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Bishop Byrne of Massachusetts rushes to Barron’s Defense
A signature move of the new right wing movement popularized by Donald Trump is attacking fact checkers. From developing the catch phrase “fake news” over ten years ago when he was first running for President, to siloing his present day White House administrators by stripping access for reporters and news outlets who don’t wholesale embrace the terms and agenda he sets, Trump has pioneered an era of open hostility towards journalistic integrity and even towards evidence and transparency.
Often religious fundamentalism reads from the same playbook, employing rigidity and thought policing as it seeks to eliminate any chance for adherents to reach contradictory evidence or any outside, independent conclusions. The continued existence of fundamentalism demands that you must embrace—and willingly defend—the party line at all times. As explored later in this piece, Vance and Rubio are prime examples of this within Trumpian politics, but most recently, Bishop Byrne has come to Bishop Barron’s defense to tow the party line.
Necessarily, a defensive posture like this is highly reactive and lacks internal consistency as well as any value system animating the way you treat others. There is only adherence and compliance. Obedience is what fundamentalism requires: the obedience to ignore everything from doctrinal inconsistencies to outright injustices carried out in the name of “traditional” values—even when these injustices openly conflict with the values they argue to purport.
Note: this article is part of our in-depth series exploring masculinity in the Catholic Church—from toxic traditions to hopeful alternatives rooted in empathy, justice, and queer liberation. You can read the entire series here: The Full Catholic Masculinity Series.
Bishop Byrne Comes to Barron’s Defense
Bishop Barron posted a video describing his experience at the State of the Union on March 5th. The National Catholic Reporter went through his video line by line and fact checked it on March 7th. Then, on March 14th, NCR published a letter they received from Bishop William Byrne of Springfield, MA.
Right out the gate in his second sentence, Byrne accuses NCR of “ad hominem attacks peddling in misinformation” that “only serve to wound the Body of Christ.” His first example? The headline of NCR’s piece, “Bishop Barron compares Trump's address to Congress to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.” In his March 14th letter, Byrne calls the headline misleading, saying that Barron wasn’t making a literal statement but rather drawing an analogy. Byrne defends Barron’s comment on a “liturgy of democracy” by echoing the sentiment that there are other valid forms of liturgy outside of a Mass setting.
Here’s the thing: this is a charitable and generous take on what is still a very concerning allusion by a clergyman with the authority of the office of Bishop. Trump’s form of government is arguably one of the least “liturgical” we’ve ever seen: he is petty, jealous, volatile, and vengeful. And the Church has taken notice: despite Vance being a devout Catholic convert, Trump’s second in command has been openly criticized by the U.S. bishops for his immigration politics, and he was all but personally called out in name for his ordo amoris concept by Pope Francis in the pope’s February 11th letter addressing U.S. bishops.
Why then defend the proceedings of a man who doesn’t even take them seriously himself?
Byrne wants NCR and its readers to know that he and his brother bishops “do not support or oppose Mr. Trump” and that they are “teachers” who merely “share what impact an individual policy may have on the common good.”
I can think of a Bishop who taught Trump and this country a powerful lesson by sharing the impact of policies on the common good: Episcopoal Bishop Mariann Budde. In her own words at the Washington National Cathedral shortly after Trump’s second inauguration, she said:
Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you. As you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are transgender children in both Republican and Democratic families who fear for their lives.
Bishop Budde went on to mention the “people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in our poultry farms and meat-packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shift in hospitals.” She asked the President to have mercy on children fearing that their parents will be taken away, on those who come to America fleeing war or persecution. She said “Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were once strangers in this land.”
Now, the Catholic Bishops have responded to Trump and to Pope Francis. Bishop Byrne points this out in his rebuff of NCR, saying “You say we have been silent since the Holy Father's letter to us on immigration. Yet, Archbishop Broglio, on behalf of all of us, immediately responded to Pope Francis and sent that response to every U.S. bishop and the media.”
The person of virtue in the parable of the good samaritan is not the teachers who simply walk past the suffering man in the ditch. No doubt one of their reasons for continuing past him was “someone else will take care of this,” a powerful example of the bystander effect that I see echoed in Byrne’s words “on behalf of all of us” bishops. Compare this response, where responsibility for speaking truth to power is placed elsewhere, to Bishop Budde standing firmly in the truth of Jesus’s words as she advocated on behalf of the vulnerable.
