Meet America’s new ‘MAGA Catholics’ fighting the religion’s rising wokeness

Their critics call them MAGA Catholics. Others label them as traditionalists — even fundamentalists.

What is certain is that conservative or “faithful” Catholics, as they often prefer to be known, seem to be everywhere right now — from the new candidate for America’s ambassador to the Holy See to holding dinners and prayers services at Mar-A-Lago.

This small but fervent wave of new conservative Catholicism is exploding nationwide — more visible than ever as they celebrate their resurrection victory this Easter Sunday.

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On March 19, the who’s who of the new Catholics showed up at Mar-A-Lago for a second year in a row. The event displayed the direct connection between these groups, the Trump administration and the MAGA movement.

At Mar-a-Lago was Eduardo Verastegui, a fervent Catholic activist and a former Mexican soap opera hunk who became a successful Hollywood filmmaker, along with Taylor Marshall, the one-time Anglican priest turned Catholic podcaster, and Joseph Strickland, the erstwhile bishop of Tyler, Texas.

“Our true love for the Lord is the opposite of passivity. And it’s going to create zealous warriors.” said John C. Yep, CEO of Catholics for Catholics, which hosted the Mar-A-Lago event. Formally known as the Catholic Prayer for America Gala, the gathering has lured high-profile converts such as Vice President JD Vance along with actors like Shia LaBeouf and Rob Schneider (both of Jewish origin), and Tammy Roberts Peterson, wife of famous psychologist and author Jordan Peterson.  

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For most of the past century, lay Catholics were seen as a timid cluster that quietly adhered to mainstream politics and society.

But that changed during the COVID pandemic, when radical leftist groups began public attacks on church doctrine and transgender ideology was increasingly pushed in elementary schools.

A backlash began to brew, and leaders like Yep and his conservative flock were ready for it.  “This movement stands for the common man and the well-known VIP,” said Yep. “It resonates with Americans who love this nation.” 

Rod Dreher, a former New York Post writer and author of religion-focused books such as “The Benedict Option,” said he sees the new Catholic conservatives as more pragmatic than prior traditionalist groups, who were intellectually inclined but less grassroots. But the newcomers in no way shy away from becoming political.

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“A more normie, middle-class form of Christianity might be fine when the culture is basically stable,” explained Dreher, “but the insanity that began in 2020 — COVID, the Summer of Floyd, the normalization of transgenderism — made a lot of people think hard about their religious commitments.”

No figure better symbolizes this new Catholic conservatism than VP Vance, who converted to the Catholic faith in 2019 and is seen as a role model for Catholicism’s new wave. It was Dreher, a longtime Vance confidant, who originally introduced the vice president to the Dominican priest who baptized him into Catholicism.

Vance has spoken openly about the power and meaning of his conversion. Writing in the Catholic journal The Lamp, in their Easter 2020 edition, for instance, he noted: “I needed to pray more, to participate in the sacramental life of the Church, to confess and to repent publicly, no matter how awkward that might be. And I needed grace. I needed, in other words, to become Catholic, not merely to think about it.” 

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Like many other conservative Christian organizations, the key aims of groups like Catholics for Catholics, said Yep, is to defend the Church and the country against hardcore leftist ideologies while stimulating the Catholic vote and promoting religious liberties and pro-life causes. Their mission is to be a religious version of a rapid response commando, ready to defend their faith. 

Back in June 2023, for instance, the Los Angeles Dodgers honored the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence — a self-described “leading-edge order of queer and trans nuns” — during Pride Night, an annual LGBT-themed baseball game.  

Believing the Sisters were mocking their faith, Catholics for Catholics gathered some 5,000 believers in just days who protested outside Dodger Stadium, praying rosaries and holding banners with signs like “Stop anti-Catholic hate” and “¡Viva Cristo Rey!” (“Hail Christ the King!”).

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The public display demonstrated a marked shift from typical Catholic politicking. Charles A. Coulombe, a Los Angeles Catholic writer and author of “Vicars of Christ” — which chronicled the lives of all 266 popes — said that historically the American Catholic Church, led by the bishops, has maintained an unspoken deal with politicians and society to avoid confrontations and curtail evangelization.

