Trump names Catholic political activist as Vatican ambassador

Brian Burch gained notoriety in the 2020 election when his organisation, Catholic Vote, collected personal information from people’s mobile phones while they attended Mass.

President-elect Donald Trump nominated political activist Brian Burch as the United States’ ambassador to the Holy See.

“He represented me well during the last election, having garnered more Catholic votes than any presidential candidate in history!” said Trump in a social media post announcing the nomination. “Brian loves his Church and the United States – he will make us all proud.”

Burch gained notoriety in the 2020 election when his organisation, Catholic Vote, collected personal information from people’s mobile phones while they attended Mass. This process, known as “geofencing”, allowed the organisation to collect the information and then compare it with electoral rolls to identify potential voters.

Catholic Vote did not ask permission from the pastors or the parishioners at the churches they targeted, nor did they procure permission from local bishops. Critics complained the geofencing violated the individual privacy of the parishioners and the sanctuary of the church.

Burch has also been a frequent critic of Pope Francis. When the Pope told Cardinal Raymond Burke to vacate the Vatican apartment he had used at no expense, Burch wrote on social media, “Suffice it to say, [Pope Francis’] actions against his critics, together with progressive Catholic cheerleading, has only vindicated those that [sic] warned ‘synodality’ was merely a ruse. Is this what walking in the Spirit looks like?”

He also criticised the removal of renegade Bishop Joseph Strickland from the governance of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas. Burch has publicly said the Pope has spread “confusion” in the Church.

Catholic Vote sued the government in 2022 to procure communications records between Catholic charitable agencies and the federal government in south Texas. The action was criticised by Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas for characterising Catholic charities’ relationship with government agencies “in a distorted way”.

Burch defended the lawsuit, saying: “American Catholics deserve to know the full extent of the US government’s role in funding and coordinating with Catholic Church-affiliated agencies at the border, and what role these agencies played in the record surge of illegal immigrants over the past year.”

It is not clear whether the Holy See had approved Burch’s appointment before Trump’s public announcement.

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