Q&A With Bishop Robert Barron

[Applause] welcome professors guests from universities College classmates friends and seminarians let's begin with prayer in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen amen Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with the blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy wom Jesus holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen amen virgin imul well first I'd like to thank you all for the questions that you sent in and those who have braved the elements tonight to be with us Bishop Robert Baron is the bishop of the dases of Winona Rochester in Minnesota and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries he is the host of Catholicism a groundbreaking award-winning documentary about the Catholic Fai Faith which aired on PBS Bishop Baron's most recent film series Catholicism the pivotal players won an Emmy Award and has been syndicated for National Television Bishop Baron is a number one Amazon best-selling author and has published numerous books essays and articles on Theology and the spiritual life many of those Adorn our bookshelves here at the college his most recent book this is my body has sold over 1 million copies he was a religion correspondent for NBC and has also appeared on Fox News CNN and EWTN Bishop Baron's website wordonfire.org reaches millions of people each year and he is one of the world's most followed Catholics on social media his YouTube videos have been viewed over 146 million times and he has over 3 million followers on Facebook he's engaged in dialogue with Jordan Peterson Lex fredman Dave Rubin Ben Shapiro and William Lane Craig among other influential thought leaders and he's been invited to speak about religion at the headquarters of Facebook Google and Amazon he has keynoted many conferences and events all over the world including the 2023 World Youth Day in Lisbon the 2016 World Youth Day in krackow and the 2015 World meeting of families in Philadelphia which marked Pope Francis historic visit to the United States so on behalf of the pontifical north Baran College Bishop Robert Baron welcome thank [Applause] you so we agreed to have these questions submitted beforehand but I wanted to start off with a bit more of a softball one to get us warmed up today was your first free day from these grueling weeks at the Senate what did you do today it's true the cate's been a workout and I was at a Cate 5 years ago on young people so I kind of knew the routine but this has been tougher in many ways uh and the sheer length of it we work Monday through Saturday you know and it's um all day and then they homework this one has homework uh no kidding last time we just in small groups you just you know whatever's on your mind we have to come into each group session with a prepared text and then if you're the um secretary or the rer of the group you have to put together a kind of a lengthy and then if you want to make a um your own intervention you have to write that out so it's that's a lot of work what I did today actually was a little bit of a retreat because I was I had a meeting this afternoon at one of the dicasteries about a certain development at word on fire and I was praying about that and um I went to a series of churches so I love San austino you know where Monica's buried I prayed there then I went over to um San Luigi de fanesi with the carajos then I went to um the jayu I tried to get into sopr manura but it was closed the Dominicans didn't have it together today uh but I went to the jzo and prayed there and uh just sort of made my way around in a prayerful Spirit getting ready for this meeting at the dicastri so it was uh it was a great day it was a great day wonderful well-deserved break now you have become a household name and I was thinking earlier an experience that you have probably never had is if if people asking you if you're related to me all the time all the time so how has it been being able to get from one end of a street to another in Rome do people recognize you coming down the Avenue yeah when I wear the clerical clothes like today when I was W and run I just had street clothes on but when I have the clerical clothes on and you're in a Catholic environment yeah I I'll I'll get that which is lovely you know I mean we're on fire thank God has gone out all over the place because of the internet and the English language you know gives you tremendous uh range so it's a joy you know it happened in when I was in Lisbon and now here so love that no that's wonderful well we are very grateful for your presence tonight your willingness to I love the neck you know I was here I first came in 2005 or something into this room I gave the Carl Peter lecture right you still have that every year we do I was invited by the great Jim Quigley to do that then he said you know you can come back as a scholar in Residence at we have that category at the neck and I said oh that sounds interesting so I came in 2007 did a little bit of teaching at the angelicum and and here and then 2010 I came back under that same rubric uh to finish my Catholicism book you know the book that was based on the film series I did so I lived in a wall apartment and I wrote that book entirely here um and I I was here five years ago for the senate for a month so I I always love coming back here to the neck well if you want to get away for another scholar and residence semester I think you're more than welcome I'm sure Ryan would appreciate your presence good good all right so I wanted to start in these questions yeah in your 20 16 book seeds of the word you examine some of the altars to the unknown God found in American culture which can act as bridges for the new evangelization it seems that America especially following the pandemic is losing a sense of a shared culture and identity through increasing polarization and social isolation our religious imagination has been heavily influenced by Christendom that was distinctly European is there a properly American culture and if so are there elements that would lend themselves to supporting the new evangelization yeah it's a big question there uh I I don't know if I would focus so much on America is the West I think the West there's a certain commonality and and here's something maybe I'll give a surprising answer um I've been a great critic of wokeism which I think is a terrible thing and I don't take back one little thing I I've said critically about it but you know as Augustine taught us a long time ago evil is always a Corruption of the good so there's there's always something good can find in something that's that's off-kilter and I think wokeism is a good example um you know it obsesses a lot of people in our in in the west especially young people um but how peculiar when you think about it I mean why should we be so concerned about the poor and the marginalized and and the little guy who's been you know knocked around and I mean why should we have this passion for justice especially on behalf of those