Bishop Robert Barron responds to criticism over participation in Religious Liberty Commission

By Madalaine Elhabbal

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 23, 2025 /
18:13 pm

Bishop Robert Barron responded to backlash against his participation in the President Donald Trump-initiated Religious Liberty Commission, which held its first hearing in Washington, D.C., last week.

In a social media post on June 22, Barron responded to claims made in a recent article by Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Karen Tolkkinen that he “advocates erasing the boundaries between church and state.”

Barron called the piece “a rather silly article” and “a gross mischaracterization of my position.”

During the Religion Liberty Commission hearing in Washington, D.C., last week, Barron echoed Pope Benedict XVI’s warning against the “dictatorship of relativism” encroaching on American society and encouraged religious people to become more involved in the public square.

Barron encouraged people of faith to enter the public sphere, telling those gathered at the hearing: “Congress will make no laws preventing it, so let’s invade that space.”

Tolkkinen took issue with this, describing Barron’s encouragement as “unnecessarily militant” and religion’s “comeback in American civic life” as “difficult to understand” at a time “where Americans increasingly don’t practice religion.”

“If the bishop gets his way and religion once again permeates civic life in America, let’s hope that everyone’s rights are robustly protected,” she wrote.

In his response to Tolkkinen, Barron pointed out that while the First Amendment to the Constitution prevents Congress from establishing a national religion — a position Barron agrees with — the second clause in the amendment bars Congress from interfering with the free exercise of religion.

“The First Amendment to the Constitution does indeed say that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, and I completely support this,” the bishop said. “Though there can never be an official American religion, there can indeed be expressions of religion in the public space and in civic life.”

Barron concluded his post by saying: “What [Tolkkinen] and her colleagues fear the most are confident and assertive religious people who refuse to stay sequestered in private. So I say: Fight hard against any formal establishment of religion, but fight just as hard for the right to exercise religion in the public space.”

West Virginia Rep. Riley Moore responded to Barron’s post on X, writing: “Bishop Barron is spot on. Forcing faith out of the public square has been disastrous for the West.” A practicing Catholic, Moore had invited Barron to attend Trump’s State of the Union Address in March.

“Christianity is first and foremost an encounter with Jesus, but it also has moral, ethical, cultural, and — yes — political implications that built Western civilization,” the House member added.

Madalaine Elhabbal is a staff reporter for Catholic News Agency based at EWTN’s Washington, D.C., bureau.