Bishop Robert Barron

Like a great artist, the Holy Spirit, in the course of twenty-five years, has drawn together a variety of strands, colors, and textures to produce something beautiful in Word on Fire. Today, join us in celebrating our ministry’s twenty-fifth anniversary!

Friends, most “spiritual but not religious” people, though they may disdain the traditional churches, remain hungry for meaning, purpose, community, and ritual—four values classically offered by religion. They have found these in some odd places, and it would be easy enough to write off those frankly weird forms of religiosity. But this would be seeing the glass as half empty. Rather, we should rejoice that the religious instinct remains vibrantly alive in them—and go out to meet it!

Well, another Cardinal has come out with a, shall we say, puzzling take on evangelization. A few years ago, Cardinal Américo Aguiar, at the time auxiliary bishop of Lisbon, said that he and the other organizers of World Youth Day in his hometown had no interest in converting anyone to Christ. Now Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco of Algeria has opined that “the Church is not there to convert” and “Christians should approach other religions through fraternity rather than seeking conversions.” Excuse me, but…what? Last time I checked, the Founder said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Sure sounds like conversion to me. When St. Paul came to Corinth or Athens or Thessalonica, his purpose was not to listen or to form a discussion group but rather to declare an unnerving message: the euangelion (glad tidings) that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. So impassioned is he for this work that he says, “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:22); and “If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:16)! Moreover, the entire thrust of the Second Vatican Council was toward bringing the Light of Christ to the peoples of the world (Lumen Gentium). And this missionary élan has given rise in the last few decades to the idea of a “new evangelization,” which is to say, a fresh declaration of the Lordship of Christ. Quite obviously, no one thinks that this work of evangelization should be done in a brow-beating, overbearing, or disrespectful manner (proselytization), but for God’s sake, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. If I really thought that the Church does not exist to bring people to Christ, then I would resign and get an honest job.

Friends, a teacher of the law asks Jesus, “Teacher, which commandment of the law is the greatest?” This was an old move in rabbinic circles: Can you sum up the richness and complexity of the law in one statement? When Jesus answers, it’s not just one rabbi among many answering this central question. It’s the Lord. It’s the Word made flesh telling us what’s at the very heart of the matter. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind . . . and the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The whole law and the prophets depend upon these two commandments (Matt 22:36–40). The Word made flesh is telling us what is absolutely basic.

Friends, the sheer volume of fraud taking place in recent years throughout the world, and in America in particular, is staggering. I heard recently that the high end of federal estimates of the amount of money stolen per year in America is greater than the GDP of Vietnam, the Philippines, or Denmark. This is a real blight upon our society, made possible, at least in part, by religious disaffiliation. Since morality is grounded, ultimately, in God, one consequence of disaffiliation is an increase in moral drift, relativism, and indifference. If we want to protect the common good, we have to recover a moral integrity rooted in the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, and the parables of Jesus.

Friends, there are all kinds of good things. An engaging baseball game, a beautiful sunset, a properly operating car — all of these are good. We also notice that the goods of the world are arranged in a kind of hierarchy. There is good, better, and best, in regard to anything. But at the summit of all possible goods, there’s the summum bonum, the highest good: God. What’s our basic problem? We order our lives toward lesser goods. That’s not to deny that they’re good or to say we should pay no attention to them. But don’t order your life and your powers in the direction of anything less than God!

Friends, St. Bernard of Clairvaux said that the goal of the spiritual life is to love God alone for the sake of God alone. What does he mean by this? He means we’re loving God not because we’re afraid of what might happen if we don’t, or because we’re trying to get something out of him. Rather—like the love between two spouses—we’re loving him for himself alone. We are lost in the wonder and the beauty and the majesty of God. That’s the highest kind of love.