who are abused um and here I'm relying on on the work of Tom Holland um not the kid that plays Spider-Man but the um the British historian Tom howand you know to notice how remarkably Christian our convictions are in a way that we don't even notice we just think of course of course we should be concerned about the the oppressed and the marginalized well there's no of course about it that comes indeed from Christianity it comes from the cross of Jesus and God's identification with someone who'd been pushed to the margins and who had been you know treated with great Injustice and so I I would take that as a as a Evangelical starting point that there's something at the heart of the sort of locust mentality that is deeply Christian and that we should just be straightforward about that and say look let's let's follow that lead the other one that I find often with young people because that that's one is the social justice concerns are so important for young people and you say well where do those come from those objective moral convictions because I presume you don't think you know you're opposition to human trafficking is some little private opinion of yours you don't think it's just a accidental cultural consensus you think there's something really objectively wrong about that well why why would you hold that where do those come from objective moral values in a similar way I think in the west there's a huge valorization of the Sciences right the physical sciences look how during Co that was used and abused right but this this science I believe in science that's what's really important well okay to believe in science is to believe in objective intelligibility you have to hold that something like intelligibility obtains at all levels of reality where do that come from why in the world should there be such a remarkable and Universal intelligibility so I take those two things which are often seen as enemies of religion right well science that opposes religion you know our our kind of woke convictions that stands against the traditional morality no on the contrary I would say those two things at their heart are are deeply religious so I think those are two bridges that we can find within the Western even very skeptical Western culture today do you find engaging some of these figures that don't fall in the sphere of the church world are open to that conversation yeah I do actually uh and I think they find a kind of intriguing um it's the it's the running around their own assumptions that I think is sometimes enlightening so yeah I do find that in these conversations with these these cultural figures sure sure no thank you all right slight pivot the various mid 20th century resourc movements seem to have served the church well so where do we go from here biblical resource M has already borne great fruit most patristic texts have been translated and published critically likewise for the main medieval Scholastics what unexplored sources can we tap today to preach the saving word of God or to pursue the metaphor is it more an issue of pipes faucets and bottles that are to that are to be renewed for us to bring the Living Water to all those who thirst for God today well uh know I I'm a great advocate of the roral thing in fact word on fire when I get home finally at the end of the Senate when I get home uh we're having a conference in Rochester uh to launch our new Journal which is called the new resource of all so I'm a great advocate of that movement and I think to to the the first practical question no I I don't think a lot more you know critical work needs to be done on the sources you know what Dubach and Company did with Source Cen and many others you know critical additions and good translations all that you know thank God for it but I think the uh the trajectories within the race horal movement are still very important and the themes within it maybe the most important of which in my judgment is a deeply theological reading of scripture so my generation was raised almost exclusively on historical criticism um you know the heroes of biblical studies when I was going through University and Seminary were Raymond E Brown and then Joe fitzmier and and um Roland Murphy and you know the the Jerome biblical commentary and so historical criticism was the way to read the Bible and I love it I mean I benefit from it I've read all those people you read someone like John Meyer Notre Dame you know who was we just pass away to recently but he would be I think the neck PL Ultra of that method great great but see I go back to the I wonder if you guys read this Ringer's famous Rasmus lecture 1988 uh in New York and all the leading American biblical Scholars were there and rotzinger said yes to historical criticism but then he said it's a limited method and needs to be supplemented by this much more theological we probably say today canonical sort of reading of the scriptures and at the time I remember I was what 28 when he gave that talk uh most of the establishment kind of you know Tut tutted it like well you know poor all ratzinger but that paper I think for my generation was was seal because we realized yeah we were all raised on historical criticism and we appreciate it but there was something limited it was hard to preach out of that tradition and we lost as we were so focused on the particularities of of biblical books and the intentionalities of the human authors the Bible got vulcanized and we lost a sense of of thematic unity and and trajectory and narrative Verve read someone like NT Wright today I really admire as a Biblical scholar wri's got all the historical critical thing in him but he also has this is the point I'm making that more patristic style that is very sensitive to the The christological Narrative Arc of the entire Bible that emphasizes things like typology and the great Rhymes within the biblical and and honor is what ainus would have said that the principal author of the Bible is God I mean if I had said that in Bible class when I was your age when I was in the Seminary they would have laughed at me what do you mean I mean I mean yeah in some vague way I suppose the author the Bible is God but I think the fathers took that very seriously aquinus did too and I think that's a very important supplement to historical criticism there is part of the race oral that I think we need to keep resourcing um it'll take new form today uh the question of God has a new texture because of the new atheist critique and all that so the the race hor ofal people back in the 50s and so on I mean weren't wrestling the same way with that question uh disaffiliation they weren't resting we were just beginning to see maybe the seeds of it back then but now that's a huge issue and the apologetic side of the patristics I think we need to recover so that's part of the novelty of the race for of all movement today but I think the themes of it we need to recover I know there's a great appreciation within that movement for some of the classic literature but even