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Addressing a new Vatican document commemorating the 60th anniversary of Vatican II’s Nostra Aetate — which discourages “defensive entrenchment” and single-minded proselytism — Barron clarified the distinction between aggressive pushiness and authentic Christian proclamation.
“In a way, I wish we would drop the word ‘proselytizing’ because it’s used now in so many different ways,” he said.
Recalling a conversation with Pope Francis during an ad limina visit, Barron noted that the pope defined proselytism as “obnoxious evangelization” — a browbeating, overbearing approach.
While supporting respectful dialogue, Barron insisted that sharing the faith remains nonnegotiable.
“We are really good at stressing how kind, respectful, and tolerant we should be. That’s great, and I’m all in favor of it. But we also announce Jesus — in a friendly way, in a nonthreatening way,” he said.
Expressing a desire for Church documents to place greater emphasis on proclamation, he added: “The Church is not a debating society. … We are here to proclaim a word in love. It’s the truth in love. But by God, it’s the truth, and I think that’s obviously worth emphasizing.”
Advising the White House on religious freedom
The Word on Fire founder also responded to critics questioning his involvement with the Trump administration following his appointment to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
Clarifying his position, Barron pushed back against claims that his participation represents a political endorsement. “I’m not a member of the Trump administration!” he said. “The president invited me to be around the table to discuss issues about religious liberty so that policy in that regard could be better formulated. Why would I say no to that?”
Comparing his role to that of legendary Notre Dame president Father Theodore Hesburgh — who served on numerous presidential commissions across multiple administrations — Barron noted: “If Joe Biden had invited me to be on a commission considering issues of religious liberty, I would have said, ‘Sure!’ … It’s not in any way a compromise or siding with one party.”
Advocating for Jimmy Lai and religious liberty in China
Turning to international affairs, Barron stressed his long-standing advocacy for imprisoned Hong Kong media tycoon and democracy activist Jimmy Lai. While noting he was unsure if his public advocacy influenced his appointment to USCIRF, the bishop made his intentions clear regarding his new watchdog role.
“For years now, I’ve been advocating on behalf of Jimmy Lai. I think it’s outrageous the way he’s been treated,” Barron said. “If Jimmy Lai isn’t brought up in the commission, I would certainly bring him up.”
When asked about the Vatican’s controversial agreement with Beijing regarding the appointment of bishops, Barron hesitated on the specifics of current Vatican diplomacy while pointing to a proven historical model: “I’m a John Paul II man, and the way he dealt with communism, I think, is the right way to deal with it.”
Legacy of Fulton Sheen and resurgence of communism
Looking ahead to the upcoming beatification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen in St. Louis, Barron praised the pioneering Catholic broadcaster as a model for modern evangelists — highlighting both Sheen’s holiness as the “saint of the Holy Hour” and his courage in identifying ideological threats.
Barron noted that Sheen’s bold stance against communism in the mid-20th century carries striking relevance for contemporary culture. “The fact that Sheen took on communism back in the 1940s and ’50s, when he correctly discerned it was threat No. 1 … well, it’s back,” the bishop observed. “It’s back in institutional form in different places around the world, but also in our own country.”
Explaining why Sheen’s critique remains essential today, Barron added: “What he noticed about communism was its deep antipathy toward God, the things of the spirit and the moral order, and he knew this was deeply disruptive to the values of the West. That’s a message that still needs to be heard.”
Modern culture and empathy
Concluding the conversation, Barron reflected on a recent article he penned regarding the limitations of empathy when elevated above all other virtues in public and ecclesial life.
“Empathy is a good thing — to feel with somebody else. … However, there is a hierarchy of values, and empathy is not at the top. At the top of the hierarchy for a Christian has to be love,” Barron explicated, drawing on St. Thomas Aquinas’ definition of love as “willing the good of the other.”
“To love is not to spare the feelings of someone; to love is to will the good of the other. … We don’t say, ‘God is empathy’; we say, ‘God is love.’”
Watch the full interview below:
This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, the sister partner of EWTN News, and has been adapted by EWTN News.
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It would have been good journalism for Arroyo to ask Barron at least one question about his bankrupt Diocese.
Sure. But also note that the Diocese filed for bankruptcy in 2018 because of abuse cases dating back to the 1970s, but Barron was not sent to the diocese until the summer of 2022.
Bishop Barron has to walk a tightrope. While working with the Trump Administration, he should not be a sycophant and endorse everything it does.
I don’t see any kind of a tightrope in front of Bishop Barron. He was invited to serve on a committee on religion, he fulfilled his commitment and is moving on. Where is the tightrope? Oh, I get it – he should have canceled Trump and his administration and not served in any capacity. In doing so, he could have waved the many, varied flags of the Progressive Left.
