(LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Robert Barron criticized heterodox German professors and leftist protesters who accused him of “Trumpism.”

In July, Barron received the Josef Pieper prize in Münster, Germany. He was met by leftist protesters, some of them part of official Catholic youth groups known for heterodoxy and support of LGBT ideology.

Pieper was a Catholic philosopher and one of the most influential Thomists of the 20^th century. Since 2004, the Josef Pieper Foundation has awarded a prize in honor of its namesake.

One day before the award ceremony, the Überwasserkirche, where Barron celebrated Mass, and the hall where Barron was set to speak were defaced or sprayed with slogans such as “F*** Trump.”

In his Word on Fire blog, Barron, who was appointed by Pope Francis to the Diocese of Winona, Minnesota in 2022, commented on the protesters, stating that “(t)heir principal complaint seemed to be my participation, at the invitation of President Trump, in a commission dedicated to formulating policy in regard to religious liberty in our country.”

READ: Bishop Barron says he takes heterodox priest as his ‘model’ for new Trump admin role

“Because I was representing a Catholic perspective at the table where a matter of great importance was being discussed, I was accused of fomenting American imperialism and of neglecting the human rights of immigrants!”

“The intellectual level of the protesters was made evident in the crude slogans they spray-painted on the walls of the hall where I was speaking and on the façade of the church,” Barron wrote. “That they felt the best way to express their dissatisfaction was through an act of desecration shows how corrupt they are.”

“But I must say, little better were the objections expressed by certain members of the theology faculty at the University of Münster,” Barron said. “They, too, accused me of Trumpism and, of course, being insufficiently ‘inclusive,’ though their letters betrayed absolutely no engagement with any of my work.”

The U.S. bishop said during the July event in Münster that the theology professors who attacked Barron had merely read “slogans in third-rate tabloids” and were unable to present sound arguments.

“When I was a young man, American students of theology looked eagerly to German academics for inspiration,” Barron wrote in his blog.

“If these professors in Münster are any indication of the state of the German academy, I would tell American students today to look anywhere else,” Barron concluded.

The Catholic Church in Germany and the Catholic faculties of most universities are known for their extreme heterodoxy and outright heresy. During the “Synodal Way,” more than two-thirds of the German Bishops approved documents that included heretical statements, for instance, that homosexual acts are not sinful or that women can become priests.

Bishop Barron has himself faced criticism from faithful Catholics on numerous occasions, including when he  praised a book by notorious LGBT activist Fr. James Martin, described Jesus as the “privileged route” – rather than the only way (Acts 4:12) – to salvation, suggested that Hell may be empty, told a homosexual commentator that he would not seek to reverse homosexual “marriage,” and said that he took a heretical priest as his “model” for his role on Trump’s religious freedom commission, as LifeSite has reported.