In an appeal to the faithful, 40 conservative Catholic leaders denounced GOP front-runner Donald Trump as a demagogue and danger to the nation.

The denunciation appeared in the National Review on Monday, March 7, one day before the Michigan Republican primary, which — if he wins — could give Trump an almost-unbeatable delegate lead in the GOP nominating race.

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Robert P. George of Princeton University, and George Weigel, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, headlined the charge, which was also signed by opinion leaders from academia and religious media.

Trump is cited for “vulgarity, oafishness, shocking ignorance, and — we do not hesitate to use the word — demagoguery.”

Worse, they wrote, he’s the opposite of what Catholics should seek in a leader, according to their “appeal to our fellow Catholics and all men and women of good will.”

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George and Weigel wrote that there is “nothing in his campaign or his previous record that gives us grounds for confidence that he genuinely shares our commitments to the right to life, to religious freedom and the rights of conscience, to rebuilding the marriage culture, or to … the principle of limited constitutional government.”

The appeal comes just days after a new Fox News-funded pre-election poll of likely Republican voters showed the New York billionaire was a popular choice among Michigan Catholic voters.

Trump’s kerfuffle with Pope Francis (who called his stance on immigration “not Christian”) has not dissuaded Catholics. According to the poll, Trump, with 52 percent of Catholic voters, leads Sen. Marco Rubio (16 percent) Ohio Gov. John Kasich (14 percent) and Sen. Tex Cruz (11 percent) with Catholics.

This article originally appeared in Religion News Service.