By LifeSiteNews (Politics) | Created at 2026-09-17 19:46:35 | Updated at 2026-09-19 05:33:29
1 day ago
Thu Sep 17, 2026 - 3:32 pm EDT
(LifeSiteNews) — Fr. James Martin took to social media to advise U.S. Vice President JD Vance, a convert to Catholicism, to study Britain’s new “Catholic” prime minister who has been an ardent supporter of abortion, assisted dying, same-sex marriage, and puberty blockers for gender-confused teens.
The Catholic politician who Fr. Martin wants Vice President Vance to emulate is Andy Burnham, who replaced Keir Starmer in July.
Burnham has famously admitted, “I’m a gay-rights, feminist, football-loving Catholic kind of guy.”
He has also said that he was made by “Everton Football Club, the Labour Party and the Catholic Church” – “in that order,” according to a report by Premiere Christianity before he took office.
JD Vance, Here’s a Catholic Politician You Should Get to Know https://t.co/E7vFioPGX7
— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) September 16, 2026
The Jesuit priest posted a New York Times (NYT) opinion piece by guest essayist David Gibson headlined “JD Vance, Here’s a Catholic Politician You Should Get to Know,” signaling his agreement with the NYT writer.
“Britain’s new prime minister is exactly the kind of Catholic that America needs,” Gibson declared at the outset of his piece.
“That might sound odd, especially given that Mr. Burnham was raised Catholic but rarely attends Mass and leads the center-left party in one of the West’s least churchgoing nations,” Gibson continued. “But Mr. Burnham’s Catholicism is still central to who he is as a leader, and it informs his approach to policy, which is oriented toward the common good rather than culture wars.”
Gibson, and by extension Fr. Martin, believes that the Catholic Church should be less rigid in its teachings concerning “divisive social issues such as the legal status of gay rights or abortion.”
“The British prime minister may not be the ideal Catholic,” Gibson allowed, oddly continuing that “he ought to be seen as a helpful corrective to an American Catholicism that often sees the faith less as a way of life and more as an avenue to an argument.”
Your support makes stories like this possible!
LifeSiteNews is completely donor supported, allowing us to report on what truly is happening in the world, free of charge and uncensored. A donation to LifeSite will ensure millions around the world can continue to come to our site to find the truth people are so desperately searching for on life, faith, family and freedom.
