Welcome back to the Word on Fire show. I'm Matthew Petrusik, Senior Director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire show. Thank you for joining. We continue celebrating our 25th anniversary here at Word on Fire, which means 25 years of proclaiming the gospel, 25 years of evangelizing the culture. 25 years of supporting the faithful, 25 years of inviting the disaffiliated, the forsaken, and those who have fallen away back to Christ and his church.
And yes, 25 years of getting denounced, scolded, called out, and condemned for all. Throughout the years, the attacks against Bishop Barron and Word on Fire have come from many sources. including from the small but bracingly loud and happily dwindling band of overly online anti-evangelists who hate religion in general and Christianity in particular.
Surprisingly, however, the complaints and vilification have also come from those who claim to represent the church, indeed from those who posture themselves as the church's greatest defender. What is the substance of these detractions? What motivates them? Do they pose an actual threat to the ministry? And perhaps most importantly, what can they teach us as evangelists about how to respond constructively to public criticism, especially when it's vicious?
Here to help us set the record straight and to offer advice on how to develop thick skin without getting a hardened heart is Bishop Robert Barron. Bishop, welcome back to the studio. Hey Matt, always good to be with you. So today's topic we're looking at some criticism that we receive here at Word on Fire, some of it directly targeting you. But before we reach into our mailbag of discontent, what have you been up to recently?
A lot of different things in the diocese. One is we brought the seminarians from IHM, which is the wonderful college seminary. and we gathered outside the Planned Parenthood and we prayed the rosary and prayed some litanies, you know, for the babies who are being killed there, but also for the women, you know, who are going there. We're praying to support them. But it's always a good experience. It's good for the students, I think. And then we gather for a pizza afterwards.
It's just a good evening. We drive by that clinic every time we drop off our daughter at St. Pius School, and there's always somebody out there praying, at least one, sometimes many more. Yeah, it's impressive. Okay, so let's turn to our topic today. But before we look at some specific criticisms, Bishop, you've been out in the public sphere and online doing this for over 25 years.
Let's start off by asking this. Is there anything under the sun that surprises you in terms of the kind of vitriol and criticism that you and Word on Fire can get? No, not really. I mean, there's something about the Internet space that has encouraged this sort of critique because it's so easy to criticize. All you have to do is go to your keyboard and you can dash something. You can do it anonymously.
And that's increased the intensity of vitriol. I mean, everyone, anyone that's a public person in any way will experience it. You know, years ago, you'd have to sit down and write a letter. And you'd have to fold it up and address the envelope and put a stamp on it and send it. And the person might get it.
And that's the end of it. Well, now anyone and his brother or sister can just sit down on a keyboard and write some stupid thing. And then it's up 24-7, 365 all over the world. And that's encouraged then a lot of the vitriol. can see it. Well, that's ridiculous. You know, I love the Internet, love the social media space, but that's it's real.
What was your experience like going back to when you first started posting videos on YouTube and you realized... comments yeah what was that like it was surprising i didn't know you could do that i mean youtube was brand new when we started and i i wasn't on it i wasn't using it until i did my own videos and i would check that
And I, what? Oh, people can say things about the video? And I discovered pretty quickly, people very rarely go, what a lovely video. Congratulations for that beautiful insight. You know, if they comment 94% of the time, it's going to... So at first I was kind of appalled, like, I thought this was an innocent little video about a movie.
But of course people found something bad to say about it. But then you get used to it. And what I loved was it gave me some traction. It gave me an opportunity. Like, oh, okay, you didn't like this. Well, let me, you know, answer that. And in the early days, I don't do it. In the early days, I would get... As I mentioned last time, I've got a bit of that joie de combat. I kind of like getting into the fray. So it was actually one of the ways that we drove interest in our videos.
And your viewers may not know this, but you still do occasionally show up in the comments. And you know what's interesting, Matt, over the years, the number of people have said to me, you know, many years ago, that video you did. on atheism, and you got in this long argument with this guy. Well, that had a big impact on me. And you're not thinking at all about that. You're thinking, oh, I'm just answering this one guy. But other people were listening in to the argument.
for better or worse. I know, and I say my first essay is kind of for worse, you know, because sometimes you'll do something and you sort of feel like, boy, I've crafted this beautiful sculpture. and now it's just covered in graffiti you know and everyone reads the graffiti first uh but you know so
Let's now turn to some of the criticisms themselves. We have a litany of them. Unsurprisingly, given our polarized age, they generally fall into two categories. So you and the rest of us at Word on Fire are either A. too conservative, meaning the ministry is too traditional because we are not sufficiently open to the spirit of the times or...
