I usually ignore the writings of Michael Sean Winters at the National Catholic Reporter. However, a friend of mine emailed me a link to Winter’s latest piece. As I expected, it was the usual boilerplate about Pope Leo, Pope Francis, synodality, “listening to the Holy Spirit” and the need for the Christian Faith to have public consequences.
So far so good, with no earth-shattering insight into the signs of the times. And nothing with which any thinking Catholic could really disagree. But, apparently unable to help himself, Winters found it necessary, in an otherwise harmless and anodyne piece, to take a gratuitous swipe at Bishop Robert Barron and his Word on Fire Ministry.
The cynical weaponizing of “synodality” continues
Winters begins by quoting an excerpt from a recent homily of Pope Leo’s on the need for a “listening Church”:
How important it is to listen! Jesus says, “My sheep listen to my voice”. And I think it is important for all of us to learn how to listen more, to enter into dialogue. First and foremost, with the Lord: always listen to the Word of God. Then also listen to others, to know how to build bridges, to know how to listen without judging, not closing the doors thinking that we have all the truth and no one else can tell us anything. It is very important to listen to the voice of the Lord, to listen to it, in this dialogue, and to see where the Lord is calling us towards.
But then, out of the blue, he adds the following:
It is not difficult to imagine Pope Francis saying these words. They point to synodality and, critically, that we listen to each other to better listen to the Holy Spirit. The critics of synodality who complain it is precisely the kind of inward-looking experience Francis claimed to shun always leave out the part about listening to the Holy Spirit. Also worth noting is the absence of listening in various social media ministries such as Bishop Robert Barron’s Word on Fire. There, the answers are prepackaged and ready to be shared with the docile audience. That is not Leo’s approach.
Bishop Barron and Word on Fire are both quite capable of defending themselves, and this statement from Winters is so manifestly ludicrous that it stands in no need of refutation. But I am compelled to offer some response given that these comments from Winters are fresh on the heels of an equally nonsensical attack on Bishop Barron in the pages of Commonweal, a more substantive journal, wherein Bishop Barron was falsely accused of wanting to “bury Vatican II”.
The evidence provided for this alleged desire by Bishop Barron to bury the council was nothing more than Barron’s criticism of the “beige Catholicism” of the post-conciliar years, and the fact that Barron claims, along with Pope Benedict XVI, that the council should be read in continuity with the tradition and not against it. The fact that Commonweal saw fit to publish such exquisitely jejune “analysis” is sad, indicative in a darker way of an animus in search of an argument. (Bishop Barron directly responded to that essay in a May 28th post on X.)
Of course, such criticisms go with the territory, as someone with the immense public platform of Bishop Barron will generate criticisms, even silly ones. Nevertheless, it also goes with the territory for folks like me to push back against the bullies of the Catholic Left who for too long have been given a pass for their calumnies against fellow Catholics, who are neither strident extremists nor fevered Right-wing nut-jobs, but simply Catholics of a more traditional (and orthodox) persuasion.
Any Catholic with even an ounce of common sense can see how self-refuting Winter’s claim is that Bishop Barron peddles in prepackaged answers and caters to a “docile audience”. In a section devoted to the need for a Church where unity is achieved through listening and dialogue, it is clear Winters has done neither when it comes to Bishop Barron, or to “the critics of synodality”.
If Winters had truly “listened” to the critics of synodality, he would see that our complaint is not with synodality as such, nor with the need for the Church to listen to the Holy Spirit. Rather, we claim that the curated and stage-managed “synod on synodality” was not synodal at all insofar as its voting members were not truly representative of the Church at large.
Therefore, his criticism is a monumental exercise in question-begging. He assumes what he needs to prove: that the synod on synodality was a genuine listening to the Holy Spirit and the Synod was representative of “the people of God”. But this is precisely the point in dispute. Because curated and selective listening, where significant voices are conspicuously absent, is no listening at all.
Under-listening and 0ver-reaching
For example, why was Fr. James Martin, SJ, picked by the Vatican to be a voting member of the Synod but not the priest president of Courage International? Given the importance of the debates over homosexuality in the Church, it would seem that a genuinely “listening” Church would want to hear all voices (Todos!) on this very important and highly divisive issue. But the Synod organizers thought differently, which calls into question which “spirit” was indeed speaking through the Synod.
