A bishop becomes a political hit man

The truth is under assault in America and has been for some time. Donald Trump lied more than 35,000 times as president. He has added tens of thousands more to the count over the last three years. Accompanying the lies are a legion of threats aimed at anyone who dare oppose or exposes them.

The defining issue of this age is the collapse of trust between ordinary Americans and vital institutions across a broad expanse of society. The scale of distrust and cynicism raging across American society is staggering and well-earned. 

The trust apocalypse has been wrought by a million small acts, accumulating together into a great storm of selfishness, extremism and taking, that is both epic and tragic. Big banks, big tech, social media, news media, energy companies, aviation companies, airlines, religious institutions, athletes, Bitcoin magnates, politicians, political parties, police departments, and more, have all contributed to the collapse of faith and belief in everything and anything. There is no place in American life left dry from the deluge that has contributed mightily towards creating a vast mosaic of national distrust — fertile ground for the rise of conspiracies, extremism and political violence in any society.

This Warning is the story of a political hit job carefully veiled, deliberately made and intended to intimidate one of America”s very best political reporters, Politico’s Heidi Przybyla, from continued reporting about an extremist movement and its principal characters. Like most stories these days, it is a tale of corruption — political, judicial, religious and media. It is also a story of dishonesty, manipulation and propaganda. What I will lay out is an abuse of power and the birth of a lie from its first noxious breath and first journey around the world. I’ll document how it spawned, and the abuse it instigated, as the price for telling the truth about a man who grew improbably powerful through the seediness and transactions that defined the Trump era. This is the story of a Catholic bishop, a powerful political extremist who picked three Supreme Court justices, and a journalist who thinks the public should know what is happening in the shadows. This is the story of Heidi Przybyla, Bishop Robert Barron and Leonard Leo. 

Like all stories, this one has a beginning. It is a complex story, and so you will need to read this to follow it:

Dark money and special deals: How Leonard Leo and his friends benefited from his judicial activism

Imagine reaching one out of four Americans — 85 million people — with your voice every week. It might be hard because there is no audience approaching that scale in modern America, though there once was.  Father Charles Coughlin, known as the “radio priest,” reached 30 million Americans in the 1930s — 25 percent of the population. Tucker Carlson’s best night on Fox reached 1 per cent by comparison. 

What would you say to so many Americans?  Would you speak with humility and candor?  Would you tell hard truths and stand up for important ideals? Would you oppose bigotry and resist indifference towards injustice, cruelty and tyranny?  Would you be a repairer of the breach, or a spinner of conspiracies and a weaver of lies? Would you be a patriot or a nationalist? 

An audience of such staggering size would make you wealthy, famous and powerful. But would it make you righteous? Holy? Decent? Patriotic? 

Does the size of any audience matter when evaluating the words that wash over them?  Can a vast audience turn a lie into the truth? Can a cheering crowd turn menace and hate into gentleness and love?  Do they have a transformative power to turn wrong into right, or the immoral into the moral?

Of course not. 

But apparently this is not a settled matter. According to a Wall Street Journal profile:

When Bishop Barron was ordained in 1986 and began a teaching career at Chicago’s Mundelein Seminary, the Catholic media universe was small. “If you wanted to get something out to a wider audience, there was a limited range of options,” he recalls. Publications like Commonweal, America and the National Catholic Reporter were about the sum of it. “All three were very left-leaning”—they still are—“which meant that you had to write in a way that pleased the editors of those journals.” Now, “just on my YouTube page, I’ve got more subscribers than those three combined.”

History teaches us that there have always been people who will manipulate, antagonize, radicalize and incite for money, political power, revenge, hate or other sinister purpose with an evil intent.

Goebbels, Trump, Putin, Coughlin, McCormick, Carlson, Watters, Pirro, Long, Gingrich, Wallace, Lindbergh, Limbaugh are but a few names among multitudes of demagogues, who have afflicted decency, truth and justice for profit, power and fame. 

Collectively, they prove the size of a crowd and zeal of the mob indicate no thirst for justice or the presence of noble virtues. 

Father Coughlin’s voice was cruel and malicious, though his audience was vast and American. He celebrated Adolf Hitler and Mussolini, smeared Jews, spread conspiracies, disdained democracy, praised fascism, and called it all “social justice.” He was the founder of the National Shrine of the Little Flower Ministry.