contemporary especially with the race or M theologians and you have an appreciation for Rene Gerard and what he did with literary criticism to unpack some important biblical themes do you see an increased appreciation of literature helping to strengthen a theological argument to the Contemporary listener yeah in my own life I go back to someone like um um father Dunn at Notre Dame this is years and years ago began weaving the literary and his theological writing and when I started my own writing that was a high priority for me and so early books of mine like and now I see in the strangest way I consciously brought the literary into it and I I've always liked that you know the the Catholic imagination that's kind of a rich tapestry and to avoid a sort of hyper rationalism which that's the shadow side of the Scholastic which I love I love the Scholastics but the shadow side is a hyper rationalism and from the patristic You' get more of that poetic Alon so I think yeah that's another facet of the race for them all let's continue with the Arts are there other art forms that you find lend themselves especially to the proclamation of the Gospel to the Contemporary listener well yeah it's I mean certainly i' I've relied on especially a lot of literary artists uh in my own writing including you know fauler and go back to the classic people at Dante I've used a lot of flry O Conor so yeah I mean I find that in film today the Coen Brothers I mean they are dripping with religion I mean it's a weird religion and it's it's a interesting malange of things but I mean really spiritually alert filmmakers um Tarantino in his own way you know I mean so I think you can see look at the conen brothers flaner of Conor is all over the Coen brothers so I think we religious types should be very sensitive to these artistic forms um you know today you know many comment on you walk around city like like Rome and you see this explosion of art that followed was part of the Counter Reformation and has there been a similar um Revival of the Arts after Vatican 2 I think the answer is no frankly to that um I think some of the revivals of classical architecture have been a good thing uh when I was coming of age uh Catholic architecture was a kind of a warmed over bow house modernism and in my judgment it didn't bear the Christian thing very well U I think in my home Parish I grew up in um and a lot of other churches I could name that uh kind of emptied out spaces um you know without a lot of symbolic Verve um didn't appeal to the senses and the imagination very rationalistic to me to me the the kind of modernist is a is a typically sort of cartisian hyper rationalistic form of architecture so I I I think that was not a happy development the the neoclassical revival going on in church AR arure I think is a positive thing but you know maybe I'm more sensitive to the literary artists whom I I love and some of the people I mentioned and the maybe it's film you know maybe it's film that is exploring some of these things sure with that do you think so this question I'm going to modify a little bit it's a question about John Paul II's theology the body and its ability to articulate an adequate theological anthropology do you think that a more adequate anthropology is approached through literature or through more theological texts well we we approach it in a lot of different ways and that's okay um John Paul does it very philosophically it seems to me the biblical element of course but you know his deep Reliance on the hurens and and on people like Dietrich Von hilderbrand and especially and edish Stein but especially Ma shayer so he comes at it in a very philosophical way and then it's supplemented by his tomis that he learned here in Rome um but the novel and the films yeah we'll show the Dynamics of it you know some maybe prec sending from the the questions of sexual ethics in themselves something I find really interesting in the Theology of the Body of John Paul is the the M shayer element so shayer seems to me like Von hilderbrand and all the phenomenologists saw how the discernment of Truth in some ways is a bodily thing you know what I'm saying it's not just the mind that sees intelligible patterns it's the body discerns and with its feelings and its reactions the body can discern the truth of things so shayer makes that argument that moral truth you know and there he reminds me of someone like Martha nusb do you guys read her at all the University of Chicago philosopher she had a wonderful um It's Beginning of one of her books where she talks about being here in Europe for a conference and while she was here she got word of her mother's death and and she of course took it in as an intellectual truth my mother has died but on the way home in the plane she said in her body she understood what her mother meant and what her death meant and it it was a very I thought compelling account of how there's a cognitive element of feeling uh now this is not to succumb to superficial emotionalism but it's it's it's a coinus in a way when Thomas says the soul is in the body but not is contained by it but is containing it there there's a line go on a retreat with that line and and you'll be fed for you know days the soul is in the body not as contained by it like dayart like a little ghost in the machine but as containing it the soul is greater than the body it contains the body and so as the soul knows it Knows by means of the senses yes which are bodily of course but by by emotion and by feeling and by the passion and I I like that a lot in John Paul's account of the moral life as he takes in shaylor's thing and you know who else comes to mind my fellow Americans is our American philosopher William James William James is saying these things in the late 19 century when James said it's not that I'm sad and therefore I cry but rather I cry and therefore I know I'm sad that's really ahead of its time that kind of statement but I think it's congruent with acquaint is the the soul contains the body anyway that's something when I think about the Theology of the Body I think of some of that stuff in John Paul I think is very rich and then the cism I mean the way he revives the categorical imperative um you know also comes up to the shayer tradition um read you know do you guys read Dietrich Von hilderbrand at all uh you know the great Catholic philosopher and that's a debate on the right if you want it within the Catholic scene today the toomas against the Hilda Brandy Indians um you want to see a fierce fight sometimes you know on the right but hilderbrand insisted upon the heart right he felt that the toas had underplayed the heart the seed of the emotional life and he felt that that was of supreme importance even um I think that's congruent with these things and of course he comes out of the huso tradition not the not the Aristotelian tradition um I think that's worth thinking about more and more but and let me say one more thing about it I think today in lighted all this gender