But Winters assumes the Synod was indeed a profound exercise in listening to the Holy Spirit. Therefore, anyone who dares criticize the Synod is an enemy of listening to the Holy Spirit. Winters does not seem to find it strange that for Catholics of his persuasion the Holy Spirit always seems to speak in the language of 1968, which raises enough red flags for the rest of us to step back and wonder whose voice is being heard?
Second, since his statement about Bishop Barron is so oddly out of the blue and utterly gratuitous, it gives every indication that there is an animus in play here against more conservative-leaning Catholics. His comments to the effect that Word on Fire is nothing more than a forum for offering canned and prepackaged nuggets of truth for a “docile” audience is prissy nastiness devoid of even the slightest merit.
It lacks merit because the rush to smear Barron proves too much. It indicts the National Catholic Reporter and any other Catholic internet resource where writers, speakers, and various noteworthy persons offer up their insights and thoughts on all manner of topics. Is all of that online content, including that of the Reporter, also “prepackaged” propaganda that does not “listen” to the faithful and is instead counting on an empty-headed, pietistical docility?
It lacks merit because Winter’s claim here seems to involve the bizarre notion that all forms of online Catholic content are, by definition, guilty of perpetuating a “non-listening” form of ecclesial discourse simply because they are the product of a planned production process. Somebody needs to write to the USCCB therefore and tell them that they are guilty of opposing a listening Church whenever they produce some brochure or video to be disseminated to parishes.
What Winters is really getting at with his condescending comment about “prepackaged answers” for a docile audience is his usual bilge about how awful Catholicism is when it dares to offer clear answers to people living in the “messiness of life”. What he wants instead is a Church whose leaders do not offer clear doctrinal answers to just about anything on the mistaken presumption that there are no such clear answers in the first place.
His criticism of Barron is important because it gives voice to a theological idea, whose pedigree stretches back into the late 19th-century and then into the modernism of folks like Tyrell and Loisy, that what matters most for most people is an inner religious experience of something ineffable that doctrines only obliquely express in propositional form. And for Winters and those like him, a Church focused on the truth of doctrine is a Church incapable of truly listening to the articulations of the faithful of that lived inner religious experience in the messiness of life.
Real dialogue with real people
Winter’s claims also lack merit since they ignore the fact that Word on Fire conducts numerous interviews with all kinds of different folks from varied walks of life. There is indeed a concerted effort to engage in real dialogue with all kinds of public intellectuals and to present that dialogue to the public. When was the last time Winters or the NCR produced anything of such intellectual depth and quality?
It lacks merit because the content of Word on Fire is anything but the simplistic argot of old-time pieties. I know many an average Catholic who loves to watch Bishop Barron but who tell me that much of what he says goes over their heads. This is not Victorian, parlor room “Church chat”. This is serious stuff, and I suspect folks like Winters know this, which is precisely why he seems to hate it so.
In other words, he is not worried that the theology of Word on Fire is inconsequential. He is worried that it is consequential. And that is what vexes him. He fears that what he views as this “retrograde, reactionary, and ultraconservative” form of Catholicism is far, far more popular and influential than his small gang of refugees from 1975.
In short, Winters wants bishops who have no answers and who seek only to hold the hands of the confused and lost in an act of solidarity with their apophatic darkness.
So-called traditionalists also dislike Bishop Barron since he does not sufficiently populate Hell to their liking and does not seem to be a strong advocate for the TLM or the liturgy wars in general. He embodies for them “the Vatican II Church”, which of course they also dislike, and continues to advocate for a retrieval of the Council in the hermeneutic of continuity and the light of ressourcement theology. This is enough to mark him as a quasi-modernist in their eyes, which means that Pope Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI are also quasi-modernists. In fact, even Pius XII seems a bit squishy to these folks since he dared to begin the “tinkering” with the allegedly unchangeable pre-1955 liturgy. So Bishop Barron appears to be in good company.
Therefore, Bishop Barron is disliked by both progressives and traditionalists (and probably a few others who are simply tired of what they view as the marketing ubiquity of Word on Fire). But I find it all exasperating. It has become tiresome to watch the Church, in her many members, cannibalize itself through these ideologically motivated attacks on her best and brightest.
Why is it not sufficient, even if you disagree with Bishop Barron on issue “X” or issue “Y”, to step back and acknowledge that he is an evangelizing bishop who has created something of great and lasting value? That Word on Fire has brought many countless souls to Christ and his Church? We have all been asking for decades for bishops who are not just managerial class apparatchiks and who are instead true evangelists of the Gospel for the people of today. And here we have one such bishop; but instead of applauding him, there are loud voices falsely vilifying him with every effort made to tear him down because he has chosen not to ride into town on our particular ecclesial hobby horse.
