Bishop Robert Barron excoriates AOC for 'unapologetically Marxist' critique of West: 'A little concerned'

Bishop Robert Barron joined a chorus of criticism against statements by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., at the Munich Security Conference last week, and singled out a remark she made about Western culture that he warned is evidence of encroaching Marxism in the Democratic Party.

Barron, who has served as bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Winona-Rochester since 2022, noted in a Monday social media post that Ocasio-Cortez was dismissive of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's address at the conference, during which he said the U.S. and Europe share a cultural identity built on Christianity.

Describing Rubio's idea of a shared Western culture as "thin," Ocasio-Cortez claimed during a subsequent panel that "culture, for the entire history of human civilization, has always been a fluid, evolving thing that responds to the conditions that we live in."

Barron praised Rubio's worldview, but discerned that Ocasio-Cortez's philosophy is "right out of the Marxist playbook" and increasingly shared by younger Democratic political leaders in the United States.

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