business uh boy do we need the Theology of the Body because is gnosticism back it never really goes away it's the most persistent heresy no question about it no question the most persistent heresy is narcissism and it's all over the place today it's in most of our um our public education um systems there's the real me buried deep down in here somewhere talk about the cartisian thing too you know it's the soul is deep down in here or in the pituitary gland or something but that's a weird modernistic Revival of gnosticism but it's all over the place now in our culture the real me is buried here and I can now manipulate the body like I'm you know I'm I'm like an astronaut inside the Space Capsule but that's a weird anthropology deeply weird and dangerous as all get out and I'm with the Pope the pope when I was a bishop in California we had our ad liimo with with Francis and we talked for 3 hours with him about everything at the end we all were standing up to leave and he said I want you to fight this gender ideology he said it's against the Bible it's repugnant to our teaching and it's dangerous and he said I know it's you're in the front lines of it in California uh just as much in Minnesota trust me we're in the front lines of it so I think that's boy do we need the Theology of the Body because that's an integrated biblical um I think Aristotelian too and it it's a it's a the healthier strain of of Western philosophy there you know it's helpful end of sermon on that subject well I think you see in some of the classical schools with those who were influenced by guys like John Senior a re-appreciation of a pre- rational form of knowledge that's much more sort of sense-based before a dialectical approach to to truth and that seems to be gaining Traction in certain circles and a lot of that tends to look towards something like the Liturgy as a way of for ing that pre rational form of knowledge an incarnational engagement of the senses yes no I I I think that's a very important theme you know where you find it too find it in uh Pope Francis in lato SE especially and the technocratic Paradigm that's the I think what he's getting at and of course who is his teacher there but gini you know do you guys read the letters from Lake comoo by guini it's a great text very important text gini who forms ronner forms rotzinger forms B Al as are all those people and and bolio and this idea that um I stand here as kind of the Lord of creation and my sovereign will is going to dictate terms to Creation he's right he bolio and he gini they're right in saying that's a weird modernism that's coming up out of deart and Company uh but the premodern the premodern has this much richer I think much more beautiful approach when arist says philosophy begins in Wonder that's a world of difference from philosophy exists to master nature which is deart and and bacon those people in Aristotle it begins in Wonder that's a whole different attitude um and that I'm read acquaint us on this I that I'm part of this natural reality uh and it's deeply biblical too you know Salvation is not just a matter of I'm saving my soul salvation has to do with all of God's creation being redeemed and so on uh so I love that I love those premodern themes because I I think willly nilly we're so shaped by modernity we're we're so shaped it's just like it's the air we breathe but the church represents in a very healthy way I don't mean some you know old looking oldfashioned conservatism I mean in a very healthy way recovering that premodern imagination yeah yeah that's very good thank you so continuing the theme of the Liturgy and its relationship to evangelization St Augustine said that one first believes and then understands since the Lex arandi precedes The Lex credendi in Sac sacrosanctum kilum calls the Eucharist the outstanding means of manifesting to others the mystery of Christ how do you see the sacred liturgy playing a role in introducing a non-believer to the Pascal mystery well first of all a non believer is unlikely to come to mass so in that way I I wouldn't put so much Evangelical weight on it in that sense I think probably what happens more naturally is people that come to mass are crucified thereby and crucified people go out into the world in a transforming way they go out bringing Christ to the world and into the workplace and so on and people see crucified people and they're intrigued and they're drawn I think that's probably more naturally how it works having said that um you know what comes to my mind uh the seven story mountain of Merton was a very important book when I was a young guy and um you know Merton basically he's moved into kind of a a pagan mentality by the time he's in his late teens he discovers etan Jon's Spirit of medieval philosophy and it's an introduction to the metaphysics of the Middle Ages that convinces him that God is a serious idea right so that's happened to him but then he said one morning he wakes up Sunday morning and he feels this this urge go to mass go to mass and Merton barely knew what the mass was at that point barely knew what it was but he knew where this Catholic Church was Corpus Christie near Colombia and he walked in and he genu flected on the wrong knee and he didn't know what he was doing and he felt embarrassed didn't know when to stand or sit but got through the mass right and then he goes to a a coffee shop afterwards and has beautiful little lyrical passage he says though I was sitting in a grimy coffee shop on 115th Street it was though I was in the alysian fields and so I mean something happened to him obviously during mass he barely knew what it was but something happened to him during mass so that can happen for sure it has an Evangelical power or the story I love I heard this many years ago from a priest in San Francisco and he was dealing with a lady who was a pagan basically I mean nothing about religion nothing about the church like nothing nothing but she was kind of wondering and seeking you know so he said to her you know that church and he named it whatever it was I want you to go in there and you'll see there's like a little red lamp little red light up near the front I want you to go up there and I want you to sit as close as you can to that light she goes what does that light mean I I'll tell you later just just go in there and sit by the light and okay she did and then he said I go every day just go every day spend like 15 minutes sit by that light and at the end of that experience she said I I don't know I I just feel like I should be in church all the time and I just feel I I want to become a Catholic and what is it about that light and then he of course told that's that's the you know Tabernacle lamp and that's the blood Sacrament well all right I think the Liturgy the Eucharist has a has an Evangelical power that we can't fully understand so yeah bring people to mass if you can and see what happens but I think typically it's crustified people go out in an Evangelical manner sure you know sure and uh