That is ultimately what American Catholics of goodwill are asking for from our leadership during a time of unprecedented attacks on human dignity across the country on a federal and state level, when lives are at stake because of governmental negligence and outright legislative and executive violence.
The Alpha, Omega, and Beta: Byrne to Barron to Rubio to Trump
American Catholics are not looking for performative gestures—we are not looking for the aesthetics of Catholic leadership or masculinity. This is not what will save the Church. This method of evangelizing young men who are seeking purpose in a world that is progressively changing and pushing towards equity reinforces the wrong messages. It reinforces stereotypes and lack of accountability, sending the message that being a good Catholic man in looks and words alone is enough. And that by towing party lines, either inside or outside of the Church, it will keep young men “safe” from sweeping civil rights violations.
An example of a truly glaring performative gesture was Marco Rubio’s “sharpie” ashes to mark the beginning of Lent (many on social media commenting that they’ve never seen ashes that dark or clearly defined in the shape of a cross after an Ash Wednesday service). Rubio and JD Vance, (both Catholic), have embraced the Trumpian and fundamentalist model outlined at the beginning of this piece: compliance and obedience as more virtuous than transparency and integrity. Both originally stood in opposition to Trump before he offered them the potential of political advancement, and both now bear the shame of reneging on their own values. They too follow and defend Trump, Vance even going so far as to model himself (as many far-right Catholic young men do) after a hypermasculine ideal.
As Stephen Collinson wrote in an analysis for CNN, Vance has “fashioned himself as the personification of his boss Donald Trump’s most extreme social media posts.” And in looks and words, Vance models himself after the businessman that he once virulently criticized. During his and Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—one that ended in a shouting match and Zelensky being thrown out of the White House, Vance not only mirrored Trump’s actions but also his aesthetics.
In this photo, a frustrated Zelensky sits with his hands crossed over his chest, as Trump turns away from him, eyes shut and hand extended in admonition. JD Vance holds the same pose. It’s not the only similarity—Trump and Vance both wore dark navy suits with long red ties—a visual calling card for Republican fashion. As Johnathan Evans at Esquire wrote, his dress—the bright red tie as a symbol of power and vanity—all reinforce the symbol of “the virile billionaire.”
It’s also how Vance is amplifying Trump’s vitriolic social media use, trying to convince Trump voters that are slowly but surely realizing the implications of party loyalty.
In the meeting, Vance contrasted starkly with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who shrank into the couch to Vance’s right, wearing a blue tie—just off camera in the photo above. Vance and Rubio represent dueling views of how far-right hypermasculine influencers court and interact with young Catholic men—both accepting criticism and mirroring influencer behavior. Vance is a convert to Catholicism—part of a growing cohort of young far-right actors finding meaning in the Church, specifically radical traditionalist factions of the Church, while Rubio was born into it, although he openly discusses how he was a two-time revert.
Both men are open about their experiences coming to the Church, whether for the first time or not, but they speak to a growing number of young men who are converting to Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity. Part of this increase in conversion, converts say, is the “feminization of non-Orthodox forms of Christianity in America,” or rather being sold the idea that inclusion is threatening and increasingly encroaching on Christian spaces and not the other way around.
In 2021, Matt Fradd and Fr. Schmitz’s Steubenville Youth Conference was followed up by the triumphant “Masculinity Restored” led by Jason Evert. The best example is The Catholic Talk Show’s episode, “What Kind Of Man Was Jesus Christ?” posted last year. It featured Fr. Richard Pagano. This is particularly popular among radical traditionalist Catholic men. One man pointed out on Twitter that young men in their local Latin Rite Parish’s Youth group have extremely antisemitic worldviews. Catholic scholar D.W. Lafferty similarly argued in favor of the Latin Mass but criticized how “it became a sort of ideological weapon in the hands of some.”
These same men are drawn to the religion, as Vance himself admitted, because of the Church’s age, regimentation, and opposition to change—the Catholic Church still holds a firm line against access to reproductive and gender affirming healthcares that both Vance and Rubio continue to fight. It is no surprise that Vance himself is largely a proponent of Natalism, or bettering the lives of people who have more children (Elon Musk is similarly famous for these types of views). One Latin Rite meme account @lettersfromstpaul posted the video of Vance saying “I want more babies in the United States of America” under the words “Average Catholic on a first date.”
