Nick Fuentes has said things no Catholic should defend. Lines the Church has long drawn, he has crossed. This cannot be excused, and it shouldn’t be erased. But once that is admitted, a harder truth remains: his rise poses questions the faithful can’t shrug away.

At 27, he commands a vast audience. His attachment to Catholic doctrine appears genuine. He defends marriage with conviction, champions family without apology, and pushes back on the cultural war against Christian belief with a bluntness many bishops avoid.

There’s the dilemma. On one side, he is an articulate advocate for truths Catholics hold dear. On the other, he is a man with baggage that contradicts those same truths. The Deconstruction of ... Barnett, Tim Best Price: $7.16 Buy New $8.99 (as of 03:12 UTC - Details)

The media opts for caricature over clarity. In their telling, Fuentes is painted as a pure villain, a mix of Hitler and Richard Spencer. His listeners are treated as nothing more than bigots, and any Catholic who engages is branded complicit. But the Church has never lived in simple sketches. The challenge has always been knowing what to do with them. Why, then, are young Catholic men drawn to him?

Because he confronts what others dodge. He slams immigration policies that break working families. He denounces foreign wars that enrich contractors and bury children. He defends masculinity in a culture that mocks it. He calls out elites who preach inclusion while excluding Catholics. These are real grievances. He voices them loudly and unapologetically.

Young men like myself feel targeted by the culture. They hear “toxic” attached to masculinity and “oppressive” glued to tradition. They see crime facts dismissed when they cut against the script. They watch their demographic blamed for everything while others are shielded.

Fuentes meets their frustration with data and defiance, magnetic even when he wanders where Catholics cannot follow. He can be bold in truth yet brutal in tone. He critiques feminism with flashes of cruelty. He calls out crime with words that can veer into prejudice. He marries clarity with corrosion, forcing Catholics to sift the wheat from the weeds.

That is the task. Progressives dismiss him outright, pretending nothing he says holds truth. Many conservatives wave him off as a “weird” guy in a basement. Both are wrong. We live in an age of absolutes, yet the Church cannot afford to abandon nuance.

A Catholic approach demands more charity and more clarity. We do not judge a soul only by its worst sentence; we judge the whole arc—repentance, amendment, the fruits that follow. I am not calling for a wholehearted embrace. But folded arms and moral tutting won’t work either. Fuentes isn’t fading. Quite the opposite, in fact. He is growing more influential by the day.

And amid the noise, there is a note of grace. Though he and Charlie Kirk were vocal opponents, when Kirk was killed, Fuentes offered only condolences to Erika and the children—and prayers. Some say, “So what? That’s the least he could do.” True. But if he were only chasing clicks, he could have taken a cheaper, crueler road. He didn’t. In an era when social media amplifies the foolishness of youth and rewards immorality, that restraint matters. He now speaks a little slower, a little more carefully—not perfect, but human, someone capable of change.

So the questions for Catholics are practical. Can we critique feminism without sinking into outright misogyny? Can we oppose unjust wars without chasing crazy conspiracies? Can we face demographic change without losing charity? Can we defend borders while still seeing neighbors? I believe we can. These are the questions Fuentes forces onto the table, and they are questions we should all wrestle with.

Catholic teaching is clear. Good ends never justify evil means. Human dignity is not a bargaining chip. National pride must never eclipse the brotherhood we share in Christ.

This tension won’t vanish. The Fuentes moment forces a choice: Can we take what is factual without baptizing what is fictional? Can we accept what is useful without excusing what is harmful? The Church has faced this before. Sinners became saints. Great minds still had blind spots. The faithful are sorted carefully, with patience and prayer. A Genocide Foretold: R... Hedges, Chris Best Price: $10.62 Buy New $14.53 (as of 03:12 UTC - Details)

This requires spiritual maturity, not partisan zeal. It requires critical thinking. It means separating the message from the messenger and sense from insult. Politics demands loyalty to a tribe. Faith asks for something more complex: to reject hatred without shutting out what is right and to correct error without killing hope.

Should Catholics engage with Fuentes? Yes—carefully. Engagement is not endorsement. We need to exercise prudence, not fangirling; fraternal correction, not fawning applause.

In the end, the Fuentes question is less about him than about us. How do we remain faithful when leaders fail? How do we resist a hostile culture without losing Christian compassion? How do we defend a civilization worth saving without sawing at its Christian foundations?

We have all sinned; Fuentes has sinned, perhaps more than most. He has said what should not be said. Yet he is young, and youth can learn. If he is serious about the Faith, repentance can take root and bear fruit.

The Church should neither canonize nor cancel. Instead, we must watch, test, correct, and pray. Refuse the lie; keep what is good. And judge, as the Church always has, by conversion, by actions, and by the evidence of a changed life—step by step.

This article was originally published on Crisis Magazine.