Catholic faculty piles in on Bishop Barron after award of top Catholic prize. Their commitment to diversity and inclusivity does not include him.

The Catholic faith tradition is diverse but must not under any circumstances include Bishop Barron

The Catholic Theological Faculty of the University of Münster notes with surprise the awarding of the Josef Pieper Prize to US Bishop Robert Barron

On July 27, 2025, the Münster-based Josef Pieper Foundation will award the Josef Pieper Prize to US Bishop Robert Barron and hold a conference at the Diocesan Academy, Franz Hitze House, to mark the occasion. In a statement available online, the foundation's president, Prof. Dr. Berthold Wald, justified the choice of the award winner by arguing that he seeks to overcome "the narrowness of liberal theology" with his interpretation of Christian theological traditions. Robert Barron, Bishop of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota, USA, since 2022, has a strong international presence, particularly through his media company Word on Fire.

As a faculty of the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Münster, we note the selection of the award winner with surprise. We understand Catholic theology on the basis of the Second Vatican Council, which interpreted the Christian faith in its historical dynamics. It explicitly linked it to the diversity of human experiences and the tensions of a plural and heterogeneous global society, and paved the way for ecumenical and interreligious openness. The Catholic faith tradition itself is diverse and full of tension.

We are convinced that Catholic theology, which is committed to the biblical revelation of God, must be measured by how it accompanies history and the political present, torn apart by dramatic violent conflicts: The God of Jesus Christ stands by the side of the suffering and advocates for the liberation of the poor. Confession of this God obliges us to an interpretation of the world and an ethos that respect the dignity of every human being as a creature of God—regardless of origin, gender, and social status. This also includes the conviction that political and economic powers are bound by the standard of the common good and responsibility for social and global justice. In the tradition of the Second Vatican Council and the New Political Theology, which Johann B. Metz founded in Münster, Christian faith must, in the footsteps of Jesus, stand alongside the oppressed, the poor, and the marginalized.

The interpretation of Catholicism that Bishop Barron stands for and which the Josef Pieper Foundation clearly aims to strengthen with the award sends different signals. Under the guise of defending a timeless religious truth, it appropriates "Catholic" for an exclusionary identity politics that exacerbates ideological divisions and marginalizes people who do not fit the mold, such as queer people and migrants. Supposedly purely religious in its interests, it is part of a growing global movement that uses religion and theology to divide the world into friends and enemies. Bishop Barron cooperates with religious-political networks that ideologically support autocratic political forces in the US, Europe, and beyond.

In his inaugural sermon on May 18, 2025, Pope Leo XIV pointed the way to a solidaristic and reform-oriented Catholicism: "In the light and with the power of the Holy Spirit, let us build a Church founded on the love of God and a sign of unity, a missionary Church that opens its arms to the world, that proclaims the Word, that allows itself to be challenged by history, and that becomes a leaven of harmony for humanity." As a faculty of the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Münster, we are committed to following this path with our students toward a theology that is historically aware, dialogic, and inclusive in this sense.

For the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Münster, Dean Prof. Dr. Oliver Dyma.

Statements from professors of the Faculty of Catholic Theology on the award of the 2025 Josef Pieper Prize:

Prof. Dr. Marianne Heimbach-Steins (Institute for Christian Social Sciences):

When the Josef Pieper Foundation awards the Josef Pieper Prize to US Bishop Robert Barron on July 27, 2025, it will, by its own admission, be honoring a representative of the Catholic Church who, with unusual media presence, advocates for timeless Catholic truth and uses modern means of communication (and considerable money) to spread the Catholic faith to the people worldwide. In return, it will at least accept the honor of honoring a man who uses his religious authority and international popularity as the voice of right-wing Catholicism to support a policy that systematically undermines truth and fairness, deliberately excludes all "others" and divides society in the name of the MAGA ideology, and tramples on the rule of law and the universal validity of human rights.

Bishop Barron imbued Donald Trump's inauguration with a religious aura, celebrating it "as a high mass of democracy" and virtually blessing it. He does not shy away from offering himself as an official representative of the Catholic Church in public support of Trump's autocracy. He evidently considers the president's habit of making the country subservient to his ideological interests a means of helping right-wing Catholicism gain greater social and political power. The mutual exploitation of religion and politics is nothing new; at least since the Constantinian turn, the temptation of power has been a constantly lurking threat to the authenticity of lived Christianity in its ecclesiastical and institutionalized form.

Bishop Barron welcomed the decree by which President Trump, on the first day of his second term, halted all official diversity, equality, and inclusion programs in the United States and banned related research, regardless of the fatal consequences for the safety and lives of countless people. He can rely on the anti-transphobic position published by the Roman Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in its 2024 declaration "Dignitas Infinita" (No. 60). The fact that the Roman Magisterium continues its fundamental opposition to what it calls "gender ideology," undeterred by today's accessible scientific knowledge about the diversity of human sexuality, continually fuels and supports the unfortunate, internationally growing ideological alliance between the political and religious right.