WE'RE TOO LIBERAL, MEANING THE MINISTRY IS TOO CAUGHT UP IN TRYING TO ENGAGE WITH THE SECULAR WORLD AND THEREFORE NOT TRADITIONAL ENOUGH. SO WITHIN THIS ROUGH FRAMEWORK, LET'S LOOK AT CRITICISM NUMBER ONE. It's something I'm very proud. I don't know any other figure in the public space, let's say a Catholic figure, who is criticized more from both the left and the right than I am. There are a lot of people, everyone's criticized, you know, like the left hates this guy and the right hates that.
Name someone else who's criticized more than I am by both the left and the right. I'm proud. Because when extremes on both sides are finding a problem, then I'm likely in the right place. So I'm happy with that, that we get critiqued from both extremes. You'll certainly see that in the criticisms. So here's the first one. Bishop, you have often critiqued the Catholicism that you grew up with. called Beige Catholicism and Banners and Balloons.
BOTH OF WHICH I LOVE. BUT SOME HAVE RESPONDED THAT THIS CHARACTERIZATION IS UNFAIR BECAUSE IT TRIVIALIZES THE WORK OF THOSE WHO WERE JUST TRYING TO MAKE THE CHURCH MORE RELEVANT TO THE CULTURE AND MORE INCLUSIVE, ESPECIALLY. So how do you respond to that criticism? Well, I'd respond this way. I mean, Word on Fire is all about making the church, if you want, relevant to the culture, reaching out to the skeptical culture, reaching out maybe especially to younger people who have questions.
I got nothing against that. I'm all in favor of the Vatican too. You know, Balthazar said we got to raise the Vatican. the walls and get out into real dialogue with the world i am a great devotee of gaudium and spes i'm for all of that the problem is it wasn't done well and i can testify to that from my own direct experience what i'm calling the base catholic is a culturally accommodating...
The world sets the agenda for the church. That was a big thing in my time as a kid. And let's dumb it down to make it as easily accessible to anybody in the culture. Those were mistaken ways of doing it. I'm not opposed to doing it. I accept the Vatican II call to engage. but it was done very poorly indeed and statistically you can show that had a terrible
that the banners and balloons, beige Catholicism, produced a lot of the people who disaffiliated. You know why? Because they grew up. And this childish, superficial Catholicism they were given. This is my generation. didn't speak to them when they faced the difficulties of life and uh so no no i i stand by that
But what the, I mean, I stand by my criticism of banners and balloons. The critics here, though, are pointing to what was valid about Vatican II. I'm in favor of that. Word on Fire is all about. But we do it in a different way. You know, one of the comments we most frequently hear both within the Institute and on the productions you do is, I had no idea.
taught that. Yeah, I know. There was a professor many years ago at DePaul in Chicago, and he used my book, and now I see for one of his undergraduate classes. and he said this young lady came up to him from the class and said you know it's the funniest thing i i never knew that the catholic church had things to say about
and about the cross and about Jesus. I just thought it meant they're against gay marriage and they're against abortion. And he said it was such an eye-opener because she was being sincere. Because my book is all about all those things, not about the hot button issue. But that's a failure in catechesis. And believe me, my generation got... so no no that's i've been fighting that most of my uh career
So criticism number two, one of the guiding principles of Word on Fire is to lead with beauty. Some critics respond, however, that prioritizing beauty is at best a luxury. and should be an afterthought in the Christian life because there's so much urgent work to do in healing a torn, impoverished, and suffering world. And that's where our... Don't build Schar Cathedral. Just feed the hunger.
Dante, you're wasting your time with that divine comedy thing. Get out there and help the poor. Flannery O'Connor, don't write those short stories. There are hungry people right now in your hometown. Why aren't you out feeding them? The problem with it, Matt, and you know this well, It's a kind of weird Kantianism of a reduction of religion to the ethical. And today we tend to see ethics not so much in the private but the social. So social ethics, that's what religion is all about.