Parish that I was serving as pastor we had Perpetual adoration and we had so many people just come off the street not know what to do I didn't know what to do so we would just bring them to the Adoration chapel and that did incredible things and especially in this time of the Eucharistic Revival that would seem to be a good time to unpack these conversations absolutely yeah absolutely well continuing with the Liturgy but shifting to a more personal gear how do you prepare for a normal Sunday homy do you have any particular commentaries or books that you use for Preparation um for the for the books it's the fathers um especially origin origin is my man when it comes to the Bible um people say to me all the time hey bishop boy that homy what a what an interesting idea boy that's so novel and we you that's such a fresh perspective and I'd say it's from the 3 Century uh but it's true I I'm just you know CU look at even the great Augustine largely cribs from origin Augustine's marvelous biblical commentaries he got it from origin um origin's the master I think he's the master of biblical reading um and a lot of my stuff from I've done like formal biblical commentaries and then preaching a lot of it is origin it's the fathers that's where I learned how to preach when I was going through school it was a different world and we were not taught to preach that way we were taught to begin with a joke or a story um you know relate it to people's experience all the way and you know what the turning point was for me this is true um I'm a teacher at mundeline and I offered a course called the christology of The Poets and preachers and my purpose there was not to do formal High academic christology it was to do christology as revealed in these more lyrical figures right so I had the students read so I of course had to read it first the great sermons from from origin through Augustine up to burnard into the into the modern period we had read Newman we read Chesterton went up to Paul tilik we went the whole range of the tradition you know what struck me none of them preached in the way I was taught to preach not one not from the ancient world through the Medieval World to the modern world the sermons that the tradition preserved were not in the manner that I was taught that was a real eye opener because what I saw was read Newman for read Newman sermons uh begin with a joke and relate to people's experience I mean Newman is like massively biblical massively biblical so is origin so is Bernard so is aquinus you know uh I'm with Carl Bart you know the idea is not um correlation that's paulic Bart says it's to draw people into the Marvel marous Jungle of the Bible the Bible's this Rich Thicket of personalities and and narratives and symbols and and it's a weird country it's like moving into tolking um Lord of the Rings you know you need to be introduced to this wild new world that's preaching and now draw your world into the biblical world not vice versa don't reduce the biblical world to your little puny world you know my experience ho hum rather draw your experience into the Bible you know uh there there's an asymmetry between the biblical world and our world they interact so the same Bart is the one who famously said I preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other quite right but it wasn't using the newspaper to read the Bible it was the bible to read the newspaper and and that's a difference that's a huge difference in the way you approach preaching I think yeah and given that a large number of folks in the pews May at best have an eighth grade level of Catholic Education and oftentimes have resulted as some form of secular humanist whether or not yeah you not questioning their own personal faith but practically or kind of moralizing catechesis is therefore what happens in a lot of our preaching is I'm going to teach you something about the moral life let's get draw a little lesson from the scripture rather than especially for people who don't know the Bible or are totally secularized good good let's go on an adventure I'm going to take you into this really weird world of the Bible and I'm going to I'm going to blow your mind with this world I'm going to draw you into its its strangeness and its power um I'm going to teach you its its trajectories and its Narrative of purpose um you know that's why do people read tolking you know read tolking because it's it reminds me of my own experience it's it like takes you into another world that transforms your experience and makes it different uh that's good preaching seems to me um it's explosive good preaching I've quoted that in fact I remember doing it here years ago at the neck I had the Sunday mass and I quoted that line from I don't know where I first read it but it was an anglian Bishop that said when Paul preached there were riots when I preach they serve me tea you know but that's the problem because see they serve me tea because oh you you very nicely drawn the Bible into my world you know you tamed it you domesticated it uh it's explosive when you do the other thing that's good preaching I think yeah yeah there's a I've heard a common fallacy is Christ came not to bring peace but the sword my preaching brings division therefore I must be serving Christ how do you find an effective approach to proclaiming the sovereignty of Christ as the name under Heaven The Only Name by which men can be saved that is able to be heard that is effective that doesn't come across as high-handed or something otherwise repulsive to to the average secularist yeah I mean there you're getting at the Lum genium 16 kind of question right that I mean if we're saved we're saved by Christ there's no question about that Christ is the unique savior but his grace is available to varying degrees in other uh forms Vatican 2 teaches right in the other great religions and philosophy even in the in the sovereignty of your conscience so even the atheist of Good Will can be saved mind you please I'm not saying will be saved don't worry about it I'm saying can be saved right so that that's lumentum 16 and uh I think that's the right place to be because if you hyper stress you know it's only in Christ well then you're condemning the majority of the human race to damnation uh I don't think that's a really good Evangelical strategy if you go the other direction you have just a a pure relativism or indifferentism so lumium 16 carves out the space where I think people should be uh or I I try to be you you declare Christ but not in this aggressive hell threatening way but it you know I found something that's so uh life-enhancing and so compellingly beautiful in in in Christ I want you to know about it I want you to share in that thing balar says that that every person that's been addressed by the beautiful becomes a missionary of the beautiful that's true isn't it I mean when you you see a great movie your first instinct is hey hey hey you got to see this movie you become an evangelist of that movie um you hear a singer that