*President Barack Obama will deliver a eulogy Saturday at the burial of Vice President Joe Biden’s son Beau, who died of brain cancer last Saturday at 46.
The White House said that events for the former Delaware attorney general will begin Thursday, culminating in a burial mass on Saturday.
Beau Biden died after undergoing treatment at the Walter Reed Medical Center just outside Washington. His death was another personal tragedy for the vice president, who early in his political career lost his first wife and a young daughter in a car crash.
His son will lie in honor and have a public viewing on Thursday and Friday.
On Saturday there will be a “Mass of Christian Burial” at St Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic church in Wilmington, Delaware.
“President Obama will deliver a eulogy in honor of Beau Biden at this mass,” the White House said.
In an earlier statement, Beau Biden’s family said “he battled brain cancer with the same integrity, courage and strength he demonstrated every day of his life.”
The White House has opened an online book of condolence, as tributes have poured in from politicians at home and abroad.
Below, President Obama’s statement on Beau Biden’s death:
Michelle and I are grieving tonight. Beau Biden was a friend of ours. His beloved family – Hallie, Natalie, and Hunter – are friends of ours. And Joe and Jill Biden are as good as friends get.
Beau took after Joe. He studied the law, like his dad, even choosing the same law school. He chased a life of public service, like his dad, serving in Iraq and as Delaware’s Attorney General. Like his dad, Beau was a good, big-hearted, devoutly Catholic and deeply faithful man, who made a difference in the lives of all he touched – and he lives on in their hearts.
But for all that Beau Biden achieved in his life, nothing made him prouder; nothing made him happier; nothing claimed a fuller focus of his love and devotion than his family.
Just like his dad.
Joe is one of the strongest men we’ve ever known. He’s as strong as they come, and nothing matters to him more than family. It’s one of the things we love about him. And it is a testament to Joe and Jill – to who they are – that Beau lived a life that was full; a life that mattered; a life that reflected their reverence for family.
The Bidens have more family than they know. In the Delaware they love. In the Senate Joe reveres. Across this country that he has served for more than forty years. And they have a family right here in the White House, where hundreds of hearts ache tonight – for Hallie, Natalie, and Hunter; for Joe and for Jill; for Beau’s brother, Hunter; his sister, Ashley, and for the entire Biden clan.
“I have believed the best of every man,” wrote the poet William Butler Yeats, “And find that to believe it is enough to make a bad man show him at his best or even a good man swing his lantern higher.”
Beau Biden believed the best of us all. For him, and for his family, we swing our lanterns higher.
Michelle and I humbly pray for the good Lord to watch over Beau Biden, and to protect and comfort his family here on Earth.
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