Coughlin was an immoral man speaking for an immoral cause. He was a political spokesperson for venomous nationalism, antisemitism and fascism. He was a disgrace to his church and his country. His message — a rebuke to Christ’s Sermon on the Mount — was about politics, power, vengeance and retribution. Coughlin was a political force to be reckoned with in his day, and his ego was as broad as his hate was deep. 

Demagogues always drop a tell when they speak. Learn to listen for it. Train your ears for the words that screech like fingernails drawing on a chalkboard and give them away. 

THEY.

THEM.

US.

These are powerful and deadly words when weaponized by the forked tongue of demagogic charlatans preaching a gospel of jingoism, nativism, nationalism and bigotry. During the 20th century they helped kill more than 100 million human beings all across the Earth. Their capacity to kill even more in the 21st century should never be dismissed.

The foundation of every demagogue’s speech is an excoriation of some “THEY” somewhere.

There is always a “THEY” and “THEM.” There is always an enemy — ubiquitous and invisible — all powerful and menacing, that only the demagogue can see, discern and fight.

These words are a gateway through a poisonous arch that leads to stigmatization and dehumanization. They are predicates that justify grievance, scapegoating, targeting, harassment and abuse. The most important lesson of the 20th century tells us that it is the entrance to the abyss.

Right-wing demagogues are skilled practitioners at targeting “THEYs,” and painting elaborate fictions that connect dots around vast conspiracies that are simultaneously ubiquitous, shadowy, supremely powerful and absolutely lethal. The conspiracy at hand, according to their account, is a monster bearing down that seeks to destroy the nation, faith, family and history. It is a story of “THEM” coming for “US.” 

Destruction is the price if they succeed.

Father Coughlin is a warning. He reminds us of the proposition that evil can manifest itself in a clerical collar, and that religious authorities who play politics can be easily tempted into the darkness.

Eighty-five years ago there was an American political movement that called itself “America First.” Today, there is a political movement that calls itself “America First.” What they share is a bond of extremism. They have an affinity for authoritarianism and an intolerance for minorities, as well as an embrace of cruelty in the service of a hostile foreign power. 

Leonard Leo has become one of America’s most powerful people. He has been at the center of the project that has annihilated trust between the American people and the US Supreme Court. He is a central figure in stories that detail the corruption of Clarence Thomas, and he was the person who picked three Supreme Court justices for Donald Trump. Trump gave away that power in a transaction that has made Leo rich and powerful.

Recently, he was bequeathed with $1.6 billion by Barre Seid, a reclusive billionaire. The amount of money is astonishing, and gives Leo the ability to create a new Heritage Foundation every year forever, living on the interest alone.  The money has expanded Leo’s appetite and his network of affiliated groups, which includes deep connections to Project 2025. Project 2025 seeks to dismantle the US civil service, and replace it with Trump sycophants across the depth and breadth of the American government in 180 days if Trump wins.  Leonard Leo and his shadowy network of linked organizations are difficult to follow and hard to report on, which is why the reporters who do the work are some of the very best. 

Here are some of the ProPublica stories that detail the extent of the corruption of Leo, and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. I’ve also written about Thomas and Alito:

Clarence's continued court chaos

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Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito: Gone fishin'

Heidi Przybyla has added to the catalog with other stories, like this one and this one. It is this story, however, that triggered an investigation of Leonard Leo and his spiderweb of non-profits that paid his firm, CRC Advisors, $43 million. This story activated his network, and gives a glimpse of how the puppets move when their strings are yanked. 

No less than 12 GOP/MAGA attorney generals have written highly unusual — if not unprecedented — letters to another law enforcement officer in another jurisdiction, demanding the cessation of an investigation into Leonard Leo. Brian Schwalb, the attorney general of the District of Columbia, has held steadfast to an eroding principle: no one is above the law. He has refused to cede to the blatant intimidation by a seditious gaggle of state attorney generals, among which every single one denied, and tried to overthrow, the results of a presidential election. 

The accumulation of all of the election denial, conspiracies, misinformation, lies and insanity reached their zenith on January 6, 2021 when a Trump-incited mob stormed the Capitol. Among the mob was a particularly dangerous faction of the MAGA extremists and a grave threat to the nation: Christian nationalists. 

Let me be clear about three things, lest there be any confusion: 

1. Christianity is a faith shared by more than one billion people that proclaims Jesus Christ is the son of God, who was born, crucified and resurrected. Jesus Christ was an apostle of peace, who delivered the Sermon on the Mount.

