Winona-Rochester Bishop Robert Barron on March 20 criticized what he described as "absurd" claims from Carrie Prejean Boller that she was booted from the Presidential Commission on Religious Liberty because of her Catholic beliefs.
Boller, an outspoken Catholic and a former Miss California USA contestant, was removed from the commission in February after repeatedly criticizing "Zionism" at a commission hearing on Feb. 9.
The hearing focused on combatting anti-semitism in the U.S., though Boller during the hearing regularly brought up the subject of Zionism, the movement supporting Jewish self-determination in a homeland in Israel.
"I'm a Catholic, and Catholics do not embrace Zionism, just so you know," Boller said at one point. Elsewhere she asked witnesses if they were willing to "condemn what Israel has done in Gaza."
In announcing Boller's removal, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — the chairman of the commission — argued that "no member of the commission has the right to hijack a hearing for their own personal and political agenda on any issue."
"This is clearly, without question, what happened ... in our hearing on antisemitism in America," he said at the time.
'Simply preposterous' discrimination claims
Boller has spoken out publicly about the controversy in the weeks since her removal, alleging that she was booted from the commission because of her Catholic faith. In a March 20 post on X, she suggested that the religious liberty commission "does not truly care about religious liberty" and suggested that she was removed "for faithfully articulating the Church's teaching."
In that post she suggested that Bishop Barron — who himself serves on the commission — was not sufficiently defending the Catholic faith by refusing to speak up about the alleged discrimination.
"If my religious freedom is not protected, then no one's is," she wrote to Barron. "Please speak up. Please stand up for Catholics."
In a blistering response, Barron bluntly dismissed Boller's allegations as "absurd."
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"Mrs. Prejean Boller was not dismissed for her religious convictions but rather for her behavior at a gathering of the Commission last month: browbeating witnesses, aggressively asserting her point of view, [and] hijacking the meeting for her own political purposes," the bishop said.
Barron noted that he "fully subscribes" to the Catholic position on Zionism, which includes unequivocal opposition to antisemitism along with an acknowledgment that Israel has a right to exist but does not "stand beyond criticism."
"If Mrs. Prejean Boller were dismissed for holding these beliefs, it is difficult to understand why I am still a member of the Commission," Barron wrote.
"To paint herself as a victim of anti-Catholic prejudice or to claim that her religious liberty has been denied is simply preposterous," he argued.
The commission met most recently on March 16 to discuss religious freedom in health care. Barron said during the hearing that Catholics are increasingly being pushed out of health care and social services.
"We've got to come forward in the public space, articulate what is the human good. I think we've become more reticent, and we've succumbed to the pressures from the secular ideology," he said.
Alongside Barron, other prominent Catholics on the commission include Ethics and Public Policy Center President Ryan Anderson and Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
The commission's advisory board also features San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki and Fort Wayne-South Bend Bishop Kevin Rhoades.
