Martin Luther King and the Religious Motivation for Social Change July 14, 2020By Bishop Robert Barron Syndicated Columnist Filed Under: Commentary, Racial Justice, Word on Fire It is indisputably clear that there are severe moral deficits in our society that must be addressed, but the best way to do so is from within a moral and finally religious framework.
Why “What are the Bishops Doing About it?” is the Wrong Question June 27, 2020By Bishop Robert Barron Syndicated Columnist Filed Under: Commentary, Racial Justice, Word on Fire Great Catholic lawyers, great Catholic politicians, great Catholic university professors, great Catholic physicians and nurses, great Catholic investors and financiers, great Catholic law enforcement officers, great Catholic writers and critics, great Catholic entertainers, each in his or her special area of competence, is meant to bring Christ to the society and the culture.
The quarantine’s three lessons about the Church May 1, 2020By Bishop Robert Barron Filed Under: Commentary, Coronavirus, Word on Fire So Catholics, don’t get discouraged. Rather, use this time of deprivation and abstention to awaken a deeper love for the Church in its Eucharistic, symbiotic, and incarnational distinctiveness.
The One Pope January 3, 2020By Bishop Robert Barron Filed Under: Commentary, Word on Fire I would have been happy to watch four hours of a film that was as honest and insightful about Joseph Ratzinger as it was about Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
One cheer for George Will’s ‘The Conservative Sensibility’ August 7, 2019By Bishop Robert Barron Filed Under: Commentary, Word on Fire Will gets some important things right, but he gets some even more basic things quite wrong.
The USCCB Meeting, Jordan Peterson, and the “Nones” June 18, 2019By Bishop Robert Barron Filed Under: Commentary, Word on Fire What is particularly sad to me is that the commentariat, especially in regard to religion, has become so polarized and ideologically driven that the most elementary distinctions aren’t made and the most broad-brush analyses are commonplace.
Wake Up: The real danger posed by the California confession bill May 15, 2019By Bishop Robert Barron Syndicated Columnist Filed Under: Commentary, Word on Fire Catholics should, of course, rise up in strenuous protest against this very aggressive incursion—but so should anyone who cares about the freedom of religion in our society.
Seeing abortion April 18, 2019By Bishop Robert Barron Filed Under: Blog, Word on Fire In 1850, lots of good and thoughtful people defended the institution of slavery. Now, only insane people would. In 2019, lots of decent and thoughtful people defend the pro-choice position. One can only hope that these recent laws, and this viscerally disturbing film, will hasten the day when only insane people would.
Frank Gehry and the quest for transcendence March 7, 2019By Bishop Robert Barron Filed Under: Commentary, Word on Fire The Church ought to sing the transcendence of God to Frank Gehry as it once sang it to Giotto, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Dante, Gaudí, and the architect of Chartres Cathedral.
New York, abortion and a short route to chaos January 29, 2019By Bishop Robert Barron Filed Under: Commentary, Word on Fire Abandoning the convictions of one’s conscience in the exercise of one’s public duties is precisely equivalent to “I’m personally opposed but unwilling to take concrete action to instantiate my opposition.”
Talking to some young Jesuits about social justice and evangelization January 10, 2019By Bishop Robert Barron Filed Under: Commentary, Social Justice, Word on Fire I told my young Jesuit conversation partners that they ought to follow the prompt of our Jesuit pope and go not just to the economic margins but to the “existential margins”—that is to say, to those who have lost the faith, lost any contact with God, who have not heard the Good News.
Tolkien, Chesterton, and the Adventure of Mission December 18, 2018By Bishop Robert Barron Filed Under: Commentary, Word on Fire We Christians don’t stay in hobbit holes; we go on adventure.