This is all very disturbing. We need to be able to see all ecclesial movements that have the “weight of glory” about them in a positive light, even as they are perhaps engaged in friendly critique. I am not a fan of the film series “The Chosen” but have refrained from public criticism of it since I can see that, overall, and despite some flaws, it has brought many souls to Christ and many people’s faith is fed and strengthened by it. So, why throw cold water on it? Why tear it down? Because it does have its great moments. For example, the profoundly moving depiction of the late-night meeting and conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus in Season One.
There are many a Nicodemus in our culture today. And Bishop Barron and Word on Fire have been highly effective interlocutors with them. One can indeed criticize this or that aspect of it all. But the animus and hatred and false characterizations should cease. That would be a real step toward a true synodality of listening.
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“Michael Sean Winter” …any man who goes by three names is himself prissy, pretentious and someone who feigns elitist superiority. Secondly, to MSW: Francis is dead and buried, just in case the news hasn’t reached the lofty towers at NCR.
This is an excellent article and makes many good points.
It is marred by something similar to your complaint about Winters’ piece. You say “So-called traditionalists also dislike Bishop Barron since he does not sufficiently populate Hell to their liking and does not seem to be a strong advocate for the TLM or the liturgy wars in general.” I consider myself a “traditionalist.” I do not think it is a position deserving the adjective “so-called.” It is better than the political term “conservative” and is more to the point. In addition, I admire Bishop Barron and his work. I would argue that he himself is a traditionalist. Think of a comparison to people like Father Martin. Or Pope Francis.
If the point was important, you might have said “Some traditionalists ….” I think that is fair.
I’m pretty traditional and I think Bishop Barron is great. Once or twice I think he might could have chosen a clearer way to express Catholic teaching but which of us communicates perfectly 24/7? I sure don’t.
“Together, we can seek the truth in dialogue, in relaxed conversation or in passionate debate. To do so calls for perseverance; it entails moments of silence and suffering, yet it can patiently embrace the broader experience of individuals and peoples.” Pope Francis, Fratelli tutti, No. 50. I do think Winters overstepped dialogue and went on attack. I wonder if we could have a “passionate debate” between Winters and Barron, or Winters and Chapp. Show us the synodal way in action.
I agree with your basic thesis. Bishop Barron has enormous gifts and unity is a great good. This should not preclude a sed contra. My concern with the ministry of Bishop Barron is not about his teachings on Vatican II, von Balthasar or against some rad trad agenda. I was very disappointed during the McCarrick revelations of the sexual abuse crisis that Barron’s Letter to a Suffering Church added to the sufferings of lay people by suggesting that they were also complicit in clerical abuse by giving the Church such perverted prelates. Speaking of the thousands of clerical abusers, Bishop Barron concluded by pointing to the laity, saying: “Priests do not arise in a vacuum. They come from…Catholic families…Therefore, fellow Catholics, this scandal is OUR (emphasis his) problem.” What rot! Enough of the gaslighting. Another major concern was the pontifical pandering for a dozen years to the “prophetic” Franciscus despite the bullying and enabling of heteropraxy.
Barron is no Sheen. Better to be a straight shooter with the simplicity of Strickland than a hoity-toity team player. To achieve authentic unity we must dispense with the forced cheerleading of everyone who might be “on our side.”
(See page 91: https://media.wordonfire.org/ebooks/Letter-to-a-Suffering-Church.pdf?_gl=1*3xo25j*_up*MQ..*_ga*MzEzNDMyNDQxLjE3NDkyOTUxOTM.*_ga_4081DYV3TL*czE3NDkyOTUxOTMkbzEkZzAkdDE3NDkyOTUxOTMkajYwJGwwJGgw)
> I usually ignore the writings of Michael Sean Winters at the National Catholic Reporter.
I usually ignore the National Catholic Reporter.
Me, too.🙂
Exactly
Ditto. Likewise, I usually ignore Bishop Barron’s work, God bless our little hearts.
JeffL , How can you grow if you ignore your adversary?
How is that an adversary?
It’s not for nothing that some refer to it as the National Catholic Distorter.
