“God help us, if the United States stopped existing, because everything stops existing eventually, my church would not. But what frightens me about knocking down the separation of church and state, is not what it does to my country — as much as I don’t want that to happen to my country — is what it does to my faith. It’s not getting religion in my politics, it’s getting politics in my religion.”
So said comedian and TV star Stephen Colbert on the America Magazine podcast “The Spiritual Life,” which is hosted by Maggi Van Horn and Fr. James Martin.
Colbert was speaking just before the death of Pope Francis in April, but the interview, which was posted in the summer on YouTube, seemed to speak to a chasm in the church on the issue of church and state, which has deepened of late, with the more progressive wing arguing for a pluralist approach and the maintenance of church/state separation, and some conservatives making alliances with right-wing evangelicals for political gain.
In recent days, statements by two leading conservative bishops have been met with near disbelief from left-of-center opinion within the church. “I'm not making this up,” warned columnist John Grosso in one instance for a piece in the National Catholic Reporter.
He quoted Cardinal Timothy Dolan saying, "This guy is a modern-day St. Paul. He was a missionary, he's an evangelist, he's a hero. He's one I think that knew what Jesus meant when he said, 'The truth will set you free.' "
Grosso continued, “Is that how the archbishop of New York referred to St. Carlo Acutis? The newly canonized millennial often referred to as God's influencer?
“Nope.”
“That was the loquacious cardinal comparing the late Charlie Kirk to one of the greatest and most prolific Christians to have ever lived,” Grosso continued, “Dolan appeared on Friday (Sept. 19) on ‘Fox & Friends’ and was quick to praise Kirk, who was shot and killed in cold blood last week.”
The National Catholic Reporter writer said, “Though it has been said before, it should be said again: Catholics — and all people of good will — condemn Kirk's murder in the strongest possible terms. His death was an American tragedy. He was a husband, father and human being shot in the most gruesome way. His murder was an abhorrent crime against our shared human dignity and an act of evil. He did not deserve to die, and we should make it a point to pray for him, his family, and all those killed by acts of gun violence.”
Grosso said that none of that makes "a modern-day St. Paul," saying that’s “false by any measure.”
Anti-Catholicism
“Any reflection on the legacy of Kirk cannot gloss over the pain and suffering that Kirk inflicted on innumerable people through his harsh, divisive and combative rhetoric,” the columnist said. “We have published some of those perspectives in the National Catholic Reporter in recent days, but in any conversations about Kirk's legacy, we cannot ignore his racism, sexism and xenophobia.” (The Sisters of Charity of New York are also among those Catholics who've pushed back against Dolan's Kirk comments on these terms. See here.)
Grosso, who is National Catholic Reporter’s digital editor, wrote, “We also need to talk about Kirk's attitude towards Catholicism. Kirk was far from an admirer of Catholicism despite many apocryphal accounts of Kirk's alleged potential conversion to the faith. Kirk was a noted critic of Pope Francis, calling him a marxist, implying he was a heretic. Kirk repeatedly questioned the role of the pope as an institution and rejected the primacy of the papacy as recently as January 2025.”
He quoted Kirk in the January interview with influencer Michael Knowles: ”I want a better Catholic Church. I personally would not be able to be part of an institution with the figurehead with a worldview that is so corrupted and opposite of what I think the Bible teaches. And I wouldn't give him the benefit of the doubt, I'd be like, ‘No, I'm actually not part of this.’”
“Such a laudatory comparison to St. Paul would be extraordinary if applied to even the holiest of individuals. Dolan knows this,” Grosso said, describing the cardinal’s comments as “hyperbolic” and “Fox-friendly” and part of the attempt by conservative influencers, saying it is “sad that both Dolan and Bishop Robert Barron unfortunately fall into this category now,” to whitewash some of Kirk's “more unsavory statements and opinions.”