The American president's inhumane migration and border policies, which are in no way compatible with official Catholic positions, do not seem to particularly worry the American bishop, even though religious attempts at legitimization in the president's political circles resort to the "ordo amoris" and believe that, with a highly selective, biblically unsupported interpretation of Christian charity, they can dismiss any responsibility for international migrants and refugees.

Christian faith in the footsteps of Jesus of Nazareth: the Christian churches and their official representatives are not committed to any political power, but rather to the message of God's will for salvation for all people—for truly every person. Fawning over any political power, regardless of its guise, endangers this loyalty: "No one can serve two masters; he will either hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." (Matthew 6:24)

Prof. Dr. Christian Bauer (Institute for Religious Education and Pastoral Theology):

Robert Barron represents a "cultural hegemony" (A. Gramsci) of Catholicism under Donald Trump. He commented on Trump's State of the Union address on March 5, 2025, by saying that he was "delighted" to the extreme—only the Democrats had failed to adequately appreciate this "political liturgy." Barron not only barely distances himself from the US president's policies, but also acquiesces in them against the backdrop of the cultural wars in the USA. Trump himself appointed him to a newly established government commission on May 1, 2025, to protect religious freedom.

As a resonant voice of the financially powerful and globally influential US right-wing Catholicism, Bishop Barron leads a global media company (“Word on Fire Foundation”). His populist, simple answers to theologically complex questions represent a polarization within the Church that contradicts Pope Leo XIV's intra-Catholic peace agenda: “It frankly delights me to see how I obviously haunt the fevered imaginations of those on the extreme Catholic left.” (June 7, 2025).

With this statement, unworthy of a bishop (and his service to unity), Barron represents an asymmetrical tribalization on the right wing of the Church. This demonstrates the lack of the synodally necessary capacity for reflexive self-distinction in the sign of an ever greater God – a spiritual deficit that even the "National Eucharistic Revival" (2022-2025) he proposed cannot conceal.

Inside, Barron fails to recognize the deeper reasons for the reforms initiated by Pope Francis. In a conversation with Tucker Carlson, he denied the systemic connection between abuse, clericalism, and synodality with a long-refuted reference to the post-1968 sexual revolution: "Friends, it's no coincidence that the Church's sex abuse scandals spiked during the sexual revolution." (June 2, 2025).

Outwardly, with Word on Fire, he advocates an identity-based mission concept based on the model of a pastoral one-way street, which is closer to the concept of the "new evangelization" (as the missionary re-Christianization of the West) advocated by John Paul II and Benedict XVI than to the concept of evangelization (as the Church's witness-based self-conversion) advocated by Paul VI and Francis.

With the journal "New Ressourcement," which he founded in 2024, Barron represents a theologically just as one-sided interpretation of the Second Vatican Council as Joseph Ratzinger. This half-baked reception of the pre-conciliar "Nouvelle théologie," in its reference to pre-modern theological formats, draws only on the spiritual Augustinianism of its conservative Jesuit wing, but not on the contextual Thomism of its progressive Dominican wing.

Given this bias, the question arises as to which theological counterforces could be brought together – without succumbing to the same identity-based temptation through reactive self-fundamentalization. For example, an international network of leading critical Catholic theological faculties is needed that, in open Catholicism, counters US right-wing Catholicism with something theologically different. The Münster legacy of political theology à la Johann B. Metz certainly obliges us to do so!

A detailed version of Prof. Dr. Christian Bauer's statement can be found on his blog.

Prof. Dr. Regina Elsner (Ecumenical Institute):

From the perspective of research at the Chair of Eastern Church Studies and Ecumenism, the appreciation of Bishop Robert Barron's media activities by the Pieper Foundation and the Diocese of Münster is highly problematic. It has now been well researched to what extent international right-wing conservative networks, with which Bishop Robert Barron cooperates on a permanent basis, are exerting a destructive influence on the churches and transition societies of Eastern Europe. At the very latest, with Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine under the guise of a supposed defensive struggle for Christian values, Christian churches and theologies must face up to their responsibility in this war.

Bishop Robert Barron is one of the most articulate representatives of the conservative movement, which, with the academically unfounded concepts of "gender ideology" and the alleged threat to Christianity from secular and democratic values, is strengthening populism and policies that endanger human rights worldwide. Russia's war ideology rests firmly on this very intellectual foundation.