Religion is about social ethics. It is indeed. But there's a reductionism. The Catholic Church has embraced the beautiful alongside of its great service. Take someone like Dorothy Day. There's no one who served the poor more fully than Dorothy Day did. She had profound respect for the beauty of the liturgical and sacramental tradition. Think of the fact that Chartres Cathedral, I think the most beautiful covered space.
was designed by a cultural elite, that's true, but it was built by poor people. It was built by the average working people of the time and place. One of my heroes, Reynolds Hillen, who was rector of mundelein seminary back in the 30s and 40s and he was a great friend of dorothy day a friend of advocate for social justice he said the poor need beauty as much as they need food
See, he had an integrated Catholic sensibility. I don't like this neo-Contian reductionism, but it was very prevalent in the years I was coming. which is why the religion we got was largely social justice. It was largely a kind of liberal political program with a slight religious decoration.
No, no, the beauty of the faith, especially as expressed in the liturgy, that's at the heart of the matter. Second observation, I've made this many times, is in our postmodern culture, when people are very skeptical of truth claims. moral claims, right? Don't tell me what to think. Don't tell me how to behave. But the beautiful is much less threat. let me just show you something look at shark cathedral look at the stories of flannery o'connor read
It's not a threatening move. Therefore, it's more helpful in our day and age, I think. And that's one reason. I think it's fair to say that the church, especially in the West, losing contact with its roots and the beauty has also contributed. It's loss of efficacy at the evangelical level. I think so. I grew up with a dumbed-down Catholicism. I also grew up with...
de-beautified Catholicism. Look at the churches built when I was coming of age. Baltar called them the great barns of the Reformation, these big empty spaces devoid of symbolism and cult. It was kind of a Bauhaus modernism with a slightly religious decoration. To my mind, brutalist modernism is not a form of architecture that bears the Christian mystery.
Is that a question of... antiquarianism like we can only go back to gothic cathedrals no but you have to choose an architectural style that bears the weight of christian revelation if you choose one that is so uh indebted to the assumptions of it's not going to do the job. modern churches, it's as if they're embarrassed of being religious. They're trying to hide their religiosity. To fit into the suburban landscape.
The point is the church is meant to stand out. It's another world. When you pass through those doors, you're stepping out of the ordinary world into a higher world of the angels and the saints. But they were made to be kind of comfortable domestic space. That's contrary to the purpose
GOING TO MOVE ON TO CRITICISM NUMBER THREE. WE'RE JUST GETTING STARTED. ONE OF THE HALLMARKS OF YOUR PREACHING AND TEACHING BISHOPS IS TO ENGAGE WITH SOME OF THE DEEPEST AND WE COULD EVEN SAY MOST SCHOLARLY THINKER. Catholic tradition, specifically people like St. Irenaeus and St. Thomas Aquinas.
Henry Newman, the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. So here's the critique. How do you respond to those who say that drawing on these kinds of thinkers smacks of elitism and is only appropriate in a universe? not a church. Tell about the Fulton Sheen or John Paul II. Think of probably the two most effective evangelists.
In the 20th century, Catholic evangelists, Fulton Sheen and John Paul II, both highly cultivated men. Sheen has the agrégé, the advanced doctoral degree from Louvain. John Paul II, double doctorate, teaching at the highest levels. Read the Lublin lectures of John Paul II. in some time if you want the highest level engagement of moral theology what those people did is they took those very high ideas and they were able to use them to produce a very substantial form of
I hate dumbed-down Catholicism. I got it as a kid, and it was a pastoral disaster. as i say because people grew up and they faced life and this dumbed down superficial for kids theology wasn't going to sustain The great evangelizers were informed deeply by the theological tradition. The underestimation of what young people are capable of drives me up the wall in the Catholic Church and it's been true now for decades.
that we've underplayed what kids are for some reason you know i've been on this soapbox for a long time high school kids can handle shakespeare just fine they can handle virgil's ania just fine they can handle i think my my nephew now at spacex mit graduate when he was in high school he was doing calculus at the highest level They can handle that, but somehow we're convinced when it comes to religion, we've got to give them commentary.
So that critique, I have zero patience for that because I think that's wreaked havoc. That sort of attitude has caused trouble in the church. The dumbed down, oh, it's an elite. Tell that to Fulton Sheen. You know, I mean, it's a stupid critique, and it's a dangerous critique. It's done a lot of damage to the church.
You can tell I'm very fond of it. Well, it seems to wrap itself in kind of a democratic populism and speaking for the people, but it's actually very condescending, right? It's condescending, right. of God and what they're capable of, especially young people. Again, why my nephew went to a public high school outside Chicago. It wasn't like some elite academy. Went to public high school. And I asked one time, when you arrived at MIT, did you feel ready on day one?
