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A popular MAGA-oriented Catholic Bishop sent a letter threatening legal action against one of his critics that revealed he shares more with President Donald Trump than politics. Like the Commander in Chief he supports, Bishop Robert Barron of Minnesota is obsessed with crowd size.
This is according to Christopher Hale, who writes the popular Letters from Theo blog where he provides commentary on the latest news regarding the Pope and Catholicism. On Friday, Hale explained, “Earlier this week, a letter from the Washington law firm Cooper & Kirk arrived in my inbox. The firm represents Word on Fire, Bishop Robert Barron’s media company, and the subject line announced a ‘NOTICE OF LEGAL ACTION.’ The letter itself is something slightly less than the subject line advertises: a threat of one. The lawyers ask for a correction of a July 8 post of mine, which said that Barron’s YouTube views had ‘been on a nosedive during the past year of his MAGA conversion.’”
“In the letter,” Hale elaborated, “David H. Thompson of Cooper & Kirk writes that Word on Fire’s internal figures show the channel’s viewership more than doubling over the past year, with subscriber growth up 85 percent, and warns of ‘potential legal action’ if I decline to correct the record. For legal authority, the letter leans on the Covington Catholic teenager’s defamation suit against the New York Times — a suit the teenager lost.”
According to Hale, what’s really interesting is what isn’t in the letter. As he wrote, “At no point does the letter ask me to retract the charge that gave my post its sting: that Bishop Barron has gone full MAGA. His lawyers dispute my arithmetic. The thesis of more than a year of reporting in this community — that America’s most famous bishop has converted to Trumpism — apparently stands uncontested.”
Barron, said Hale, has “spent the summer falling deeper and deeper into the MAGA abyss,” recently giving a softball interview to Vice President JD Vance. The Bishop was appointed to the White House Religious Liberty Commission, and recently called for breaking the separation between church and state.
Hale also suggested that there is something revealing about the Bishop’s priorities, writing, “Trump’s April attack on Pope Leo earned from Barron a single statement of protest and then months of accommodation. An incorrect tweet about YouTube analytics, by contrast, summoned a Washington law firm.”
Trump’s relationship with Catholics has been fraught in recent months due to his feud with the Pope earlier in the year. This and other “blasphemous” behavior on his part has prompted some of the MAGA faithful to suggest Trump may be the “antichrist.”
The president also has a famous crowd size fixation that dates back to his first inauguration. This obsession was most recently on display during his 250th celebrations, when he reportedly “freaked out” over poor attendance.