Bishop Barron and John Allen Jr. // Discussion at 2020 L.A. Religious Education Congress

[Music] hey everybody I'm Jarrod Zimmer the director of the word on fire Institute and I am here with John Allen jr. and of course Bishop Baron at the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress and John Misha burns good to be with you great to be with you here all right cleared yeah we're gonna have a conversation today about a lot of different things but I thought maybe to start off we talked about of course this book right here to light a fire on the earth this is actually one of our bigger selling books here that we've got here at the booth and I thought maybe we'd go into labor here it my pension fund yeah so I thought maybe we'd go into a little bit about the origin of the book where it came from what was the idea behind it I'm going to get into some of the ideas in it where did it come from my memories a Gary Janssen from a Random House first proposed the ideas nowt lawyer that's right in Chicago and I remember saying oh I I don't think John Allen would be interested in talking to me would he I really I really meant that you know I think he might I'll reach out to him and then I heard that yes he was understood and so that's how the book started see the Larry's thing was for me it was the exact opposite you know Gary contacts me out of the blue one day and says would you be interested in doing the book with Bob Barron to which my answer was well obviously yes but I can't imagine that he wouldn't that's wonderful so what was the kind of idea of what you wanted to accomplish with the book well I mean at one level I was being hired to try to tow the Baron slash were on fire so I wanted to respect the nature of that story but I you know I guess what I always try to do in these kinds of situations is I want to tell a story I don't I mean reporting facts reporting data or reporting ideas that is all very immature right no but if you want anybody outside this very narrow circle of policy wants to be engaged on anything you have to tell a story so I wanted to get at the Bob Barron story right you know where did this guy come from because a person you know I think I first met you on a papal trip somewhere you tagging along the gorge why go on an NBC said maybe and I was a floor below you want to see I exaggerate yeah and so when I first knew well then father there and now fish appearing he was already kind of a fully formed personality is a very successful evangelist preacher of the faith and I was curious as to where that came right and I figured if I was curious probably enough people would be curious too so so that was the genesis of it I wanted to see if there was a there was a story there anomaly was there a story but there was a Griffin which became to light a fire in there and I remember very vividly John came out to my house in Santa Barbara from maybe three session two or three sessions and they were long we went at it for several hours and I said it was like a combination of my doctor'll defense and psychotherapy was what it was like but I know they were delightful conversations but intense you know cuz you were asking about my formation my background my family the work I'm doing and you you know in a good way kind of probit those things to get to the deeper levels and I enjoyed the prices immensely and then we had a lot of raw material of just our conversation but one thing about that book I want it I think we managed to pull it off then it does read like a conversation sometimes these you know kind of interview books are a very canned question followed by this lengthy footnote and answer sure I wanted ours to sound like it was a real conversation and I think we managed to do that stylistically so as you're going through this conversation and you're kind of thinking through both the your origins coming up as an evangelist and I'm thinking through the the mission of Gord on fire the beginnings of word on fire was there any anything that came about through that kind of introspection that when Pamela was maybe a little bit of a I'm necessarily surprised but kind of something that started stuck out to you in the course of our conversation and was helpful to me I need to hear from it from an outsider about we're not fired because I've been living it from the inside from the beginning I think just to see it as as the combination of academic evangelical media meats meat so the the academic etc I mean to hear John's take on that was helpful and hear his questions from that angle I'm not sure having lived it from the inside there's so much new to me but hearing his perspective on I think was helpful well you know what was what was interesting for me is that this book was in many ways a departure my data sure you know I mean my day job is primarily covering the Vatican in covering the global church and you know all of a sudden I wasn't talking to a very intelligent articulate person about the latest fatica scandal or whatever what we were talking about corneal things right you know prayer right and of course that is the heart of the matter right that's what this whole thing is about it's just there's very little in my day-to-day work that actually gives me space to talk about men and I remember telling somebody at the time that we were doing these conversations that I know I'm getting paid to do this but this really feels like kind of retreat like you know I'm sitting at the foot of the guy who has thought long and who is a fairly active mine and he was thought long and hard about these plenty of the types of things that I rarely have a chance and so from that point of view it was just it was a great privilege you know it was also a reminder that all of the stuff that I do is really just throw the gamut you know it's like an antipasto to the main