And kudos to his teachers at that. But why do we think when it comes to religion, oh no. Why isn't that elitism? Oh, why is he reading Isaac Newton and Einstein? Isn't that elitist? Come on. We're giving the kids the highest thing we can give them in high school. except when it comes to religion. That is a stupid mistake. Alright, criticism number four. So regarding the thought of Hans Urs von Balthasar in particular, one of the enduring, enduring attacks against you, Bishop.
is that you have drawn on von Balthasar's theology to endorse a doctrine of universal salvation. That is, that God ultimately will save all people and that hell... I know you've done this before, but please could you set the record straight once again?
position. No, because I just follow Baltzart. Neither Baltzart nor I accept a doctrine of universal salvation. That's a heresy. If you say the doctrine is God will definitely save all people, there's no question about it, hell is necessarily empty. That's universalism was condemned very early on in the church. Baltzar does not embrace it. I don't embrace it. Following him, I would say we may hope, indeed we should hope, that all people might be saved.
That's not saying they all will be saved. It's not a prediction. It's a spiritual attitude. I hope. And that hope is born of love, right? I hope in love that all people might be saved. If you look in the Catechism of 1993, you'll find this statement. In hope, the church prays for the salvation of all.
Okay, how can you pray for the salvation of all if you think it's absolutely impossible? Unless you can hope for it. And indeed, that's just what it says. In hope, the church prays for the salvation of all. If you want to see it, Ignatius asked me at Ignatius Press years ago to do a new preface for Baltazar's book called Dare We Hope, That All Be Saved. And I tried to lay this out, you know, clearly. The trouble again in the internet world, you know, is that people...
They don't read carefully. They don't appreciate nuance. Hope is not expectation. Hope is not prediction. It's hope. And in hope, the church prays for the salvation of all. I think if you don't hold that position, you're in a strange place. So that's that. Is it also fair to say that hope is not probability? Yeah, no, no, it's none of that. It's hope. Hope has its own texture. In fact, the Aquinas says that we only hope for difficult things. Like you don't say, oh, I hope the sun.
I mean, I fully expect it to come up tomorrow. You hope for difficult... As a company, I hope. That's a difficult thing. flip there but but it's um that's a very important distinction so of course it's it's difficult or unlikely or boy you know who knows uh i only hope for hard things not for things i i easily expect All right, criticism number five.
ANOTHER LONG TIME COMPLAINT OF THE ONLINE COMMENTARY IS THAT YOU, BISHOP, AND WORD ON FIRE AS A WHOLE ARE BOTH A. TOO POLITICAL BECAUSE, FOR EXAMPLE, YOU RECENTLY ATTENDED THE STATE OF THE UNION AT A CONGRESSMAN'S INVITATION AND YET ALSO, B, NOT POLITICAL ENOUGH. BECAUSE YOU AND THE MINISTRY DO NOT PUBLICLY ENDORSE AND OR CONDEMN CERTAIN POLICIES AND POLITICIANS THAT SOME CRITICS BELIEVE DESERVE EITHER SUPPORT OR CONDEMNATION.
apparently contradictory complaints that were both too political and not political enough. I'll just observe what we said earlier is the case here. It's always both left and right. Both liberals and conservatives get mad for different reasons. And it's because you're not making the right distinction. I'll say a word about the State of the Union thing because the level of stupidity in the commentary about that was staggering. Even though I'm used to stupid commentary, it was staggering.
I was invited by a nice congressman from West Virginia to come to the State of the Union address. The president, duly elected president of the United States, addressing a joint session of Congress. Look, I'm an American citizen. I find that fascinating, interesting. I didn't give a speech. I didn't endorse anybody. I didn't hold forth on any political matter. I sat in a chair in the gallery and listened at the kind invitation of a congressman to the duly elected president address.
What's the matter with that? How is that being too political? accepting a kind invitation and taking in a speech. i did a little video in the wake of it the only time because people said oh he's going as this he's a trump trump supporter and a trumpian you know advocate the only mention i made of president trump was
I'm not a cheerleader for President Trump. That's the one comment I made. I said I'm a cheerleader for Catholic social teaching. It's true. And then I said, you know, it was kind of a disconcerting display of the disunity in our country. that the congress stole obviously at odds and i call for greater civility Okay, show me the problem with that. One of my favorites was there was a photo of me shaking hands with the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. I was invited to the Speaker's reception.
hundreds of people out there's a huge crowd and eventually my host the congressman brought And I met the Speaker of the House and I shook his hand and I smiled and someone took a picture. Why didn't you tell him? Yeah, and a reception.