2. Christian nationalism is a political dogma. It is a form of nationalism that is as deadly as all forms of nationalism. Examples of Islamic nationalism include the Taliban and ISIS. Christian nationalists are the American variant. 

3. Christianity and Christian nationalism have nothing to do with one another, but both are absolutely real.

Here is what Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO, ADL, said about the threat:

Here are the photos of Christian nationalists Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph:

Timothy McVeigh (left) and Eric Rudolph (right)

Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City killed 168 people, including 19 children.

Eric Rudolph’s explosive device detonated in a crowded park during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, killing two people and injuring more than 100.

Here are two more snarling Christian nationalists thugs — Greg Locke and Pastor Paula:

Why would a US Catholic bishop deny the existence of these people as a threat, refusing to defend his country and faith from their venom? Why would he refer to this as “so called” Christian nationalism?

Could it be that they share something in common? What if they are political allies in common cause?

Can you imagine?

In late February, Heidi Przybyla of Politico appeared on MSNBC with Michael Steele. She was asked to define the difference between Christianity and Christian nationalism. Her answer wasn’t incorrect, but it also wasn’t “TV tight.”  

She’d be the first to tell you that she opened the door to being mischaracterized, defamed and demeaned by bad faith actors. Though I imagine she must have been surprised one of them would be the prelate of the Winona Rochester Diocese, Bishop Robert Barron, who commands the largest Catholic media ministry in America since Father Coughlin. Here is what she said, though it is far less important than the artful demagoguery it inspired that I’m about to show you:

Let me say upfront that I despise bullies and political intimidation. It is intolerable in the United States, and it has spread across the country unabated over these last nine years of the Trump era like a hemorrhagic fever attacking and liquifying our civics, principles, faith and Americanism. Let me show you a Catholic bishop turned hitman for Leonard Leo, and how the 2024 conservative outrage and grievance industry creates its toxic fog:

His Excellency speaks for exactly 2:29 and during that short time engages in sophistry, denialism and deception, while targeting a journalist for threat, harassment and abuse for reporting matters of fact to the public. Why else would His Excellency use her full name? Why not simply say Politico, or focus on the supposed argument that is so dangerous that “this is opening the door to totalitarianism” in America? In fact, taking the prelate at his word, and assuming his good faith, why wouldn’t he pick up the phone and engage in dialogue with Ms. Przybyla? Instead, Bishop Barron offered recrimination and condemnation built on a foundation of distortions and false witness against a good person, a wife and mom of two doing her job with integrity and purpose. The truth of the matter is that His Excellency used her name to generate as many tweets, stories, personal denunciations, castigations and invective as possible. The motive was simple. The effect was supposed to dissuade further reporting about Leo, just like the attorney general letters were aimed at killing the investigation. 

While Peter denied Christ three times, His Excellency denies the existence of Christian nationalism twice, and yokes Ms. Przybyla to a conspiracy of “THEYs” and “THEMs.” Listen for it. All of it is part of a plot from the all powerful “LEFT,” of which apparently the esteemed journalist has become an agent. All of it is nonsense of course, but that won’t stop the Bishop’s dulcet voice from persuading at least a few people that what he is saying is true. 

The disingenuousness is preposterous at first glance, disturbing at second, and sinister upon a deeper look. His Excellency appears on video conspicuously wearing a symbol of his authority — his pectoral cross and clerical collar. He infers that he came across Ms. Przybyla’s appearance by happenstance, and then suggests that his response is authentic, spontaneous and off-the-cuff, when in fact it is deliberate and planned. 

The central claim of His Excellency’s diatribe is that it is "one of the most disturbing and frankly dangerous things I've ever seen in a political conversation."

Really? 

We should all be so blessed to lead such a sheltered life. 

Bishop Barron builds his polemic against Heidi Przybyla around a defense of the concepts of equality contained in the Declaration of Independence, which he doesn’t seem to properly grasp as a historical matter. 

His descriptions of it are the civics version of an ecclesiastical declaration that begins with: “Rub a dub dub; thanks for the grub.”  

His Word on Fire Ministry has been riddled with allegations of sexual impropriety and harassment, and the strange culture of the organization has become increasingly visible.  

Every day in America, a battle is underway between the truth and the lie. What you read and see is a product and an outcome of that fight. It is hard to tell sometimes who and what is on the level, and who isn’t.

Heidi Przybyla is on the level. Her reporting is good enough that one of America’s most powerful men got a Catholic bishop, with whom he sits on the board of trustees for The Catholic University of America, to paint houses for him. It’s shameful.

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