Bishop Robert Barron rebuked Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., for his recent comments describing the idea of human rights coming from God as “very, very troubling” and akin to radical Islam.
“I just found it so outrageous and really so dangerous to our democracy,” Barron, who serves the Roman Catholic Diocese of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota, said in a Thursday video on X that has drawn more than 1 million views as of Friday.
I’d like to respond to a disturbing contention from Senator Tim Kaine, during a recent confirmation hearing. pic.twitter.com/hvaYlQQybi
— Bishop Robert Barron (@BishopBarron) September 4, 2025
Kaine went viral on social media in recent days for comments he made during a nominations hearing of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday.
Likening the idea that rights come from God and not the government to the beliefs of the radical Iranian regime, Kaine suggested that rights are not God-given.
“The notion that rights don’t come from laws and don’t come from the government, but come from the Creator — that’s what the Iranian government believes,” Kaine said. “It’s a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Sharia law and targets Sunnis, Bahá’ís, Jews, Christians and other religious minorities.”
Our rights don’t come from government or the DNC.
They come from God. @timkaine, I suggest the Dems go back and read the words of our Founding Fathers. pic.twitter.com/QRmhTcbbOH
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 3, 2025
“And they do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their Creator. So the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.”
Kaine continued: “I think the the motto over the Supreme Court is ‘equal justice under law,’ — the oath that you and I take pledged to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, not arbitrarily defined natural rights.”
Kaine was responding to an opening statement from Riley Barnes, a former U.S. State Department official who previously served as senior advisor to former Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback.
Barnes replied to the senator by quoting the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence, which claims human beings are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”
In his rebuke, Barron noted that Kaine’s worldview is antithetical to the political philosophy of the Founding Fathers from the state he represents, who believed God-given rights were eternal and therefore unalienable.
“What struck me was, he’s a senator from Virginia,” he said. “Virginia was the state of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, both of whom took it as fundamental to our democracy that our rights don’t come from the government; they come from God.”
“So basic to Jefferson was the fact that rights come first,” Barron said. “They’re not invented by the government.” Quoting the Declaration of Independence that Jefferson wrote, Barron noted that the founders believed government exists “to secure” the rights God has given.
Barron warned that Kaine’s mindset attributes too much power to the government, noting that the 20th century was riddled with the consequences of state authorities believing they are empowered to bestow and revoke God-given rights.
“If the government creates our rights, it can take them away. If the government is responsible for our rights, then it can change them,” he said. “If you think this never happens, you don’t know much about the history of the 20th century. Look at the great totalitarian systems of the 20th century that followed from the denial of God and denial of rights coming from God.”
“Those rights became eminently alienable whenever it served the purposes of the government. It just strikes me as extraordinary that a major American politician wouldn’t understand this really elemental part of our system.”
Barron said, “God help us,” if Americans come to believe that their rights come from the government.
“That gives the government, indeed, God-like power,” he said. “This is not pious boilerplate, it’s basic democracy: we are a nation under God.”
Kaine drew public rebuke from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Wednesday, who said his views were “disturbing” and “showed much of where today’s Democrat Party has gone wrong.”
“I have to say, it is stunning to me that the principle that God has given us natural rights is now deemed by Democrats some radical and dangerous notion,” Cruz said.
Barron’s recent comments echo similar sentiments he made last year, when he publicly rebuked Politico reporter Heidi Pryzbyla after she went viral for claiming on MSNBC that Christian nationalists are united by the belief “that our rights as Americans, as all human beings, don’t come from any earthly authority.” Barron called Pryzbyla’s remarks “disturbing” and “dangerous.”
Pryzbyla later apologized for her comments, saying she used “clumsy” words that were “interpreted by some people as making arguments that are quite different from what I believe.”
“Reporters have a responsibility to use words and convey meaning with precision, and am sorry I fell short of this in my appearance,” she said.
Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to jon.brown@christianpost.com