I have found that I like Michael Sean Winters more and more, and Bishop Barron less and less. For example, “There, the answers are pre packaged and ready to be shared with the docile audience. That is not Leo’s approach”.
I kind of agree with that. Bishop Barron is very good and he’s always managed to avoid the red zone on the “smug meter” –although he got pretty darn close at times–, but this Q & A Catholicism is really rather tiresome after a while, the “Father knows best” attitude has got to go. It’s this “brand” of Catholicism that is “getting old”. I know what Winters is talking about and I don’t think he’s altogether wrong on this. And I hate to say it, I liked Larry Chapp at first, but I found him increasingly difficult to stomach, with all the conspiratorial whining about the synod and synodality, etc. I know he can do much better than that. Gosh, if he likes–and would interview–someone like Jordan Daniel Wood, he’s gotta be good. But why he would allow himself to play in the mud here with bitter, cynical and unmagnanimous whining is beyond me.
Suffice it to say, I find your comment to be ridiculous, quite emotionally based, and without merit.
Mr. Winters is indeed stricken with fascination regarding himself, and must have fired his editor ages ago (or is simply paid by the word).
But regarding Vatican II, which took place during my undergrad years at Notre Dame:
What specific timeless magisterial truths did it change? And what new magisterial truths did it proclaim?
I don’t mean the “Spirit of Vatican II,” which has asphyxiated several generations, to be sure. But the real thing: what did it change?
I appreciate this well-written and well-thought-out article from Dr. Chapp. As a former Evangelical Protestant who, along with my late husband and eventually our daughters and son-in-law, converted to Catholicism after a horrific experience in the final Evangelical church that our family was part of, I find that Bishop Barron is not only a great “bridge” speaker for Catholics, but also for Protestants, especially Evangelical and non-denominational Protestants.
He’s young, well-spoken, and makes use of apologetics (as do many converts from Protestantism to Catholicism). I think that Holy Mother Church accommodates both traditionalists and those who are more “modern” in their thinking and preferences, and that generally includes many non-denominational and Evangelical Protestants who have never considered Catholicism because of presumptions about ancient Masses in a foreign language (Latin) but are intrigued by contemporary speakers like Bishop Barron and eventually, become open to conversion.
There are now quite a few prominent Evangelicals who have converted to Catholicism and are speaking out about Holy Mother Church and seeing a “harvest” of other Evangelical converts. Bishop Barron can appeal to both Catholics and non-Catholics, and if there are Catholics who do not appreciate his “style” or “message,” there are plenty of other very conservative, traditional Catholic teachers, both past and present, that they can surely find to minister to their needs, too. No need to criticize others who are clearly doing the work of God and bringing souls to Holy Mother Church!
Thanks Doctor! A refreshing reminder to me that the Church has endless critics. Maybe I should just try to help build up her sons and daughters.
It would be interesting to see what would happen if you locked Fr. James Martin & Fr. James Altman together in a cell without any other human contact for a year, and then interviewed them. If they were both alive at the end of the experiment, I believe that we would find that two very changed men would emerge. The real problem seems to be that we talk ABOUT each other rather than WITH each other. We are polarized because we are separated. It is easier to throw a rock at someone who is standing on the other side of the fence than someone who is standing next to you. We need to really get to know the people that we disagree with, who they are and how they came to be , and why they think and act the way they do.
Thank you. I think that’s an important point. Social media has the means of connecting us to each other but ideologically it can splinter us off into increasingly narrow echo chambers. And dark rabbit holes.
I have long had the feeling that Bishop Barron must be doing something right since he seems to draw attacks from all sides.
My thoughts as well Mr. Saucci.