Friends, in just two days, Christians were murdered on two continents. On Friday, gunmen opened fire on a funeral at St. George’s Greek Orthodox Church in Karak, Jordan, and killed nine people. On Saturday, armed men attacked Orthodox churches and homes in Oromia, Ethiopia, and killed more than forty. These are not statistics. They are our brothers and sisters, members of the mystical Body of Christ. When Saul set out to destroy the Church, the risen Jesus asked him, “Why are you persecuting me?” The Lord is still being persecuted in these victims of anti-Christian violence. Christianity is by far the most persecuted religion in the world today. Those of us who worship in comfort have to ask what the deaths of these martyrs demand of us. At the very least, they demand that we pray for them, learn their names, press our leaders to act, and refuse to look away. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.

Merci beaucoup, Tribune Chrétienne!

Friends, in the latest episode of the Word on Fire Show, I sat down with Matthew Petrusek to discuss the epidemic of public fraud and why it is a grave assault on the common good. We examine what Catholic social teaching says about theft from the public treasury, the harm this does to the poor, and how Christians can demand accountability without reducing a moral crisis to partisan politics. youtu.be/mMeSt1AmZGk

Friends, the modern conception of the self is built on autonomous choice: “This is my life; these are my choices; don’t tell me what to do.” That’s legitimate—up to a point. In Catholic thought, the self isn’t the sheerly autonomous, self-reliant individual of modernity. There is also the reality of participation: “I’m me, but I belong to something bigger than myself: a family, a community, a faith.” Paul Tillich spoke of a polarity between individualization and participation. These two poles of the self should live in a creative, healthy tension. But we’ve lost sight of the second, and it’s the side we need more of today.

Friends, my experience with baseball as a child serves as a fitting analogy for evangelizing through beauty. It all started with the beauty of the game, which eventually led me to the good and the true. Enjoy the World Series!

Gosh, I’d love to attend this debate. But I’m pretty sure I have a MAGA rally to attend that night… If you have any doubt that the German Catholic academy has fallen into clownish irrelevance, look no further than this inane and ginned-up “controversy.” Last summer, the vaunted “protest” consisted of 25 desultory septuaginarians holding signs and a statement from the theological faculty of the University of Munster, which was at an undergraduate level of sophistication and which betrayed not the slightest indication of any familiarity with my work. And yes, that sound you hear in the background is Josef Pieper turning in his grave.

Friends, the two extremes we so often find in the conversation about church and state—theocracy and aggressive secularism—are both predicated upon a faulty understanding of God as the supreme being among beings. In the world of beings, there’s a competitiveness and a mutual exclusivity. When one thing enters the space of another, the other must give way. It’s a zero-sum game. If we understand God in this way, we’re left with a dilemma: Either religion dominates the government, or the government is completely independent of and indifferent to religion. I say: A plague on both your houses! For God is not the supreme being but Being itself—the creative ground of all reality.

Friends, James Madison, who formulated the Bill of Rights, wrote, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Thus, in the United States, there would be no official state religion; at the same time, citizens would be free to practice their faith publicly. This was a stroke of genius in a pluralistic society, where there wasn’t a clear consensus about matters of church and faith. Did Madison solve the problem definitively? Clearly not. But the conversation he began many years ago is one worth continuing.

Friends, today I visited the grave of Archibald “Moonlight” Graham—who, if you’re a fan of the movie “Field of Dreams,” you will know about—in Rochester, Minnesota. As I stood there in front of his grave, which is covered in baseballs placed there by fans, I remembered why that film is one of the best evocations in recent cinema of a higher world beyond the one that we can see.

Friends, I recently celebrated the White Mass for the medical professionals of the Mayo Clinic at its Saint Mary’s Campus. In my homily, I reflected on Zeffirelli’s film “Brother Sun, Sister Moon” and how, at its core, it is a story about remembering one’s original call. This was my invitation to all the medical professionals present: Remember the original whisper in your ear–Christ calling you to be a healer.

Friends, I traveled today to the Planned Parenthood in Rochester to join a group of seminarians and lay people in praying for an end to abortion. Over the years, it has been edifying to join in prayer with 40 Days for Life and to see the progress being made to uphold the dignity of every human life. As I mentioned to our group today, we pray in our time, but the answers come in God's time. Please join me in continually petitioning the Lord to help us end the grave evil of abortion.