there is Trudeau’s role in inaugurating Canada’s regime of medically assisted suicide. During his time in office, the northern nation has morphed into the world’s leader in this area, thereby marking out another area where Canada’s Catholic leader has embraced a life-destroying public policy in direct contradiction of the Church’s teaching about the sanctity of all human lives. Biden, thank goodness, hasn’t taken a similar role in championing this second major component of the culture of death.

Trudeau’s lack of fidelity to Catholic teachings is hardly confined to these areas. Progressive to a fault, he made a point of marching in “Pride” parades, as well as advocating stridently for the other elements of gender ideology that have been salient during his tenure. And another of his signature moves, the complete legalization of marijuana, drew widespread criticism from Catholic leaders.

None of these issues were atop the list of voter concerns that forced Trudeau to announce his impending resignation this week. The deteriorating state of the Canadian economy was clearly their preeminent collective concern. Faithful Canadian Catholics share this concern, of course. But given their departing co-religionist’s record of demonizing their Church unjustly, and his advocacy for abortion, assisted suicide and other agendas that directly conflict with fundamental Church teachings, these Catholics have even more reason to bid a speedy good riddance to their massively unpopular prime minister.