EXCLUSIVE — Bishop Robert Barron believes that for “free exercise of religion” to thrive, the United States must continuously affirm and bolster its explicitly Christian identity.Barron, the prelate of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, is delivering an address at President Donald Trump’s Rededicate 250 event on Sunday. The event, hosted on the National Mall, is characterized as a “national jubilee of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving” that celebrates the American ideal of “one nation under God” and the “role that religion has played in the American experiment.”The bishop, speaking with the Washington Examiner ahead of the address, called belief in the Christian God a fundamental underpinning of American civil society that guarantees minority faiths’ freedoms.
“The God referenced in the Declaration of Independence and assumed by the majority of the founders is the creator of all things and the guarantor of rights, freedom, and equality,” Barron said. “Belief in that God is, I would say, essential to our democracy.”
Bishop Robert Barron, Bishop of Diocese of Winona-Rochester speaks at the ARC (Alliance for Responsible Citizenship) conference in London, Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