At the same time, Bishop Robert Barron advocates a stance toward other Christian churches – explicitly including the Orthodox Church – that advocates Catholic superiority and thus contradicts the paradigms of Catholic ecumenical theology in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council. He stands in the tradition of "Ecumenism 2.0," which for many years has been building strategic coalitions and conservative networks in competition with and bypassing international ecumenical dialogue. This promotes ideological entrenchments in the spirit of culture wars in churches and societies worldwide. Bishop Robert Barron's media project "Word on Fire" gives right-wing conservative actors and representatives of the New Christian Right enormous international reach, while the ecumenical efforts toward responsible "unity in diversity" receive no attention.

Certainly, intellectual discourse must facilitate diverse positions. However, their practical impact on social cohesion should be subject to clear ethical evaluation. Worldwide, with the intellectual support of networks such as Word on Fire, the Wonder Conference, CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference), ARC (Alliance for Responsible Citizenship), and other structures, discrimination, hate speech, violence, and censorship in democratic societies, as well as repression and persecution of dissidents in autocratic countries, are legitimized. Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine is religiously justified as an end-time battle against the Antichrist and should be understood as a cynical escalation of these developments. Bishop Robert Barron's appreciation of the dissemination and support of these positions therefore clearly contradicts the Catholic commitment to overcoming social division, promoting ecumenical reconciliation, and human rights-based church media work.

Prof. Dr. Oliver Dyma (Institute for Biblical Exegesis and Theology):

Without a positive approach to modernity, the Church will not be able to address the people of today and tomorrow with their joy and hope, their worries and needs. This is not about pandering to the zeitgeist, but rather about a responsible, critical contemporaneity, a constantly renewed inculturation. A culturally militant retreat to the 19th century and a supposed uniformity of Catholicism do not meet the demands of the present.

The pluriformity of Catholicism, which is growing worldwide and is becoming regionally and culturally differentiated, is an expression of vitality and a powerful resource for renewal. Critical contemporaneity also includes learning from the 20th century and critically reflecting on political claims to power – especially authoritarian ones. It is essential to stand up for social justice and the disadvantaged in this globalized world.

Prof. Dr. Dr. Bernhard Nitsche (Seminar for Fundamental Theology and Philosophy of Religion):

I'm always amazed at the values conservative defenders of Christian values have in mind when they use them against certain other groups of people and concerns about recognition, justice, humanity, and human dignity, or when they reduce ethical questions to the certainly problematic practice of abortion.

In order to understand the processes we are currently experiencing, I was very helpful in reading the commentary by historian Quinn Slobodian (Boston). He examined not only the complete privatization of costs and benefits in the context of unbridled capitalism after Hayek, but also its illegitimate offspring, which have consistently transformed the dismantling of the state, responsibility, and commitment to the common good into an anti-liberal culture war. This culture war owes its substantive profile to the "Project 2025" of the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, which propagates an autocratic, top-down "mandate for leadership." This mandate has strong affinities with hierarchical structures and self-perceptions within Catholicism.

Slobodian explains in his analysis of Trumpism: "When the communist threat disappeared with the collapse of the Soviet Union, a feeling of disorientation prevailed among the political right. A crucial question arose: Was victory complete? And if not, who was the new enemy? They came to the conclusion that their struggle was not yet over. Now, however, the enemy is no longer the communists in Moscow, as was the case during the Cold War, but rather people who are committed to fighting racism and discrimination, to environmental and climate protection, and to social justice. This shows that the battlefront has shifted from the economic to the cultural sphere." (Slobodian: t-online interview by Marc von Lüpke, June 27, 2025).

As a believing Christian and Catholic theologian, I ask:

Wouldn't it be profoundly Christian to view every human being as a freely chosen image of God, with inalienable dignity and their own human rights, whose existence must be recognized and valued – regardless of origin, race, religion, gender, etc.?

Wouldn't it also be Christian to point out, with Emmanuel Levinas, that the statement "God loves the stranger" belongs to the definition of God according to the Jewish interpretation? Then, on the one hand, it is about fundamental equality in terms of human dignity and before the law – for strangers and natives alike (Deut. 14:29; 24:14-21). On the other hand, it is recognized that migrations and movements have taken place everywhere on earth and at all times, always prompted by the search for better opportunities. What would Israel be without the Exodus from Egypt? What would America, North and South, be without the centuries-old phenomenon of immigration?

Wouldn't it be profoundly Jesus-like to contribute to a society that overcomes the scapegoat mechanism (it's the other person's fault), learns to see the beam in one's own eye, and breaks the spiral of violence (Girard) in order to advocate for conflict resolution without the use of physical, psychological, and structural violence?

