I will go to my grave convinced that was planned. Biden tests the waters and the White House can move forward if the reaction is good and say "Well, that's Joe" otherwise.
Biden would not have said it publicly if he did not support it - his devout Catholicism made it stunningly newsworthy. True that the Administration may have been willing to send Joe out on the gangplank to see how it floated.
Oh, I don't think Biden was asked to say anything he didn't believe, but the narrative at the time was that Biden "blabbed" or "spoke out of line" or something, and I think that's 100%, USDA prime, grass-fed bullshit.