course right and this was a master chef delivering a main course the fettuccine alfredo favorite or something so one thing that you had just mentioned that is I think a big part of the growth of a word on fire the growth of a fish appearance mission is this idea of the way of beauty you know what why has that been such a core principle for you yeah you know it's funny when I was at the odd limb you know I'll be the ultimate name dropper or when I was talking to the Pope at the Adlam you know we had a chance to ask him questions and so um rather nervously I asked him about the way of beauty because I said it features very prominently in your own work and I mentioned the Baltazar who'd be a common influence on both Pope Francis and me so that's been on my mind for a long time I think especially today in our postmodern time when people are so uneasy with the true and the good because you tell them you know what to believe or how to behave they tend to react negatively so show them things show them the beautiful which is is much more non-threatening and so that's why I think it's been a very practically efficacious method I loved it in Baltazar as a theoretical thing but then I saw it working as you show Chartres Cathedral and you show the Sistine Chapel and you show the great beauty of Catholicism and as part of our our genius that we are a beautiful religion so I saw it work on the ground you know and that gave it added impetus for me I mean all I can say is where Bishop Baron had me in this conversation is when he invoked a realm that I respond to the question is it when somebody explained the infield fly rule or is it when you first stepped out and you smelled the first effect you asked and you felt the smack the ball in your glove and you felt the tingling in your hands when you connect with the bat right and his point was that those walls all will make perfect sense when you fall in love with the game but if you haven't first fall in love with a game those rules we're going to see an arbitrary and bizarre them right and then by the way we need to have the conversation at some point about the Astra scandal because and we've been able to talk to you about that and I would love your tape yes it's funny a lot of people in my region actually have an approaching me to my great surprise including a lawyer that said I'm very concerned about this and I of course I know about it but I haven't given it that much thought but always thinking about what I needed that was the aha moment for me in talking yeah I mean before structures in noir and all of that or going to be comprehensible you first have to fall in love listen great now he then you know fear is often in a bizarre direction and starts making the same argument for calls but the baseball part it won't get down yeah that's wonderful another aspect you guys get into here is a conversation about the the mission and the future of a board on fire it's helped from ministry to movement ya know maybe Bishop Baron if you could kind of fill in you know what that looks like some of the things maybe you mention in here and then Sean some thoughts on that could be great well in some ways it looks like you I mean you're the director or Institute and when I feel most strongly about now is precisely that so we have this institute with an awful lot of people in it who are dedicated lay people that want to be evangelizers and they get access to specialized material that we're producing but we want to form them as a really a Missionary Society because I think the lay people got to take the lead unders clergy has an important role to play that's part of my vision too but I think lay people have got to take the lead and that's my dream to move we're on fire from just a ministry to this largely lay led mission to realized our culture to my mind it's the challenge of our time as the great religious founders looked at their moment and said here's the crisis facing us I think to my mind there's no doubt it's the crisis facing us now and so the church and I mean Church in the broad sense has to respond to that that's my dream and you're a big part of it Jarrett is the leader of that Institute you know when I first got as a cub reporter covering that was my big introduction to the movement yeah I got from the Steel's to be quite honest with you I had there I'd never met it's one of the new movements I had heard about them second or third and I had no lived experiences because there never has been at American yeah yeah right and then I get to Rome and all of a sudden I'm running around with people from Center City from Fellini and libertarian community liberation catechumenate shown stuff large any number of other outfits and I was exposed to the great good that we were doing that they were doing for the church and the kind of pastoral in evangelical believe they were filling now I understand why the movements have not grown up in the States the same way they have in Europe and the post vetting to the age because quite honestly it's due to the success of our parish systems or parishes by comparison are all markedly robust and vital and strong hey if you put it in the context of Europe but that's it there still is an enormous void out there having largely to do with people who have become distant from the theta who have never grown up with any faith at all who are never going to show up within the parish structures somebody needs to reach out and so I got very excited about the idea of there being a kind of American analog the to some of the amazing things I had seen happening in here and other parts in the kinetic world I told Bishop Baron at one point he could be the Luigi to signing the United States it was the founder of over Etsy honey which I mean the comparison is it exact obviously but nevertheless I do think that there is