Texas Dem Senate Candidate Talarico Put in His Place on Bible & Abortion

Texas Democrat Senate candidate James Talarico has made some truly shocking – and some would say blasphemous – statements about God and the Bible on the campaign trail. But two actual theologians recently smacked down Talarico’s grotesque left-wing distortions of Christian teachings as both factually incorrect and morally debased.

Since he announced his candidacy for Senate in September 2025, the media and other elected Democrats have held up Talarico, a former middle school teacher and Presbyterian seminarian, as an authority on Christianity. But Talarico’s interpretation of the Bible is likely completely alien to anyone who grew up in Sunday School or attends a church that hasn’t been infected with radical left political ideology.

For instance, in direct defiance of the official teachings of the Catholic Church as well as virtually all Protestant denominations, Talarico asserts that the Bible is silent on abortion. In a wild claim, Talarico stated that the Blessed Virgin Mary’s “consent” to being the mother of God is really a “pro-choice” story.

Talarico has also claimed that God is “nonbinary” and that there are six sexes, cited the Bible as the reason why he supports socialist healthcare, and even stated that all religions have the “same truth” as Christianity.

Those statements win plenty of applause from liberal circles that have long been openly hostile toward Christianity and sought to banish religion from public life. But Talarico’s lies crumble like a wet paper bag when they run up against an actual expert on the Bible who has the spine to call him out.

That was the case earlier this month during a CNN town hall when Talarico cited Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV as his “spiritual heroes” and then went on to affirm his support for killing unborn babies. (Never mind that every pope has affirmed the dignity of the unborn and centuries of Catholic teaching have explicitly rejected abortion.)

“The Bible is silent on the issue of abortion,” Talarico again told Jodi Hunt, a professor of applied ministry at the University of Dallas. He then claimed that he wanted to reduce the number of abortions, but only through free birth control, government healthcare, and left-wing sex ed that violates Christian teachings about confining sex to marriage.

But then he was hit with a knockout punch from the very person he was trying to convince to vote for him.

“I just wanted to add that the Bible is not silent on abortion,” Professor Hunt told Talarico. “There is the Ten Commandments, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ and as Catholics we take great insult when it is spouted that way.” (Hunt might have additionally mentioned Psalm 139:13, which reads, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”)

Hunt also put Talarico in his place about promoting contraception and so-called “age-appropriate” sex education, pointing out that he does not understand Catholic doctrine on teaching young people about sexuality.

It’s a “trying thing for us,” Hunt said, “because we believe the parents are the primary educator of our children.”

CNN, for obvious reasons, deceptively edited the clip to cut off before this verbal smackdown in the short videos the network shared on YouTube and X. But the corporate media spin room could not stop a Catholic bishop in Texas from condemning Talarico’s comments on X.

“The right to life is the premier moral issue because all human rights depend upon the human person being alive,” Diocese of Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson wrote, responding to the exchange. “The right to life is the common ground for the morality of all issues considered in policies involving human dignity and the common good.”

Bishop Olson’s comments are noteworthy because the Catholic Church hierarchy is usually reluctant to directly address a candidate. Election year messaging is typically kept to general statements about abortion and other issues of note to Catholics, as well as the importance of being involved in the civic process.

But in this case, Talarico’s hubris about what Christians should believe invited a more direct rebuke and defense of biblical teachings. After all, it takes an astonishing level of arrogance for Talarico to claim that he, a 37-year-old Democrat politician, knows more about the Bible and God’s design for Mankind than 2,000 years of study by Catholic scholars. Literature from the 2nd century, called the Apocalypse of Peter, reflects the early Christian belief that women who had abortions would be condemned. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states clearly that abortion has always been condemned.

Furthermore, Catholics and Protestants have put aside theological differences for the past five decades to work together to reverse Roe v. Wade and end abortion, because they realize they have common cause in protecting God’s creation.

But to hear Talarico tell it, the theologians and ethicists who have studied the issue of abortion and human sexuality are wrong. “Trust me,” he tells Texas voters. “I am the real expert on theology.”

Talarico’s theology bears no resemblance to the text of the Bible. In the Texas Legislature, he voted in favor of unrestricted abortion through all nine months of pregnancy and transgender surgeries for minors. When asked about his faith, his top concern is contorting the Bible to meet the demands of a far-left political platform, rather than letting the Bible guide his politics.

In other words, Talarico’s version of Christianity is what non-Christian leftists want the faith to be. A trained Catholic professor and prelate in his own state had no trouble piercing that charade. Christian voters in Texas should follow their example.