What, I'm going to punch the Speaker of the House, or I'm going to start lecturing the Speaker of the House. I also love, you know, he goes to Washington, and is he going to speak truth to power? Yeah, I'm going to stand up in the gallery at the State of the Union address and start shouting at the President. There's still lunacy of these suggestions. So anyway, that was to me. observation.
What was the second half? That we're not political enough because we don't endorse or condemn or get involved with the policy. I mean, you know this too very well, is that a distinction has always got to be made between certain matters that are clear instances of something that's morally wrong and problematic. So let's say...
It's intrinsically evil. There's no excuse for that. There's no way you can justify it. And the church can and should speak out clearly. Same thing with euthanasia. Same thing with Catholic.
Same thing with the abuse of children. I mean, certain things are objectively intrinsically evil. Other things... fruits other things yeah the principles are clear but now how do we apply the principles in this case it's a matter of A good example would be the immigration debate that all people should be treated with love and respect. All people are sources of infinite dignity, of course.
How do you manage the border of a country? How do you particularly manage these complex issues? I'm not an expert in that. I'm not proposing legislation. That's not my job. So the church can and should speak. in those former cases the latter cases i think the church should articulate the great principles and then say it's up to your prudential judge I have been very clear in my record there on abortion. I've said all kinds of things very clearly.
Capital punishment I've spoken out very clearly against. So I think that's the distinction that often gets blurred there when you say you're not political enough. We should back away from matters that are legitimately left to the prudential judgment of those who are skilled. How do you respond to those who see this conflict and say, Bishop, I wish you and Word on Fire would just not say anything at all that could have any kind.
because you can't because christianity is not a private matter it's a public reality and and we can and should speak in the public forum about these ethical of clear importance. So, no, no, that's an attempt to privatize. And again, people blur all of that. They start throwing around church and state and the wall of separation. There's all kinds of confusion. I think this is the clear distinction that has to be made between certain things that are intrinsically evil.
that show up in the public forum and they have to be called out. And then things that are matters of prudential judgment. And sure, let's say you're a left-wing publication and you've got certain opinions about what the law should look like. You're a right-wing publication. You're a left-wing politician, right-wing politician. Fine, that's your business. But as a bishop of the church, mine is not to intervene when it comes to those particular matters of prudential judgment.
Let's go to criticism number six, and this is related to the poll. DETRACTORS HAVE ALSO COMPLAINED THAT YOUR CRITIQUES OF WOKE ISM ARE BOTH A, UNFAIR TO, IN THEIR VIEW, THE WORTHY SOCIAL JUSTICE ELEMENTS OF THE WOKE MOON.
And B, also asymmetrical in the sense that your critiques only seem to be of the left side of the ideological spectrum and not the right side. So how do you respond to that? Yeah, those are both wrongheaded. See, wokeism, yes, you can make a really... simple move and say well woke just means I'm alert to social injustice okay if that's all it means Fine. And that's all it means. But it doesn't.
And everyone knows it. Wokeism, and look, I've read the theoreticians of wokeism. I'm not just blowing smoke here. I've read all these people. that propagate the woke perspective. Wokeism is a popularization of critical theory. Critical theory emerged first in the European academies, largely in Germany and France. then came over to our country like in the 1970s, gestated there like a bacillus, I would say, and then poured out onto the streets in about 2020, in that awful summer of 2020.
Wokeism, critical theory, critical theory is a faragal Marxism, Freudianism, European postmodernism. And I've done all this, so I'm not going to go into detail. That is repugnant to Catholic social teachers. Not being alert to social injustice. That's all great. I'm all in favor of that. But the particular form that wokeism takes is repugnant to Catholic social teaching. And I made that case over and over again. So that's wokeism.
the second thing that i'm just going after the left is false and see here's part of the problem is that i've been doing this for so long 25 years in all kinds of different forms you know articles and books and podcasts and videos and so on that what people often do is they'll find something i said oh oh he doesn't like wokeism therefore he's a you know a right-wing fanatic and hates all all the no no have the patience to kind of go through
A lot of the work I've done, maybe everyone can't read and listen to everything I've ever said, but I'll give you some examples where the right gets very annoyed with me. I stood up in Dublin 2018, World Meeting of Families, and I gave a talk at the Invitation of the Vatican, and I strongly defended Amoris Laetitia. You know, this controversial text of Pope Francis. I did an hour long. full-throated defense of more strategic happy to do it go online you can find it
When Laudato Si' came out, remember the Pope's, it was so-called, you know, the global warming encyclical. And I argued, no, no, don't see it then. This is the pope influenced by Romano Gordini and his work in the 1930s, his suspicion of a technocratic sensibility of modernity. And the pope hearkening back to a pre-modernism.
Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, indeed, and the Bible, and a very rich scriptural sense of, if you want to call it environmentalism or a sense of the importance of nature. I defended the pope when Fratelli Tutti came out, remember? And he was critiqued, oh, he's a Marxist. And I said, no, not a Marxist. He's a Thomist. Because he's talking about the universal destination of goods, which is an idea. And I found exactly where it was in Thomas Aquinas.
Just a handful of examples there where the right got mad at me when I was advocating left-wing opinions. All right. As I've said many times, my... Lodestar is Catholic social teaching. Sometimes the left agrees with it. Sometimes the right agrees with it. Sometimes the left is opposed to it. Sometimes the right's opposed to it. I don't care about left and right. I don't care about liberal Republican. That's exactly what I said in that video after the State of the Union thing.
Democrats, I'm advocating Catholic social teaching. And I would challenge anyone to find an exception to that in my writings and videos. That's what I've done. But see, that makes you very susceptible to this kind of criticism because Catholic social teaching is both liberal and conservative, neither liberal nor conservative. And those who are willing to lie by.
create a false narrative. You know, as a bishop, I get letters in my office, and I have my assistant, who is funny, we put him in two piles. Whatever, anything, when it comes to the political life. Okay, the Catholic social. Get mad at me. It's just an occupational hazard of anyone who articulates the church's social teaching because it doesn't fit into our categories. But people wanted to. They wanted to.
I'll give another example. Years ago, I was invited by the Heritage Foundation, which is one of the best-known conservative think tanks in Washington. I was invited to give the... Russell Kirk lecture. I was honored to do it. They asked me to talk about church and the American. So I said a lot of things where I said, yeah, the American Project coheres very much with the church.
A, B, C, D, and E. But in other ways, I argued it doesn't. And I said it's Hobbesian, Lockean elements are often at odds with a Catholic view. And I kind of laid all that. gave the paper everybody applauded it was very nice in the reception afterwards a number of people came up to me and were not happy at all with you know what do you mean the catholic church as opposed to the american i said well i think it is in some way
My point there is I got some conservatives mad at me. I went into the heart of a conservative think tank, laid out Catholic social teaching, which they liked to some degree, didn't like. And those are fundamental principle disagreements with that. Yeah, so it goes. And that's why I see people, they'll always find some part of my overall work and they'll fixate upon it and say, oh, he's a liberal. Oh, he's a conservative.
I'm a Catholic. So here's another critique that seems to hit from both sides of the divide at the same time. It's on the topic of Vatican II. So you and Word on Fire simultaneously attack for both A, being too supportive of Vatican II because you uphold its theological and liturgical and moral agenda, and yet B,
not supportive enough of Vatican II because you reject the so-called spirit of Vatican II's influence on the church. So how do you respond to this dual critique? Yeah, good. Same thing, though. It's the same kind of animal. on both sides. the point. I've been very clear. You don't have to guess on this one at all. I've been very clear where I stand. I stand with Vatican II as interpreted by the great post-conciliar popes from Paul VI to
with a special stress on John Paul II, who had this lengthiest magisterium on that. And I stand with the Catechism of 1993. Those are my kind of low stars. That's my best. I'm a man of Vatican II. We published at Word on Fire this wonderful series of the reissue of the texts of Vatican II with commentary and so on. My hero, Cardinal George, was a man of Vatican II.