a remarkable opportunity there and I don't see anything else of the Catholic landscape in America that has the opportunity to fill that in the way that word on fire does in fact I think this should probably got a little annoyed during the course of our conversations because I kept returning to this suggesting that he wasn't doing enough and should be far more aggressive about this and you know really needed to step up because history and Providence were beckoning him what but of course he does have a few other things on his plate but nobody I was with you that did have an impact on me in our conversation and I think the Institute you know it sort of accelerated a bit in the wake of that I agree with you I'm not getting any younger and I want to start something we got to do it and we have indeed but we'll see well I agree with you about Providence I think there there is something right now my old mentor Cardinal George always said that where are the movements where are the movements in times of crisis the movements arriving arise in the church so I take that very seriously yeah and what about the word on fire movement would be so we're talking about this rise of disaffiliation you know in a future right now we're a digital platform or providing these specialized courses and theology philosophy sociology you name it anything we available that we can give to people to help them to be the best evangelists but one of the next big moves we want to start doing is actually creating communities themselves yeah that come together what might that look like what would be your kind of dream well I mean my dream is to is to instantiate and incarnate these communities on the ground so we're starting I think properly online that's where people are and we're able to gather a lot of folks around the country but now you know that's your research where they are yeah and we can say okay people in this part of Texas can you get together at this parish on this time and then next step will be word on fire centers I want to establish them around the country maybe eventually around the world in the major cities so a place where you'd gather for liturgy for instruction for mutual support I dream too of a word on fire order a priest at once that's in place priests that would serve the world on fire communities so that's how I see the next step beginning online I think is fine but I want to get boots on the ground you know incarnated and and I want to emphasize this around the world yeah in the United States yeah its center of gravity is here the need is hardly confined right that's right and I think there is a I mean let's remember that there are 1.3 billion Catholics in the world there are 70 million in the United States we are six percent yeah the world put another way ninety-four percent of the Catholics in the world are not in the United States they're elsewhere and the game is going to be won or lost not here yeah right and so I think this hare ISM that through dint of circumstances for Providence has been given to Bishop their honor and that has been given the word on fire it doesn't belong just to the American Church ultra absolutely and I'm very anxious to see that happen yeah well I keep looking you know for my successors I'm very aware of the fact that life moves on time moves on and to find my American successors but as you say international if people who can do a similar work around the whole Catholic world why not but that's unless people have to be for yeah and that needs to happen now yeah in fact I remember whenever we were talking about this idea of a movement and kind of way before we launched the Institute we were praying through but what was we're not fair call through we were looking at the of course the Scriptures to find out what is God asking us to do and I remember with this grand vision we always came back to we've got to start with formation yeah and as you just mentioned the formed part of it and of course we're here at the Religious Education Congress so what aspects of religious education you know something that you've been you know crying for is good religious education so what part of that is guiding a lot of this mission well that's a--that's a big part of it you know so my talk yesterday here I spoke about the real presence because 70 percent evidently of our own people don't believe it if that Pew Forum study is correct and I said to the people it's in Anaheim we have a problem if that's the case that the source and summer the Christian life is massively misunderstood by 70 percent of our people so I as you know but I'm in being that drum for a long time of picking up our game in terms of religious education instruction catechesis the life of the mind but I also said I think another reason why belief in the real presence is falling away is the falling away of practices that surround him I'm a postmodern and we put a great stress on practices when it comes to life you don't just think your way the truth you enact your way to truth in many ways and so the practices around the Eucharist in some ways have been compromised and that leads to a compromising and we believe but I think all of that it means it means the reinvigoration of Catholic life at all levels mind and heart and body body may be above all is important you know so I we can't somebody we can't over stress the event of the formation of the whole person the whole Catholic person yeah so one thing I wanted to now go into is kind of more into current of this some contemporary things and Bishop I know you just got back from your add lemon ah yeah visit with Pope Francis yet just mentioned that a minute ago first off how did that go I wasn't meeting Pope Francis great first do it just before that rare person watching this yes okay yeah though it might be good to one pair of that so what