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EXCLUSIVE: Bishop Robert Barron said he has been urging Catholics on the left to stop the “demonization” of the Trump administration, even when it comes to highly contentious issues such as immigration and border security.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Barron, arguably the most prominent Catholic prelate in America, said that despite criticism within the church of the administration’s immigration policy, “there are darn good reasons, moral reasons, for being concerned about an open border.”
“I don’t think it’s fair to say to a conservative, to a Republican, you’re just being difficult and anti-humanitarian,” he said, adding that “at times, the Catholic left is great for calling for dialogue and bridge-building — until it comes to conservatives.”
He said that for many Catholics on the left, “when it comes to conservatives, just tell them what they should be doing and saying.”
“No, no, let’s build bridges of conversation. That’s a role the Church can play,” he said. “What I don’t want from the church is a kind of demonization of the Trump administration.”
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“If there are points of disagreement, whether it’s immigration or it’s the [Iran] war or whatever, let’s talk about it, let’s talk.”
Barron said he has been trying to encourage dialogue on both the immigration and Iran issues. Though he admitted he has “not always met with success, frankly, from the ecclesial side.”
Despite this, Barron said he “would like those conversations to continue.”
The bishop revealed he was deeply moved by a passionate appeal for stricter border security from border czar Tom Homan during a recent White House call. He said he was participating in it as part of his work on President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission.
Barron said Homan, who he noted is a Catholic, “spoke with great passion … and he said he’s come out of retirement twice to engage this issue.”
“Why? He said that because he’s seen the terrible destruction caused by an open border. And he was talking about, especially human trafficking, the human trafficking of children, the disappearance of children we’ve lost track of completely in this process.”
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“He was saying, we can’t simply fall for the simplistic view that an open border is humanitarian, that an open border is kind to the stranger … an open border also produces enormous moral problems,” said Barron.
“You could tell that it was affecting him very deeply, very personally,” he said. “I found that very moving.”
“It’s not just, well, the bad guy, Republicans, who want to enforce immigration laws. It’s Republicans for very good moral reasons who want to enforce immigration law,” he said.
At the same time, Barron emphasized that there are “values on both sides” of the debate.
He said that even through Trump’s feud with Pope Leo XIV, he has encouraged real dialogue and conversation between the Vatican and Washington. He said he has met with “a lot of Catholics inside the Trump administration who are interested in bringing the church’s teaching to bear.”
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He posited that “part of the problem in the Trump-pope battle was that the president was treating the pope too much as a politician.”
“Popes, I think, are supposed to use the moral structure of the church’s teaching to move prudential judgment in the right direction,” he explained. “Now what’s a president’s responsibility? His responsibility is to make those prudential judgments.“
“Now here’s what I recommend: I think the leading Catholics inside the Trump administration, I mean people like JD Vance, like Marco Rubio, like Brian Burch, the [Vatican] ambassador, should sit down with their counterparts in the Vatican and they should have a real conversation about this.
“The church provides a moral framework. Terrific. Now, let’s have a real conversation with those whose job it is to make that decision but have it conditioned by this moral framework, that would be more fruitful.”
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