you love and you want to tell the world about that singer so a for siori with the Lord Jesus Christ of course you want to tell the whole world but I mean I don't think threatening hell is a good Evangelical strategy so luminum 16 I think is the right place to stay my position I've often said is in the catechism in hope the church prays for the Salvation of all good that's the right position seems to me uh so can I pray for the Salvation of all people Christian non-Christian sure in hope that Christ's Grace somehow reaches them you know in the meantime do all you possibly can to bring the grace of Christ to as many as you can that's remarkable the two great Christian hymns of the maratha come Lord Jesus and yet the da at the same time the tension of we want the Lord to come but how awful the day of his arrival yeah well that's true that's true I me the cross is the cross is Judgment right because the cross reveals um sin the the cross is like a light that reveals the darkness corners of my sin and so every confrontation with Christ is a confrontation with the judge no question about it um but it's it's a judgment for the sake of life right it's an it's an illumination of my sin that I that I might get rid of my sin so it's I remember my doctrinal director in Paris the great Michelle Corban he's a wonderful ansal scholar and Thomas scholar he said what the fathers taught him was if you read any biblical passage and your conclusion is that you're depressed or you're angry or you're sad you've misread it period it doesn't mean I'm I'm giving a nambi pambi Bible it just means at the end of the day it's all about the Divine love now the Divine love can have an awful quality to it you know but if you've if you've ended your reading with God I'm sad and depressed and angry uh you've misread the Bible period can you think of an example of sober Christian Joy or a good example of what authentic Christian Joy looks like in a particular saint that comes that may maybe you have an affinity for it well I mean the Little Flower is one of my great spiritual Heroes I think she exemplifies that aquinus to me is is um is a joyful figure um you know when he was asked what does God do all day he said he enjoys himself this is a lovely answer and and dead right it seems to me what does God do all day enjoys himself because he's he's in the presence of the absolute good and so his will can rest perfectly in it um it it's who was who said the famous line it's the definitive Mark of the holy spirit is Joy I think that's right um you know I think I've known some saintly people in my life I think who really are Saints and that's the Mark is you come away Joyful from them um someone said that there are two types of people in the world those who suck air out of a room and those who breathe life into a room and I think that's largely right you know there some people you come away from and like life has been sucked out of you you know and other people you're with them and you you're more alive and you're more joyful uh that's a good way to think about your own spiritual life at the end of the day did I suck air out of the room today or did I breathe life into the room that sounds like a great criteria for seminarian evaluations yeah yes yes yes I would say that's right we're looking at okay what does this guy suck air out of the room or does he breathe life into that's yeah that is good that is good if you get the nickname Hoover you know it's not a good thing not a good thing well a number of our men in the house are preparing to promise to pray the Liturgy of the Hours as ordained deacons next year they're preparing their Reflections on this promise and so I think they're looking for some backup what has been your relationship with the Liturgy of the Hours through your years as a cleric and the relationship between the Liturgy of the Hours for a cleric as a duty a right a blessing yeah that's good that's a good U searching question you know I tell exactly when my relationship with the hours began I was a a baselin scholar at Catholic U any baselin here by the way aren't there some baselin I can't see their hands but um I was about 19 I guess and uh uh my senior Robert Sakowski was my my sort of academic hero when I was there and he said to us CLE one day you know some people claim that that God is their is their best friend God's the most important person in their life but they just they hardly ever pray and he said that's simply incoherent and I remember I thought yeah that's right you know so I was a seminarian I wasn't obliged to pray the office yet and in those days trust me we didn't pray the office in the Seminary um but I remember thinking yeah that's right and so I went out I know what little money I I had I bought that little one volume of the LG the hours and began praying it and it was always Sakowski um voice in my head okay if you claim God is the most important person in your life you have to talk to God regularly so it started there um you know I've been a priest for what 37 years I've been praying the office all that time um good times and bad times with it yes uh times when it's it seems more like tiresome sure um I'll say this though I as I've gotten older I've gotten better at prayer I think I don't mean in a like toot my own horn sort of way I just mean I think it does get easier and you become habituated to it and and you you get it and it's a source of of joy not just obligation so I begin the day uh with a holy hour I'm more of a morning person so I spend an hour in the chapel of my house and I pray a chunk of the office during that time Rosary to other things um and I I love that time I mean I I miss it like one thing about this C is it's messed up my prayer life completely because know what it has and it's thrown my the Rhythm off and I don't have the same kind of time and it's so timec consuming and um and I I hate that you know I I love that time of prayer and the Liturgy of the Hours is a big part of of it and the Psalms I mean you guys know about when you start praying the Psalms how how marvelous and gorgeous they are and you know it's a cliche to say but it's true they speak to the whole range of Human Experience you know it's marvelous marvelous some about about the Psalms uh this came from another very wise teacher of mine you know the psalm we pray um Friday night night prayer that kind of desperate Psalm I forget the number but you know I'm lying in the grave and the Darkness is my only friend and I you know and I remember this this wise teacher said you know I know when you're praying that you probably don't feel that way but trust me someone in the body of Christ somewhere in the world feels exactly that way right now and you're praying for him you're praying for her and that that was one of those simple remarks but it just opened up a window and I thought right there's the duty side of it right I don't feel like praying tonight well get over it because you're not praying for you just for your own you know private religious