lemon is a Latin phrase meaning to threshold and the idea is that every five years every Catholic bishop in the world is asked to take a trip to Rome to the threshold of the Apostles Peter Anthony and so they make a visit to the Pope and they also visit a number of Vatican offices they have to prepare a report on the state of their diocese prior to that in theory that report will be read you can tell us whether you had this sense it actually had been and and so it's like a chance I mean in the corporate world he would say this is it was good and that's helpful John thank you for all that it was good Jared we the first day we had mass in the bowels of st. Peter's Basilica so I've been there before of course the tomb of Peter but there's something when you're there with your brother bishops or all in the Episcopal regalia and you're here at the tomb of the Galilean fishermen who knew Jesus and there's something powerful about that and then we make our way about a half hour later to visit with the living successor of st. Peter just that combination is very emotionally powerful the Pope was in very good form he met us one by one as we came in a big smile a lot of energy knew this was in the Santa Marta no we were in the in the episode of palos house in one of those big you know receiving rooms met everyone individually nice warm smile handshake all that and then we met in a big room he's at one and we're out of a raid in these uncomfortable chairs around him and then he said to us okay we're here his brothers tell me anything you want ask me any question you want correct me you think I'm wrong about something tell me the water bottles were over there the bathrooms through that door and he said we're human after all yes we are so it was very casual very friendly setting so then we started asking questions and most of us in California speaks Spanish and so I'd say two-thirds of us spoke to him in Spanish though he only spoke Italian he never spoke Spanish once all in Italian through a translator but most of us spoke to him in Spanish and we covered the gamut I mean we were three hours with him three and 9:30 know about 12:40 we're with the Pope and he gave no signs of flagging ever his translator looked exhausted before guy but the Pope was fine we covered a whole range of stuff what stands out to me evangelization he more or less said as I've always suspected evangelii gaudium is the key to his papacy he said tongue-in-cheek iou's it's largely plagiarized you know from the Aparecida document of 2007 and from evangelii Nancy on dia Paul the sixth but his point I think being it's in continuity with those great texts about the New Evangelization and he says that's what it's about that's my paper so you know the other thing and he's very strong on this he was against the gender ideology that he sees is very powerful here in America and in the West generally and he urged us with great emotion to oppose it and he said whatever denies difference denies the Bible and denies the intention of God so that definitely struck me and he used this phrase ideological colonization with us which he'd used before at the way the West tends to colonize the rest of the world with its ideas he said you have to be opposed to them one last thing I'll say at the very end he was very grateful to the American bishops there wasn't an ounce of this animosity sometimes you yeah I wouldn't ask them because there is this narrative writer on both the left of my yes and now whatever we get saved more about that but I'd say our time with him not an ounce of it there was an ounce of correction or suspicion he thanked us he said during a time of crisis you borne the brunt of a lot of this and you've kept the faith and I want to thank you for that so that was very moving I think deeply appreciated by the American bishops but no he's very warm and I sent his two of the curial offices they they must have gotten the memo about you know being friendly and inviting and open to our questions some of the older timers who'd been to other unlimite said in the past the prefect would come in usually read a text in Italian untranslated and then maybe would make a couple of scolding remarks and leave Frank there was none of that I'm nothing compared to but there was none of that they were very warm they didn't give we gave an opening talk usually one of us was on for like a little five minute get the ball rolling presentation so I gave one for example at New Evangelization and then open cue a lot of dialogue so they were very positive very positive here and John any any stories about other Adam and a visit singing and also what is kind of the output that comes from those visits yeah well look yeah I mean it's Bishop Aaron just said the history of the other limited is it prior to Pope Francis is a very different animal yes right now I mean the old formula used to be you would have a group of bishops including very senior guys I mean guys that in their own backyards would be regarded as kind of Titans of the earth who would go into these vatican offices and they would be seated around the table and made to cool their heels in the like 10-15 minutes then finally the Cardinal terrific would walked in surrounded by a coterie of like clunkiness rape he would get up read a 40-minute speech in Italian and you know as the bishop said usually it at the end throwing a couple of things that these guys were doing wrong and then elite yeah and that was the whole experience right by the way you know were the ones stand out to that always was watching at least surprising yeah that one stand out always was Peugeot Joseph Arad sooner or later Pope Benedict who for all those years under John Cole he was the guy that when you came into his strike mastery he would be there to greet you he didn't come in and for everybody who