When I wrote what follows and subsequently (electronically) discussed it with Dr. Chapp, he disagreed with my analysis, which had flowed from my genuine respect for Bishopo Barron and my disappointment that–at least at that time–he (Barron) was often too little and too late in defending what eminently deserved spirited (that’s a pun) defense. I now gladly defer to Dr. Chapp’s judgment and say to Bishop Barron– “Your Excellency: we need your counsel, and you are here for us. Deo gratias.”) I now happily “cancel” my earlier assessment: “Bishop Robert Barron often uses his learning and talent well, but he does so selectively, too frequently failing to battle valiantly against many of the preferred depravities of our day. Qui tacet consentire videtur: Who remains silent is seen as consenting (a key element of Bolt’s fine play, A Man for All Seasons). So it is that a celebrity champion of much of what is true and orthodox can–by his socially servile silence about other moral matters–maladroitly provide aid and comfort to the Enemy (1 Pt 5:8). Thus may it fairly be said that his preaching can deceive us by never exposing our sin (in certain matters, especially carnal) and making us think that we do not need to repent (Lamentations 2:14, Ezekiel 33:7-9, Malachi 2:8, 2 Tm 4:3). Of someone like this talented bishop, to whom much has been given, much is expected, including the bold proclamation of truth even if such parrhesia will reduce his audience or popularity (John 12:43, Galatians 1:10, 1 Thessalonians 2:4). Good bishop, stop counting the cost (cf. Job 38:3, 40:7)! As St. Paul commanded: ‘proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching’ (2 Timothy 2:4). [A book of his I reviewed] . . . reflects Barron’s bicephaly: sometimes unparalleled excellence in evangelization, and sometimes unfathomable desertion from the spiritual battlefield. Good bishop, ‘Get ready; go and tell them everything I [the LORD] command you to say. Do not be afraid of them’ (Jeremiah 1:17, Job 38:3)!'” When Mr. Winters’s judgment is that Bishop Barron’s ministry is deficient or deranged, you may be sure that the good bishop is home, and calling to us. We might well now say, Listen to him.” Dr. Chapp, thanks!
Every wounded dog licks his wounds!
Bishop Barron addresses these criticisms in a May 19 episode of Word on Fire podcast. Episode 490. Highly recommend.
Great article Dr chapp….NCR and America magazine are 2 periodicals I completely ignore when so many good magazines are out there..first things for example…we need to discern more what we read and keep a list of people like Larry to guide us thru such obstacles to true faith…..
Thank you, Dr Chapp. As always, spot on!
While there has been an issue or two on which I have disagreed with Bishop Barron, I still emphatically view him as a genuine treasure for the Church, a modern day St. Paul, who is his day likewise encountered criticism from jealous false teachers, from counterfeit apostles.
About the “winter of our discontent” (Shakespeare’s Richard III):
Four points and a summary:
FIRST, simply stated, the mirabile dictu is how to respect the distinct “hierarchical communion” (the sacrament of Holy Orders; Lumen Gentium) together with the interrelated “ecclesial assembly” of all the baptized under the “universal call to holiness.” Recent incompetencies—or some say, deceptions—have been to deform a real synod of bishops into an ecclesial assembly, and then to further confuse such a select town hall consensus with the sensum fidei.
SECOND, regarding our “ecclesial assembly” (not a “synod”), we have the clarity of Benedict XVI when he reflected on the partial eclipse of the “ecclesial assembly”—or “communio”— probably at Trent…
In response to Luther, et al, the restoration of the sacramentally ordained priesthood as more than a seeming “cult-minister” (Benedict’s term), but as a bearer of sacramentality through Holy Orders, also led to an unfortunate separation of the laity from the clergy. The loss of “communio”—”the problem of the laity, which arose at this time and still haunts us today.” The “original meaning of the word ‘ecclesia’—that is, a ‘coming together’” (Ratzinger, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” 1982/Ignatius 1987).
THIRD, a false “sensus fidei” cannot pit the baptized laity against the ordained (laying on of hands) successors of the apostles who are “sent” (“apostello”) by Christ himself, and the Magisterium. See https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_20140610_sensus-fidei_en.html and especially n. 47. Based on the Council’s Lumen Gentium which defines the sensus fidei as: “the supernatural appreciation of faith on the part of the whole people, encompassing bishops [!] and all the faithful, when they manifest a universal consent [!] in matters of faith and morals.”
FOURTH, now under Pope Leo XIV, needed is a “bridge” between our confused moment in Church history and the historical workings of the Second Vatican Council. The “real” Council of the Documents versus the media’s “virtual” Council (as Benedict XVI often explained); and then to also rediscover the true meaning of “sensus fidei.”
SUMMARY: how walk and chew gum at the same time.
Jesus didn’t tell the Apostles to go and dialogue with all nations. He told the Apostles to “go and make disciples of all nations…teaching them to observe all that I have commanded You!”
As for listening, it was supposed to be to the voice of Jesus the Good Shepherd, not to the false prophets around synodal tables or heterodox “Catholic” publications who want to tickle the ears of those who don’t want to listen to the sound teaching of the Apostles who gave their lives to bring to the world all the teachings that Jesus commanded.