From that vantage point, I look at two problems. One is a Catholic progressivism. Now, that produced the base Catholicism of my youth. It produced the banners and balloons. It produced the dumbed-down Catholicism. It produced the culturally accommodating Catholicism. It produced the weird liturgical experimentation of the 1970s. I don't like that. And I've been very clear about it. I don't like Catholic progressive. on the other hand we got the sort of rad trad side of the conservative
That's down on Vatican II. And again, I've read the leaders of these positions. Not everyone, but there's leadership that are critical of Pope Francis, dismissive of him, and question the legitimacy of the Second Vatican Council. I've said, if you want to find it, it's a talk I gave to the Napa conference during COVID. It's on tape. Where I said, this makes you effectively a product.
if you're saying i can pick and choose which ecumenical councils i like which parts of which ecumenical councils i like you become a product I don't like that. I don't like Catholic rad tradism. I don't like Catholic progressivism. I like the second Vatican. interpreted by the great post-conciliar popes, articulated doctrinally in the Catechism of 1993. That's what I'm for. Now, to no one's surprise, when you take that position, the progressives won't like you, and the...
So it goes. But, you know, I nailed my colors of the mask a long time ago on that. And I'm standing with Cardinal George. That's exactly where he was. I'm standing with John Paul II. I remember... Certainly when he was called the liberal critique of I remember this now, after he died, and I'm reading some people on the conservative side, and I realize, wait a minute, they don't like John Paul II. They're really going after John Paul II.
Something's gone wrong. That part of the right has gotten off being... So I get it. That's where that comes from is the fact that I've taken this position. I'm unapologetic about it. I've been very clear about it. That's where I stand. And so the two extremes, of course, aren't going to like it. And it's the same that it's Bishop Barron's position. It seems just orthodox.
Well, yeah, and it's orthodoxy, you know, construed in the full sense, being that includes all the great councils in the church. I would say it's John Paul II's position, it's Cardinal George's position. That's where I stand. And, you know, it's not you don't have to guess what I feel. I'm telling everybody that's where I stand. Now, you can split off from that level or conservative. But I say a pox on both your houses. I want to stand with this. this great conciliar.
Final criticism. In addition to your own Bishop Barron Presents show, which invites well-known guests for extended conversations, you regularly appear on other high-profile people's shows and podcasts, many of them non-Catholic, to offer your comments. So Bishop, how do you respond to the general complaint, which again comes from both sides?
I can't believe that Bishop Barron talked with that person or on that platform. Yeah. You know, look, that's an age-old problem. And if you start playing that game, you'll never get anywhere and you'll just, your show will... Because if the game is, okay, I will only talk to people that will cause no offense whatsoever to anyone. I will go on a show if and only if no one will be offended by that person.
Well, I talked to Jesus and the Blessed Mother, maybe. There's no way that you can do that if you're trying to be completely inoffensive to absolutely everybody. My policy has been for many, many years. If I'm given a platform, they're not going to censor me. I'll take it. I'm an evangelist. My job is to get the message of the church out to a wide audience. And so you give me a platform. I'm not going to go on some Nazi platform or some communist platform. Of course there are.
But generally speaking, reasonably construed. Someone gives me a platform. They don't censor me. I'll go on it. I'll give you some examples because people will come after me and say, oh, you're only taught to conserve. How about the critique I've gotten from the right? Because for many years, I spoke at the LA Religious Education Congress. I don't know if our audience knows much about that, but it's been one of the most...
places in the Catholic Church every year, like February, March, in Anaheim Convention Center, this big convention. And it would certainly lean left. It always had. I was invited beginning in the late 90s. And I've never been censored. I would give a talk on whatever topic. What they do at the Congress is they send you afterwards evaluation because the people will evaluate.
and they send it back to you and tell you what it was and they say well based on this we want you to come back okay i always got evaluated well i was always invited back How could you go to the Los Angeles Religious Education? Don't you know the weirdos that are speaking there and they're so crazy? Yeah, I know there are a number of people that I wouldn't have invited if I were in charge of it. People that I don't agree with.
A lot of people I do agree with at the LA Congress. But the point is, they gave me a platform. They didn't censor me. They kept inviting me. Once I gave the keynote. And in the big arena, I gave this rip-snorting 45-minute talk against Bayes Catholicism and Banners and Balloons Catholicism. No kidding. And they cheered me, gave me positive evaluations, and invited me back.
Okay, I do that. Now, I'll go on a show. Let's say Ben Shapiro. How could you possibly talk to Ben Shapiro? Crazy, radical, conservative. Look, he gives me a platform. He's a very friendly fellow. He's never censored me in any way. Ask interesting, important questions. I'm invited by Tom Swasey, a liberal Democrat representative, to speak at the Library of Congress. How could you, Tom Swasey and the Library of Congress and all these crazy Democrats, how could you do that?
i go to the parliament in london don't you know i've heard all these critiques don't you know who's there at the at the My point is both left and right get mad for different reasons. But if I start playing that game, I would never speak to anyone. So I don't play that game. It also seems to me that the fear of causing offense is not only contrary. content and spirit of Christianity, but also contrary to the Bible itself and what we see, for example, in the letters of St. Paul.