The roots of the covenant dates back more than half a century, when John F. Kennedy, who would go on to become the first Catholic president, told the Houston Ministerial association in 1960 that he would never allow his faith to dictate his behavior in public life.

“That speech was really the bill of rights for the Catholic politician who wanted to feel he was Catholic without saying anything, without taking the stands that our religion demands of us, whether we are politicians or playwrights or shoemakers,” said Coulombe, who was made a knight by Pope John Paul. 

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Such a conciliatory, accommodating stance was a form of “selling out” — an attempt to blend in with society and the government. Ultimately, however, this failed to fully serve both the nation — or Catholics themselves, Coulombe added.

Still, not everyone in the Church is a fan of the new Catholic traditionalism. One of their biggest detractors is none other than Pope Francis, the former Bishop of Buenos Aires who assumed the papacy back in 2013. The pope, for instance, appeared to criticize young conservatives in 2015 when he said that families do not have to breed “like rabbits.” In late 2023, the pope also ruffled traditionalists when he decreed that the church would begin blessing Catholics in same-sex relationships.

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In addition, the pope has been critical of the arch-traditional “Latin Mass,” — the ornate, highly ritualized, incense-filled Latin-only Mass that defined Catholicism until the 1960s. Francis’ predecessor Pope Benedict XVI restored the use of Latin Mass in 2007, but Francis scaled back access to the Mass in 2021, criticizing it as overly “ideological,” irking many traditionalists who have embraced the ancient form of worship.

Mike Lewis, the founding managing editor of Where Peter Is, an online progressive Catholic journal, said that numerous conservative Catholics exist in a state of opposition to Francis for his progressive views.

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“They’ve been attacking the man for eight years but what they failed to realize is that the Pope actually, even if they don’t like the Pope’s authority, does have the authority in the Catholic Church,” Lewis said. 

Jesse Romero, a former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy who is a popular Catholic podcaster and author, described Francis as one of the most ineffective popes in history. And this has led younger Catholics — like Americans of all faiths — to seek a return to traditionalism.

“Now that we have a more literate Catholic population you are seeing that people who are coming up through the ranks are orthodox Catholics,” Romero said.

Similar to Catholics for Catholics, CatholicVote, a nonprofit organization based in Madison, Wis., works mostly on the electoral front to advance conservative causes.

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During the presidential election, for instance, the organization sent field workers to every swing state and 5,000 volunteers to help the Trump-Vance ticket garner the Catholic vote, said Joshua Mercer, the organization’s vice president. They succeeded.

“We felt the need to have an organization to be the voice for Catholics on behalf of pro-life, pro-family and religious freedom,” Mercer said.  “Catholics should have a seat at the table on all issues.”

In what many conservatives believe is a huge win for securing that seat, this month the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held confirmation hearings for Brian Burch, 49, the president of CatholicVote and a father or nine, for the post of ambassador to the Holy See. They believe that with Burch they will have one of their own in the heart of the Church.

Veronica Flamenco, a 30-something communications graduate who migrated to Los Angeles from El Salvador two decades ago, epitomizes the new conservative Catholic Latina. Now a member of Catholics for Catholics and living in Phoenix, Flamenco believes Hispanics are particularly vulnerable to the woke ideologies that are fueling the rise of the Catholic right. 

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For over a century, Catholics have been the second-largest religious body in the country. According to the US Census, a third of the nation’s 61.9 million Catholics, like Flamenco, are Latinos.

Flamenco conceded that Trump has his flaws, but pointed out that she agrees with him on issues such as illegal immigration. She particular aligned with the president, when he said in 2018 that many undocumented Central American women ran the risk of being raped or killed when crossing the US border without papers. By helping Catholics, he is helping Latinas, she said.

“Despite everything, we believe he’s a man who can help us move forward, rather than backward,” Flamenco said. “We feel Trump and Vance are allies to our cause.”

Joseph Treviño is an Arizona-based journalist and the author of the novel “The Wolftress.”