The U.S. Senate has confirmed Brian Burch, cofounder and former president of the anti-LGBTQ+ group CatholicVote, as the next U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. The 49-44 vote fell strictly along party lines, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed. President Donald Trump, endorsed by CatholicVote during his campaign, nominated Burch in December.
Burch has a history of criticizing Pope Francis’s queer community outreach. After the pope approved blessings for same-sex couples in 2023, Burch told Newsmax the move created confusion, claiming LGBTQ activists wanted to “totally destroy the Catholic Church’s understanding of human sexuality.” CatholicVote’s social media even put same-sex couples in quotation marks.
Pope Francis’s successor, Pope Leo XIV, has reaffirmed that marriage is between a man and a woman, but said the church will continue same-sex blessings. Burch has accused Francis of a pattern of vindictiveness toward conservatives and opposed his comments encouraging responsible family planning.
CatholicVote under Burch also spread misinformation on gender-affirming care, calling it experimental, and supported the Trump administration’s ban on visas for trans women athletes, referring to them as male. In his confirmation statement, Burch said he was “profoundly grateful” to Trump and the Senate, noting the coincidence that Pope Leo XIV and he both hail from Chicago. Burch succeeds Democrat Joe Donnelly, who served from 2022 to 2024.