Yeah, no, quite right. Quite right. Anyway, I actually wrote some of these down because I wanted to, when people say, oh, on your show, I mean, you're only talking to conservatives. Nonsense. Here's the name. Jason Blakely, we have. many years ago in California. Jason's a great guy, and we had a wonderful conversation. He writes frequently for Commonweal, probably the second most liberal Catholic publication out there. I had Tara Isabella Burton.
Wonderful cultural commentator on religion, certainly not someone of the right. Jennifer Rosenhagen, she wrote a great book. I ran across it in a youth bookstore on Nietzsche's influence in American culture. I thought it was really interesting. she would not be a conservative by any means. I had a wonderful hour-long conversation with her. How about Ethan and Maya Hawke? That guy, Barron, only talks to conservatives. What are they, these actors?
How about Ro Khanna? I sat in this very room with Ro Khanna, liberal Democratic congressman from California. We had a splendid conversation. He's a great guy. We disagreed. Watch it, if you want. We disagreed on a number of important things, but I talked to him. Shia LaBeouf, maybe the most famous of the Bishop Barron Presents. I don't know what Shia is. Liberal conservative.
I talk to people that I think are interesting, that will contribute to the cultural conversation, and that are evangelically promising. So it's not the case. That's my overall point here. Not the case that I'm only speaking to. again people will fix it on one oh i saw him talking to ben shapiro therefore
Watch all the work that I do would be more helpful. Before we turn to our listener question, as a way to wrap up, Bishop, what advice do you have to evangelists based on all the years of experience on how to respond to public criticism, especially... Well, yeah, if it's really vicious stuff, I would tend to ignore it because that's just... And I think as we've been talking, this has been growing as a conviction.
is you can't worry about all this. If you do, the project's over. The plane's going to go down. I mean, if you're constantly worried about how I'm going to please these... wildly diverse audiences. You won't. You won't. So you've got to have thick skin and you've got to just go out there with a certain evangelical panache and not worry.
Because if you start looking at the critics all the time and worrying on what so-and-so is going to say, you won't accomplish anything. So it's part of public life, declaring the faith in a public forum. but don't get preoccupied with it. It is now time for our listener question. Today we have Tony from Ohio asking about how we should understand the meaning and implications of turning the other cheek. Hey, Bishop Barron, this is Tony from Ohio. I just have a question about turning other cheek.
They're a way to understand turning the other cheek without it enabling the person striking the other cheek. to continue to do so. Thank you. Thank you for all that you do. That's a great question. I wrote about it. What book? Maybe it's the strangest way I talk about that. Because you're right. It's not passivity. Turning that cheek, it does not mean I just give in to evil. In fact, it's a way of confronting evil.
Gandhi learned it, and he learned it from Matthew's Gospel. When the young Gandhi read the Gospel of Matthew and the Sermon on the Mount, he understood this principle. Martin Luther King did, of course, two in our country from the same text. The idea is not giving in. It's standing your ground and mirroring back to the aggressive person his aggression. so that he might see in you what he's been doing. It's a kind of shaming move. It's meant to shame the aggressor into seeing what's happening.
Martial art that uses the aggression of your opponent against him. You're not so much fighting directly. You're using his aggression against That's turn the other cheek. It's not caving in. It's standing your ground in a provocative way so as to shame the person into deeper self-awareness. Take a look. I think it's in my book, The Strangest Way. You can find a fuller discussion of all.
Well, thanks so much, Tony, for reaching out to us. If you would like to ask Bishop Barron a question for a future Word on Fire show, please visit askbishopbarron.com. That's askbishopbarron.com. Well, Bishop, this is a fantastic conversation that I'm sure is going to have a lot. So thank you. Always good being with you. Thanks.
That does it for us today. Thanks for joining us on the Word on Fire show. If you're interested in learning more about how Word on Fire can help you grow closer to Christ, become a better evangelist with and for others, and work for the common good, consider joining the Word on Fire Institute. Check us out at institute.wordonfire.org. That's institute.wordonfire.org. We'll see you next time.