ROCHESTER, Minn. — The Winona-Rochester Catholic bishop has been impersonated in unseemly ways online according t to recent reports on the three television stations serving Rochester. These reports, on KAAL, KIMT and KTTC, appeared to be rehashes from September. Those reports were themselves vague on detail. The bishop, Robert Barron, maintains an elaborate and immensely profitable online presence with his “Word on Fire” program. He has flirted politically with the American right-wing. He attended Trump’s joint address to Congress in 2005 and has engaged with policy issues like immigration. He invited right-wing orator Charlie Kirk to rally in Minnesota just before Kirk was assassinated in Utah. In these activities the bishop has maintained nuanced if not complex stances, both supporting and criticizing aspects of Trump’s actions while emphasizing Catholic teaching.
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Commission profile
President Trump, although not a religious person, created the Religious Liberty Commission in June 2005, ostensibly to identify threats to religious liberty in public life. There were only Christian members — no Islamists, who, at 4.5 million, comprise a growing 1.3% of the U.S. population. On subordinate advisory unit was is Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, a classical Islamic scholar. The commission has met four times, sometimes with Trump as a welcoming speaker but not otherwise participating. Key members include Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bodi; Trump’s secretary of housing, Scott Tuner; Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patick; televangelist Franklin Graham; and Carrie Prejean Boller, a former Miss America.