seated he would say hello and everybody uh he would always have notes and he would have some things to say but because he actually read the report but he did save that to the end and he would say I want to hear from everybody first beginning with the most junior bishop in the room we used to have a bet in the Vatican press corps if we could ever find a bishop from any place on earth who finished their odds limit without saying that Joseph Ratzinger was their best meeting well then we would buy that guy dinner none of us ever had to pay off for a library more than 20 years I've always heard that right which is I think part of the reason he got elected so easy yeah thousand five brief well-known well the image was Joseph Ratzinger was like Darth Vader the Rottweiler a you know the hairpins or a cartoon alright but people would actually I mean I'm not talking I heard this from from the bishops who were certainly not in lockstep right aside logic on theology politics right today its anniversary experience right I mean the message clearly has gone out under Pope Francis that these meetings are supposed to be informal they are supposed to be dialogic yeah and he has tried to appoint curial prefect so were comfortable with that model of it so I think everybody would say it's a better experience now you asked what comes back yeah that's an entirely different question right I'm not sure anything I'm not sure you can point your finger and say AHA this appointment or this policy decision or this document directly resulted but I do think there is a morality that is real I mean bishops of these campuses today are being and that's important if you can't change it you know how important that is but further I also think there is a sense I mean for actually there's a turning of the wheels going on in terms of how the Vatican understands it's a wolf and this is very much at the heart of the reform Pope Francis wants to Kaname historically the Vatican has seen its role as governing and that of course they are ultimately the last incidence you can't take that away but what Francis wants to inject in all of that is an equal sense that their role is also service they are there to make the life of a diocesan Bishop easier and I think that is gradually gaining some traction it is a novel concept its application is uneven but but nevertheless it's important that seems like it's consistently Pope Francis's modus operandi right that he is about the the individual wanting to hear from the individual and come together his brothers always consider yourself a servant I take him at his word and I think he showed it at the I mean everybody spending so much time with us and listening with great attentiveness and responding carefully to the questions so I take him to his ward and I think the curiel officials are imitating his style for sure when you also just got back from not too long ago from from Rome as well for the youth Senate yeah so maybe share a little bit about your experience with that tell it's kind of how that went well that was a very interesting experience the youth said i enjoyed it it was a lot of work i was elected the relative our group the small language group and that means the guy that has all the work the tory has to take all the notes from the conversation and then spend all day sunday bait the one day off we had sunday basically compiling all that to give a report to the senate the good news about that was it keeps your head in the game so as i keep you score at a baseball game i was following all the conversations of our small group so it was a lot of work it was a very good introduction to the international church that was a marvelous thing about it I just wrote a little piece about Synod a Latina because at the very end of that Synod we had never talked about Synod ality as such we talked about young people about media about evangelization all this business but in one of the preliminary texts or not the final text but a preliminary text meant to kind of sum up where we were most of it was fine but then they were about four pages on Synod ality and a number of us felt it didn't really reflect what we had talked about we didn't debate the issue at all and then secondly we thought the language is a little bit too loose that it sounded as though the church is becoming a freewheeling democracy right so the remember of us that that raised objections to that language we were countered by a fairly weighty Cardinal at the Synod and then there was applause after he spoke and then we moved on and I remember thinking well okay you know you win some you lose some we tried well they can long story short when the German Bishops gathering our last summer under the aegis of Synod allottee in the synodal way and began to propose seemed to me pretty major changes when it comes to the church's understanding of marriage the sexual act ordination etc I must confess a lot of those concerns came back to my mind like that's what we were worried about well at the odd limit of ISM the issue came up with the Pope's and an Alan and the Pope was very clear and very strong he said now remember brothers a synod is not a parliament a Senate is not a democracy okay good he said the protagonist at a synod is the Holy Spirit and what struck me was in a democratic polity the protagonist in a way is the will of the people right and the politicians are there to discern as best they can the will of the people and the Pope was telling us that's not a sin it is not discerning the will of the people is discerning the will of the Holy Spirit I just thought it was a very interesting clarifying thing and in line I felt with what a number of us felt or in the use of it but that's the danger of Synod ality language it can start sounding a lot like the language of democratic politics or polity so anyway