Wouldn't it be entirely traditional Catholic natural law ethics to prioritize the common good and the active participation of as many people as possible over the private interests of neoliberal individualism, politically directive authoritarianism, oligarchic capitalism of billionaires, or leveling consumerism of the anonymous masses, or even a coercively imposed communism?

Wouldn't it be profoundly biblical and Christian to shape and preserve creation as a home of life for many, in order to protect the habitats and lives of as many sentient beings as possible through sustainable practices – instead of denying man-made climate change and fueling its catastrophic consequences?

Prof. Dr. Monika Bobbert (Department of Moral Theology):

The Josef Pieper Foundation is awarding this year's Josef Pieper Prize to the American Bishop Dr. Robert Barron, not least because of his highly acclaimed media appearances. A closer look, however, reveals that for several years now, he has been strengthening extreme right-wing populist positions in connection with his media-effective Catholic catechesis. He appears with the new US President Trump at official events and affirms his statements through his presence. He provides a platform for Ben Shapiro, whom he calls "my friend," by allowing him to appear on his podcast and also speaking on his podcast.1 Ben Shapiro is a former editor of the right-wing internet portal "Breitbart News." He denies climate change, campaigned for the release of the police officer who murdered George Floyd, and supports theocratic fascists such as Matt Walsh.2

Bishop Barron vigorously combats so-called "wokeism," a movement that claims to be particularly alert to social injustice, colonialism, and racism. On his platform and in other media, he enjoys speaking with like-minded people who advocate other right-wing extremist positions.

Bishop Barron maintains close ties to proponents of positions that reinterpret the fundamental structures of a free, democratic state for the United States. Such positions do not accept the fundamental national and international legal structures and distinguish between "entitled" and "unentitled" people. This is morally unacceptable and also stands in blatant contradiction to the democracy campaign of the Diocese of Münster3, the position of the German bishops against ethnic nationalism4, and against right-wing extremist attitudes and concepts. These involve the exclusion and devaluation of social groups and question the free and democratic fundamental order of our state.

Nothing is known about a debate regarding such concerns in the context of the award selection process.

Nevertheless, the award ceremony is scheduled to take place at the diocese's seminary. A service with Bishop Oster (Passau) and Bishop Barron will be celebrated in the Überwasserkirche (Church of St. Mary the Virgin), and a laudation event will take place at the Franz Hitze House Catholic Academy. I can only express my astonishment that our diocese and our bishops have not clearly distanced themselves from the selection of the award winner, or at least from the ceremony itself. I fear that this could contribute to the normalization of unacceptable positions in our Catholic Church, but also that the Church will come under further criticism precisely for this reason.

As a moral theologian at Münster, as our faculty's equal opportunities officer, and as a member of the Commission for Equality and Diversity, I would like to draw particular attention to the following critical points:

Bishop Barron is a backward-looking advocate for the culturally determined assignment of traditional gender roles. For example, he provides his platform "Word on Fire" to the anti-feminist YouTube influencer Jordan Peterson. Individuals who represent opposing positions are not invited. Power issues between men and women and the human rights guarantee of equal rights are ignored. Well-founded social processes related to gender and sexual identity are not fairly represented. Derogatory prejudices are repeated and thus reinforced. By providing a forum for right-wing populist figures, Bishop Barron is opposing marginalized groups threatened by discrimination. This is unacceptable in Christian moral theology. Being a Christian in following Jesus means questioning social and ecclesiastical preconceptions, combating discrimination and social injustice, and advocating for the free development of people.

Furthermore, Bishop Barron fails to advocate for the protection of people with a migration background. He fails to seek humane solutions for people who leave their homeland due to persecution, war, or famine and risk their lives. He fails to publicly advocate that the Christian message includes the recognition of every human being as created in the image of God. Is all of this still Christian?

Source

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1 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfcHZAutAPo; https://www.wordonfire.org/videos/dialogues/bishop-barrons-interview-with-ben-shapiro/; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH8iXo4F4I8; https://www.wordonfire.org/videos/dialogues/natural-law-family-and-happiness-with-ben-shapiro/; https://open.spotify.com/episode/5SOJogDrJBjHGZzL4tgDFx

2 https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/ncr-voices/bishop-barrons-video-capitol-annotated (last accessed July 18, 2025)

3 Diocese of Münster, People NRW. Live Freedom! Democracy Campaign of January 15, 2024 https://www.bistum-muenster.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Website/Downloads/Themenseiten/Lebe_Freiheit/2025-01-15-Demokratiekampagne.pdf (last accessed July 18, 2025)

4 German Bishops' Conference, ethnic nationalism, and Christianity are incompatible. Declaration of the German Bishops, February 22, 2024 

https://www.dbk-shop.de/media/files_public/81db11f0a4662118908038c2640b9019/DBK_10148neu.pdf (last accessed July 18, 2025)