Brian Burch, a fierce critic of the late Pope Francis and longtime leader of a group that spent millions of dollars to put President Donald Trump back in the White House, was confirmed Saturday as U.S. to the Vatican on a party-line 49-44 vote in the Senate.
Burch is the former head of CatholicVote, which ran ads in battleground states last fall accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of supporting taxpayer funded “child gender mutiliation surgeries” and “medical experiments on kids.” According to polls, Trump won a majority of the Catholic vote in 2024, a significant swing from 2020.
"Burch is an agitator, mostly, the opposite of a diplomat," Catholic Theological Union professor Steven Millies told the National Catholic Reporter.
CatholicVote’s “Catholic Accountability Project” slams Catholic officials who support pro-choice and pro-LGBTQ equality policies, though its ratings seem to be silent on issues such as poverty, workers’ rights, and immigration.
In his confirmation hearing, Burch defended the Trump administration’s cuts in foreign aid; the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, by contrast, has criticized Trump’s cuts to refugee programs and other cuts to programs that provide social services to migrants and others. In 2022, Burch slammed Catholic nonprofit agencies that were aiding undocumented immigrants, drawing criticism from a borderland bishop.
Burch tried to help Trump win reelection in 2020 by using geofencing technology to harvest cellphone data of Catholics going to church and by publishing a book called “A New Catholic Moment: Donald Trump and the Common Good.” The book’s promotional materials described Trump as “a champion for life, the family, religious liberty, domestic patriotism, foreign policy realism, and common-good capitalism.”
Trump’s first-term ambassador to the Vatican was Callista Gingrich, former mistress and third wife to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