Yet amid the explosion of bloated JD Vance memes online, largely because of Vance demanding that Zelensky thank the United States for the aid it has provided, this same account posted a photoshopped image of Vance under the words “Mom says you guys can’t keep reading Song of Solomon in front of me.” These memes that depict Vance’s enlarged face, Rhea Nayyar writes, seek to infantilize the vice president. It’s not far off from how Trump and Musk treat Rubio, who Trump referred to as “Little Marco” during his first presidency according to Under the Desk News host V Shepar in an interview with MSNBC.
In the same interview, Teen Vogue Editor-in-Chief Versha Sharma said, “Trump is always wanting to put Marco [Rubio] in his place. He’s also speaking down to him. He seems like he’s having a very good time belittling him on the national stage there.”
And Trump is not alone—recently, one of Rubio’s own employees, Darren Beattie deleted half a dozen tweets, including repeating speculation about Rubio’s sexuality. These far-right conspiracy theories referenced a curfew violation that theorists twisted into speculation that Rubio is gay. The tweet, from January 2021, repeated this speculation and said that Rubio had a low IQ, but still encouraged people to vote for him. Speculations about a man’s sexuality—and raising the suspicion that he could be attracted to men—is the ultimate form of emasculation to these men. Similar rumors have been spread about Vance.
By exerting his control, often through explosive means like the latest conference between Zelensky and Vance, the President reinforces that a central piece of performing far-right masculinity is the exertion of power over someone else. And the only way they argue men can remain “safe” and “protected,” is to tow this same party line—complete allegiance as Vance, Rubio, and Byrne demonstrate, to model themselves as mirror-images of influencers that are just using them as political pawns.
What Fundamentalism Demands
Fundamentalism demands this type of obedience: no objections, no dialogue, just “do what I tell you no matter how it makes you look or how it fails to align with your values.” Honesty itself is devalued, and openly contradicting yourself (and certainly your values/integrity) is celebrated. To die to oneself, and one’s convictions, is an exercise in devotion—just as Barron argued that Congress is like an exercise of Mass.
Fundamentalism necessitates the “beta”—Byrne, Vance, and Rubio—to enforce alpha Masculinity, to convince young men that to follow and uplift figures like Barron and Trump is a valid performance of masculinity. There’s also no room for nuance or diversity in this world view, so everyone ends up looking and dressing exactly the same (which creates and supports gender essentialist views as well!) And let’s be clear: the division of men into categories like “alpha” and “beta” is problematic in and of itself—it’s just another form of the gender policing these men inflict on marginalized groups.
The alignment of leadership figures, both religious and secular, with Trump’s brand of fundamentalism exposes a troubling trend in both political and religious spheres; their unwavering defense of controversial and often contradictory positions demonstrates a disturbing adherence to compliance over integrity.
Rather than standing firm in the truth and advocating for the marginalized, Bishops who do not speak truth to power end up falling in line with a broader movement that thrives on power, conformity, and exclusion. The performative gestures of hypermasculinity and radical traditionalism only serve to mask deeper issues, contributing to the erosion of values that should guide both Catholic leadership and civic engagement.
In the face of these attacks on truth, transparency, and compassion, Bishop Mariann Budde's integrity is a shining example of what we are all called to, no matter our gender. Her commitment to standing up for those who are vulnerable, marginalized, and oppressed offers a stark contrast to the performative gestures and hollow defenses we see from other public figures.
For Catholics and others seeking genuine moral leadership, the challenge remains to demand more than mere empty rhetoric and symbols. True leadership, (and yes, true Masculine leadership), must be rooted in truth, compassion, and a willingness to engage with the world’s injustices—values that are increasingly sidelined in today’s rush to preserve power at any cost.
This article is part of our in-depth series exploring masculinity in the Catholic Church—from toxic traditions to hopeful alternatives rooted in empathy, justice, and queer liberation. You can read the entire series here: The Full Catholic Masculinity Series.
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Best thing I've read about this whole debacle. Will definitely be checking out the other parts of this series! As a gay Catholic guy, looking at masculinity from this perspective really interests me.