I found that illuminating at the odd limited with the Pope you know you got lucky because you do by far the least controversial in Francis's ahead right - in the family was a macho mama and all dealing with that yeah yeah look you know here's the thing I'm gonna pick up on something the bishop just said because I had for my sins I think I've now put over the 14 sentence efficient is that right yeah and if you ask if you put gun to my head right now and share it and said give me one revolution in Catholic place that ever resulted for this inefficiency I think that be it did man so I mean you know the the glass half-empty reading in these things today is that a senator Bishop tends to be an expensive talk shop but doesn't accomplish right and there was a case to be made for that however here is my glass half-full having covered the Catholic Church for more than 20 years I can tell a definite difference between an American bishop who will one stage in his life has taken part in the Senate addition and an American Bishop hasn't you want to know what the difference is the bishop who has been in the Senate has a much more instinctive understanding of the global character of the Catholic Church yeah but what who has a bishop who has been in a synod will know that a bishop that an issue they play one way in Los Angeles but it's not gonna necessarily play the same way in Beirut before in Beijing right though or in Islamabad right that it is a staggeringly complicated global family of faith up there and that part of the price of admission of what it means to be a Catholic is to think in a global key about the church I can say that in the 21st century when you look at the trend lines our growth is not in the West you know our earth is above all in sub-saharan Africa and other parts of the developing world by the middle of this century three-quarters of every Catholic man woman and child alive will be outside the West there are only two options on the menu you either think globally or you think dysfunctional yeah right and a synod in fall caves a global perspective in a way of like nothing else I've seen and so to me the particular conclusions of the Synod of Bishops well it's interesting from a keeping score a point of view yeah ultimately don't translate to very much because the Senate is an advisory body that's diddly I mean it's all that's up to the Pope to decide what it is right so I mean the Senate for the Amazon if you want to know whether we are or are not going to expand the use of Mary priests in the Amazon all the Senate for what the Center had to say is interesting you know it's the Pope's thinking about it that although genetics right but if you focus on the process rather than the journey rather than the destination I think there is a sense of the global realities of the faith that cannot be gotten across in any other way that makes these things you need to be that's really really well I'll give you a good example of that I completely agree with you most of us in the Synod didn't particularly like the General Sessions we're all in that sort of cramped sindelle Hall in our Kasich's and I said it's like being in the worst middle seat in the worst of section so and then listening that people give speeches I mean you're interested for a little while but that gets tiresome most of us really like the small language groups yeah I say small ours is about 30 or 35 people maybe but to your point English speakers but from every part of the world from the Middle East from Asia from Africa from course North America the truth that did you like the coffee bricks I did I did they were of course part of what everyone always tells ya but the first problem was I approach them as a good American which means oh that must be the line I'll stay in it laughs there's no cut no there's no line you just press ahead and you just you know and and the other thing is you can get your coffee and you turn around and there's the pulp is right behind you no kidding right but only the small language group which is fun and I was the relative keeping notes but it was all over the world and issue after issue what you just said it was true you'd say oh of course from our American perspective here's what they're gonna feel right you'd have completely different takes on it from the South African Cardinal from the Cardinal Todd way for example in the Philippines people in the Middle East who are English speakers so you're right it does give you that almost willy-nilly you're gonna get this sense of the international church because I think this is really the Achilles heel of American Catholicism yeah we talked earlier about our parish structure yeah which is the wonder of the Western world though okay you know we have the best Catholic University system the world we have the best ethical etc etcetera but the Achilles heel of American Catholicism is our provincial tea you know you think American experiences of a world is the world's experiences we think American issues of the world and it is always a wake-up call to realize it ain't necessarily so right right and the Senate is one of the rare moments that brings that home for us I think I would hold Senate's just for that reason yeah yeah you had mentioned as well I mean of course one one way of which that was very apparent was whenever the amazon senate was going on a lot of the american conversation was not thinking globally for sure and then now we've got the documents down i'd love to kind of hear your thoughts on those documents that have come out well yeah I mean I think the top note to strike about gordita Amazonia which was the document the Apostolic exhortation effectively the Pope Francis issue is what's not as opposed to what says you know what is in it is of course a passionate defense of the Amazon rainforest the indigenous