uh thrill you're you're obligated as a priest to pray for the church and it might not be benefiting you even that much but it you're praying for someone that can't pray tonight that should be praying but isn't you know you're identifying think of Charles Williams here the idea of of co-inherence right that we we inhere in each other that's why we can say things like I'll pray for you or I'll offer that up for you or I'll offer my suffering for you and he say well what a nice Pious idea that is not just a Pious idea that's a very profound metaphysical claim right that were implicated in each other and so when you pray those psalms it might not be the psalm for you personally but you're praying for someone else in the mystical body that's the obligation side of it which I take very seriously and priests um that stop praying the office bad sign it's a really bad sign and it usually in my experience is a sign of deeper trouble so I would say to you guys maybe just starting your your careers as prayers of the of the hours uh make it central dedicate yourself to it uh and and when you say I'm not in the mood for this hear my voice saying I don't care you know because you're praying for other people in the mystical body and uh in the long run that will benefit you too um so I take it with great seriousness John Paul too did too some of the texts of John Paul on the on the hours of how indispensably Central it is to the spiritual life and I think that's right thank you that's very helpful uh this may be more of a a personal question but is there a particular spiritual writer that you have found especially helpful in your life as a priest spiritual writer or theological writer spiritual writer well um I'm a John of the Cross man my my home Parish was St John of the Cross when I was a little kid so I I knew the name I discovered him probably through Merton uh Merton opened a lot of doors and windows for me when I was a young guy reading the seven story Mountain the sign of Jonas the new man new seats of contemplation all those classic texts and Merton opened you know the the windows to all these people so I probably discovered John of the Cross as a spiritual person through Merton but I he's he's a touchstone figure for me um so is Ignatius of Lola um the whole spirituality of of Detachment which is a kind of spirituality of interior Freedom uh is very important I think in the in the spiritual order all the stuff I've done on you know the The Wheel of Fortune and the wealth pleasure honor and power and being detached and living in the center all of that I learned from these Masters uh the Little Flower you know um in all her wonderful Simplicity but the um the little way is is extremely Illuminating and liberating I think once you interiorize it is no matter what's going on in your life no matter what what kind of day you're having you're succeeding you're failing no matter what you can always find the path of love right to will the good of the other you're lying sick on in bed you can pray for somebody you're angry with okay I can I can pray for that person you can perform the simplest Act of love no matter what and that's the heart of the Christian spiritual life so the Little Flower had a big uh impact on me as I said Merton when I was a young guy um was a was a very important player for me and kind of teaching me contemplative prayer um one of Merton's lines there which I love because it it resonates with my the Mystic side he said contemplative prayer is finding the place in you where you are here and now being created by God uh that's again a line go on retreat with that line to pray really to pray is to find the place right now where you are being created by God it's like the water bubbling up in you to eternal life right um so Merton was a key player for me too balazar you know a theological writer but Also spiritually important figure for me so drawing from act to willing the good of the other the way of love the idea of the Liturgy of the Hours and as a prayer of sort of solidarity with the entire church what do you think are actual helpful or authentically Christian ways of showing solidarity with Christians facing real and severe persecution around the world for example Nicaragua China Nigeria you know how do we do more than just sort of raise awareness but actually exercise that that real Christian solidarity with them yeah it's a it's a hard question because you're you're moving into the realm of credential judgment there um certainly to pray in solidarity and that's not a trivial thing at all um John Allen and others have have shown us I mean this is a massively bad time for Christian persecution we are the most persecuted religion by far anywhere in the world and I think awareness of that raising Consciousness about it praying about it yes indeed all that when it comes to pars uh it's trickier um think of you know John Paul in Poland and fighting communism yeah Ian I think he had all the right instincts but he also had a country that was 98% Catholic and he knew in his great credential wisdom that he could draw on that and find strength of resistance in it but does that apply in every case clearly no because every case is very different uh China for example now I mean Christians Catholics being persecuted in China yes indeed but is the John Paul 2 strategy the right one in a country that is overwhelmingly non-Christian so I mean I I I'll leave plenty of room for credential judgment and people that know what's on the ground you know and P the 12th and and Hitler you know uh the same dilemma so why didn't he just speak out against Hitler and well because edish Stein was put to death because you know I mean it's a little glib for us to say well they all should have done X Y and Z so I don't know I think you've got to be on the ground to know how best to engage that but Consciousness prayer solidarity I mean all that yes and not to be blind to these these really outrageous persecutions of of Christians well with that going on the flip side where where sin abounds Grace abounds all the more we see see that there are sort of flowers if you will of the of the evangelization coming up in different ways throughout the world seems to be globally South some you know East but uh where have you seen the Lord present or active this is a big question so pick pick your lane as you like or cover all of them in the Vatican Rome or yourself uh in reent Vatican Rome other there's always other do you mean like like now at the senate or in general what's where's an area where you see the Lord act you know the Lord's Grace sort of bearing greater fruit maybe on a global scale or a more local scale well no I I think you can see in the west now that there's a reaction to the the new atheism and this hyper materialism I think you can see that um you know whether it's in some like a Jordan Peterson and his popularity and others like him but I I think a generation that took in this God awful message you know that you come from nothing you're going