“To prelates seeking the adulation of the MAGA faithful, it is not enough to condemn Kirk's murder; one must elevate him to martyrdom by celebrating all of his words and deeds,”Grosso wrote. “For the Catholic right, apparently, even that is not enough; Kirk must be canonized among the pantheon of Catholicism's greatest saints, and put into AI pictures next to Jesus and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.”
(Complicating that might be the fact that Kirk went from praising King in 2022 to describing him as "awful" and "not a good person” a year or so later. I wrote back in January about about Kirk and his organization Turning Point USA’s narrative on the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and ‘60s, which would not quite pass any “truth shall set you free” test. It’s worth noting in this context that Anthony Scaramucci, the Trump White House director of communications for nine days in 2017, cautioned when asked to comment on a podcast, that while he had known him well, Kirk had moved further to the right since they last spoke.)
Grosso wrote, “The Catholic right's insatiable need to spiritually gaslight us into accepting Kirk as a model of perfect Christianity has destroyed our ability as a nation to look upon this tragedy with the nuance it deserves. Critical thinking and analysis be damned. Our discourse has been poisoned with a false dichotomy: You must endorse Kirk's cause for sainthood or you are fired from your job, silenced, and kicked out of civil society.
“Why must it be all or nothing? Why can't we say that Kirk was a complicated man who held reprehensible views while condemning his brutal public execution? Why can't we say that his Christianity was clearly important to him — but that it was also profoundly flawed?
“Kirk is not a modern-day St. Paul,” Grosso said. “The only thing that such myth-making achieves is fomenting resentment, curtailing dialogue, and stifling action to otherwise prevent this tragedy from happening again.”
‘Not based on reality'
Tulio Huggins, a campus minister at Dartmouth College, where he graduated in 2023, took issue in another National Catholic Reporter article with the position of Bishop Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota.
“Charlie Kirk was a human being whose life was cut short, leaving children without a father, and a wife without her husband. After I heard the news, I said a prayer for his soul and for his family. What should be the response of those who guide spiritual flocks?
“Well, first we need to face reality,” Huggins said. “Acts of political violence are becoming too common in our country, whether it be the Jan. 6th riot, the assassination of Melissa and Mark Hortman, the attempted assassination(s) of President Donald Trump, or the killing of Kirk. Our country is becoming more and more destabilized, so calling out the reality of political violence is commendable.
“However, what isn't so praiseworthy is whitewashing Kirk, as did [Barron] last week. To call Kirk ‘a kind of apostle of civil discourse’ and paint him as Christlike is ridiculous and not based in reality. Kirk had a long record of making comments I would hope Barron agrees are un-Christian and unrepresentative of the Catholic Church's teachings. Moreover, Kirk's views cause remarkable division in our country.
“For example, Kirk made many anti-immigrant statements, including propagating the ‘Great Replacement’ theory, saying just weeks ago on his show: ‘America was at its peak when we halted immigration for 40 years and we dropped our foreign-born percentage to its lowest level ever. We should be unafraid to do that.’ Kirk also supported the Alligator Alcatraz immigrant detention facility in Florida — which Barron's fellow prelate, Archbishop Thomas Wenski, condemned — and emphasized American freedom only for people who looked like him.
“Kirk also made various racist statements degrading Black people,” Huggins wrote, and gave some examples of such statements.
“Does Barron care about racism and anti-immigrant sentiment? I truly hope so, especially since he's a bishop in a church that proclaims that immigrants and people of color are image-bearers of God. But if he truly cares, and wants to lead those under him toward Christ, in moments of political turmoil he has to be an advocate of peace. To do that, though, means to face reality and not sugarcoat reprehensible ideologies.
“Kirk didn't deserve to be shot, but we shouldn't make him into a martyr or an example of Christian compassion and discourse. Otherwise, those who look up to spiritual leaders like Barron will assume Kirk's comments and stances are indeed like those of Jesus. A basic look at Scripture and Catholic social teaching shows otherwise.”