persons of the Amazon kind of pretty poor for social justice and these about those are all things that were discussed at the Senate but I mean the the front burner issues at that's in it basically boiled down to three things okay there was debate about the so-called very provocative that is tested married men that could be ordained as Catholic priests maybe a limited form of the priesthood to serve isolated rural communities that at present are maybe lucky to see a priest once a year maybe lesson ii was some kind of ministerial role for women particularly the idea of women demons which had been studied earlier under Pope Francis kind of put on a back burner they were saying let's bring it back to the front and then finally the idea of a special Amazonian right of the mass as a gesture of respect and appreciation for the religiosity and the indigenous cultures of the Unison those things occupied an enormous share of the debate both inside and outside the amazon senate they were the most contested items in the final document and the striking thing is he would not never know it that after from reading Pope Francis's concluding document because he just blows it off doesn't engage any of it so the question is how do you read them right and I think there are probably two most compelling explanation one is I think Francis was frustrated during the Senate that those issues which he would consider to be kind of inside in queasy ass juror baseball we're drawing a disproportionate share of attention he wanted more focus to be in the bigger picture the ecological and social justice questions so he wasn't going to play the game you know in a way that the media and social media and so on who's really good had tried to dictate right I think the other point honestly is that he is not ready to give answers to those questions so I think those who think that Clarita Amazonia represented a know a definitive note to those three questions are misreading the situation and there are those who want to swim but I think this was instead the Pope neither opening the door further nor slamming it shut simply repeating it or found it at the Senate I mean that's where it is forever disbanded the Pope decided good time yeah right it was sort of fourth down and he decided all right I'm not going to go for it I'm just gonna try to win the field position even he'll deal with this in the fourth floor I'll give you a little inside baseball to support that so back in November a national business meeting a number of Bishops myself included raised concerns about how the whole debate around the Senate was affecting our people and God knows there were websites out there that were really stirring up the issues you just brought up and then add Pachamama on to it that all of this was generating a lot of energy so we raised it as a pastoral concern so during the meeting Cardinal O'Malley who had been a delegate to the Senate was invited to speak and what he said was basically what happened he said the Synod was not about all these things this was not our focus it was somewhere else so when the letter came out from the Pope I remember in Myrtle Mae Lee's talked to us and saying look a lot of the energy generated was not a dram as we although with all due respect to Cardinal Sean O'Malley and you know I think the world I mean among other things he's captured yeah and the captions are my boys but those issues were debated inside the Senate I mean why didn't I think he wouldn't deny vApp I think that they were at the center of the preoccupation with Siddhant he was suggesting that really was there was an exaggerated way well I think that's fair to say although on the other hand it is also worth noting that for instance the the paragraph in the final document concerning the very four body yeah did attract the largest number of known clutches that yeah no bones yeah there was an active to date and in that sense I think people were a little blindsided that the Pope chose not to address it in this forum but I just think analytically that is a mistake to think but because he didn't address it here he's never going to injure us in any way yeah I think as always with Pope Francis say just forces to weakness ooh yeah yeah all right well one thing I also wanted to get into as well of course in the past couple of months of course we've brought John on as our fellow of church and media and you're providing a wonderful service to all of our Institute members and so one thing I wanted to talk about is you know the reason behind that is a desire and a need for clarity with these type of topics the synod's and the things going on inside the church as evangelist why is that clarity so important oh gosh I mean I think Jim you're entitled to your own opinion as they say but not to your own facts you know I'm so the other guy could debate to know what the facts on the ground really are that's essential otherwise we are just kind of trading dis incarnate opinions so I think having a base is a good reporting to know it that was really in fact the case that's super important before we start opening and and drawing out the menial things so I see that the importance of Catholic journalism and really responsible Catholic journalism is indispensable for the church's propagation of its own message otherwise it can devolve into a real ideology and there's plenty of that God knows I'm lying which is counterproductive to real evangelization so now I think that's so you know I see part of John's role is to provide that kind of foundation you know I used to work for the governor earlier I've always thought of what I do is in a sense prologue ometer to what this apparently you know I mean it's like I'm this warm up in a way because here's the thing Bishop Baron wants to were the influence now what are the primary roadblocks to live