to nothing there's no objective moral value the universe is coldly indifferent to everything that you're involved in and you know people took that in from Dawkins and Harrison company and oh yeah let's give it to religion but then they realized wait a minute that's the message that's what I'm left with and I think the reaction to that has been a Reawakening to the spiritual and the religious um some of these people I've talked to I I don't know if you know this guy this Lex fredman do you see follow him at all a very interesting podcaster he's an MIT professor of like artificial intelligence and he's a Russian American uh interesting guy and it's spoken to like everyone Under the Sun and he had me on and in in a very kind of simple you know curious way begins asking about religion and about God and um you know gets a huge reaction from people Peterson is I think is a very interesting test case because as he's talking about the Bible and opening up in these really fresh ways millions of young men especially are responding to him that says something to me about an Evangelical openness um it also begs a question where were we you know when the the new atheists were doing their thing 20 some years ago we were pathetic to tell you the God's truth by we I mean uh Catholics and Christians engaging those folks it took a William Lane Craig God bless him was one of the few people I think that could do it well by the way calling on our intellectual tradition you know but where were we I we had thrown a lot of our weapons away you know apologetics who needs it it's oldfashioned it's rationalistic who needs it and then when the enemies rose up with a lot of energy and there we were with nothing you know uh why aren't we in the place that Peterson's in why is he the one opening up the Bible in this fresh way and I God bless him I I support that but uh where were we I think is a good question question um I what what I've tried to do in these years of Word on Fire is is to do just that is to be at least a voice or a presence in the wider cultural conversation uh I think people respond I think they're very interested in religion and when you do it in a way that's um got some intellectual heft which our tradition does thank God and um so I think that that's my claran call to all of you is is get in that conversation um and one of the worst things we can do by the way is bickering among ourselves these silly fights within the Catholic world and you go on Catholic Social Media what do you find Catholics fighting with each other plague on both your houses I mean it's that's so anti- Evangelical and uh I'd say get out there into the wider conversation get out there and in where the young people are are looking for meaning and for purpose and inhabit that space that Peterson and others have have moved into why aren't we there you know yeah seems the difference is the the attitude of there's so much to do where do we start versus there's so much to do where can we start yeah I know again not to over rely on my my own experience but uh I just think about this because um the man he was a good friend of mine who just died today Rich danstrom uh we were in when I was starting out in Chicago I was in this parish and Rich was there and we had become friends and uh I just started doing sermons on the radio the local radio station in Chicago and Rich came to me and said you know um you should get these put up on a website and honest to God I said what's a website I I didn't know what a website this like 1998 or something and he oh no I'll get it set up for you and so he did he set up the first and then he said what should we call it I said I don't want to call it the the father Baron I I don't want to do that and we came up with word on fire as the word for it but that's how it started you know and I remember Rich coming to me a couple weeks later saying uh it's not doing well no one's watching it and I remember saying uh oh really yeah that what's that thing web yeah go well God bless you thanks for trying you know that's what I thought about it my point in the story is uh start start you know that's that's how it started and I just kept doing these sermons and then YouTube and then an audience begins to build and um try it jump in in the pool Well you certainly do it well and we're very grateful for you being a man in the arena so our uh last question you're going to be going home in a short period of time five days I think but whose County but whose County what are you looking forward to going home to the most getting back to my life because uh there is something very unreal about the last month you know and uh it's getting back to my regular routine in the dases I mean I can't wait to get back to parishes and I I can't wait to get back to the office you know and just do some the basic work as a as a bishop I'm I'm looking forward to that immensely actually because it's not just the Senate you know I was in Lisbon World youth day and I had all I was in Washington for USCCB I was at Harvard to give talks then I had talks to all the priests of my dicese and I came right from that to the airport to fly here so I've been kind of on a on a train which I'm eager to get off of sure I'm just eager to get back to my regular life yeah no when I get home absolutely understandable well I want to leave you the last word anything else you would like to leave us with before we conclude tonight well I mean I I I believe in you and what you're doing and it's massively important um you know as I look out at the world and uh not to sound too grandiose but you look out at the culture especially at young people there are armies of people who are lost spiritually lost and it's because this crazy culture of ours with you know the Dawkins thing would be the extreme of it you know the complete nihilism but also this U culture of self-invention is is deadly I make up my own life I make up my values I decide everything I'm I'm I determine even my gender and my body and that's a deadly uh farago of ideas and people are suffering from it I see it all the time and so those who are committed to Christ and to the church and to the gospel don't think for a minute that you're in some little you know ghetto no no you're you've got you got the bread of life you've got the Elixir you you've got you've got the the water bubbling up to eternal life and people need it so the studies you're doing here in theology spirituality Bible uh that's that's your that's life you know and the world needs it so don't give up and don't think there's something little you know sectarian or peculiar about what you're doing it is of huge Central importance to the transformation of the world and uh do it stay on the beam stay on the task do it Bishop Robert Baron thank you you're [Applause] welcome

Channel: Pontifical North American College

Views: 75,087

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Id: NBSNcDOaXMk

Length: 60min 25sec (3625 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 27 2023