and civilization out there and they are of course multiple but one of them is that a lot of people out there carry alone carry around in their heads a truckload of misconceptions and misinformation about the Catholic Church yeah that is sort of based on sloppy reporting yeah and so before he can do what he does somebody has to establish a baseline in fact it's otherwise he's always going to be playing yeah but if somebody walks into a room thinking the Catholic Church has never done one single thing to try to combat clerical sexual disease that he's going to spend 45 minutes of an hour trying to disabuse them of that notion great now God knows there is an enormous amount of unfinished business but it is not as if the Catholic Chur it's not taking it on the stand or you know Vatican finances I mean you know there are a lot of people walking around thing in the Vatican is just reeking of money would be surprised to learn that its budget is actually three and a half times smaller than the University great stuff like that yeah right and so I think what we do on our best days is try to provide people with reasonably accurate reasonably fair for thinking about the light and shadows in the capital world so that somebody who wants to do evangelization can step in and not have to spend all of their time clearing away intellectual yeah and then one last thing that we wanted to talk about as well is particularly when it comes to the instance view what we're trying to go really into is this issue of a rise of disaffiliation and now we get there's tons we could talk about with that but something that particularly whenever we talk about Church and media aspects of it I think that when it comes to reaching the unaffiliated a lot of times they come into the Catholic Church maybe through social media are these other outlets and so clarity in that world as well as people talking about these things with a very clear understanding of the facts and not these ideological camps and all this it provides a much better path into the church rather than coming and ready to apply they're ready to listen right they're ready to listen to what we have to say and so I guess last thing would be that we're here at the Religious Education Congress we've only got about five minutes left and so I'd love to hear both of your kind of last thoughts on people that are out there catechizing out there evangelizing what kind of advice or Vidia go give well I would say do it with great intelligence use the beauty of the church do it with great confidence if we're just always bringing our hands about things we're not gonna be very compelling evangelizers but also I would say as you suggest you use this extraordinary tool we've been given which is the new media I said that over and over again at the youth center and I felt a lot of our conversation was still too old-fashioned it was to kind of parish based bring people to parish programs what do we do at the parish level to get but I am still have to say they're not coming to our parishes the people that were targeting the unaffiliated at least in the West are not coming to our parishes but at precisely this moment we've been given by God's grace I think a tool to reach them namely these media that can reach out into the world where young people are and so I've urged bishops now over and over again get your best people both clerical and way and and send them into that arena get your best young priests smart knows theology spirituality and get them tied to a you know a computer get your best lay people and put money and time and energy into the new media because I think that's the that's the name of the game now if you want to evangelize effectively backed up by smarts and I've always emphasized that backed up by the books and backed up by something to say but now we have a tool to get out to the wider society that we met we didn't have 10 years ago even 10 years ago we didn't have that tool when I was a young guy you have to go to some Catholic bookstore and find a book you're looking for now we have this extraordinary capacity to reach people and you know we know from our word on fire stories the number of people that have come into the church by stumbling upon a YouTube video of podcast of film of video whatever so this is the moment I would say to evangelist it's a great moment to do it there's a lot of negativity in that war I know there's a lot of negativity but there's a tremendous opportunity so do it end of sermon the lesson in the fear doesn't end of here the only thing I would add to that and of course listen evangelists everywhere take your advice from disappearin I mean you know if you try to if you start turning your spirit that is a sure I wrote this revision but I would say have the courage to be counterculture yeah you know we important to be evangelizes of culture too often we are evangelized by our culture one way is that shows up is that in the catholic social media sphere we have talked too deeply good at the will of any illogical division and there's an art yes the way to present a message yeah that's not Christian it's not Catholic it's not who we are it turns people off so I would say resist that yeah and in doing so he will be not only to the faith he will be doing a service culture John mr. Baron thank y'all so much my pleasure Jared thank you wonderful wonderful conversation so again for all of us who have been watching be sure to check out the Institute a word on fire Institute I also heavily suggest going to crux if CR you X to go for all your media and journalism needs and again thanks for being with us and God bless

Channel: Bishop Robert Barron

Views: 18,258

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Id: 7RguLWrI_RE

Length: 50min 30sec (3030 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 28 2020