Acute and persistent case of TDS here
“Barron noted that the pope defined proselytism as “obnoxious evangelization” — a browbeating, overbearing approach.”
Where exactly have we seen or do we see this by Catholics. My impression is that we are kind of weak in this area. It seems to me that Pope Francis took a word that had a very positive meaning and somehow turned it into a negative.
I see something like it in comment boxes.
It is far and away more common, at least in the West, to not bother with evangelization at all. It seems that some clergy are still fighting the last war.
That said, among those who do evangelize, being overly aggressive is a temptation, as is refraining from sharing the whole truth, from human respect or fear of losing the person. If you walk, you can fall to either side, and you are far more likely to do so than if you sat down.
As far as finding examples of over-agressive evangelization, you could poke around on youtube for a bit and find some. But the more readily available examples are between Catholics, as people on one side of an issue find ways to call the others heretics or schismatics, or otherwise employ name-calling, aggression, or insults. Those who reliably fail to walk straight while talking to fellow Catholics will probably not manage it with non-Catholics either. They may fall in the opposite direction, but they will not attain a stability they did not have with fellow Catholics.
Yes, thank you Amanda.
“I’ve been advocating on behalf of Jimmy Lai.”
John Paul II, would also have been advocating and insisting that Jimmy Lai be released immediately.
Pope ‘cannot comment’ on Jimmy Lai’s imprisonment
Pope Leo XIV told EWTN News he “cannot comment” on Jimmy Lai, the Catholic founder and publisher of the outspoken pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily, who was sentenced Feb. 9 on charges Chinese authorities say violate national security laws.
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2026/03/03/pope-cannot-comment-on-jimmy-lais-imprisonment/
Two months after rejecting an appeal from exiled Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi to intercede on behalf of Iran’s persecuted Christians, Pope Leo XIV has issued a subtle rebuke censuring the U.S.-Israel strike on Tehran’s theocracy.
https://www.meforum.org/mef-observer/pope-leo-condemns-u-s-israel-operation-silent-on-irans-tyranny
And no bishop, not the Bishop or Rome either, condemned–when the order was publicly issued–THE RELIGIOUS ASSASSINATION ORDER AGAINST NOVELIST SALMAN RUSHDIE AND AGAINST ANYONE INVOLVED IN HIS PUBLISHING ISSUED BY THE BRUTAL ISLAMIC REGIME OF IRAN.
Again, no CC bishop condemned the assassination order when it was publicily issued.
“The attack on novelist Salman Rushdie was the result of a fatwa (religious decree) issued on February 14, 1989, by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
• Khomeini condemned Rushdie and his publishers to death for his 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, which he deemed blasphemous to Islam.
•
• THE FATWA CALLED ON ALL MUSLIMS TO EXECUTE RUSHDIE AND ANYONE INVOLVED IN THE BOOK’S PUBLICATION.
•
• ALTHOUGH KHOMEINI DIED IN JUNE 1989, HIS SUCCESSORS REAFFIRMED THE DECREE, WHICH REMAINED IN EFFECT AND INSPIRED VIOLENCE FOR DECADES.
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• The fatwa led to a violent attack on Rushdie in August 2022 in New York, where he was stabbed by a Muslim man, Hadi Matar.
HADI MATAR STABBED SALMAN RUSHDIE ROUGHLY 15 TIMES IN THE HEAD, NECK, TORSO, AND HAND. He suffered:
• Permanent loss of sight in his right eye (severed optic nerve)
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• Severed nerves in one arm, leaving one hand incapacitated
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• A damaged liver and injuries to his intestines
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• Three serious wounds to his neck and about 15 more to his chest and torso
•
He was on a ventilator for several days and spent six weeks in the hospital. He has described the eye as “hanging out of my face, like a soft-boiled egg” and said, “I remember thinking I was dying. Fortunately, I was wrong.”
In a 2025 interview, Rushdie said he was even surprised he doesn’t have PTSD symptoms from the attack — his therapist joked it was because he’s a “badass.” He has since returned to public life and published new work.
THE MUSLIM ATTACKER IS A U.S. CITIZEN — BORN IN CALIFORNIA TO PARENTS WHO EMIGRATED FROM LEBANON — AND ALSO HOLDS LEBANESE CITIZENSHIP, making him a dual national.
https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/iran-issues-fatwa-against-salman-rushdie
SO, AGAIN, AT THE INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WAS ESSENTIALLY SILENT IN 1989 AND OFFERED ONLY A MINOR, LOW-PROFILE NOTE IN 2022. THE ATLANTIC (2003) CAPTURED THE “religious” 1989 MOOD WELL: THE CARDINAL OF NEW YORK, THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, THE CHIEF RABBI OF ISRAEL, AND L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO ALL “UNITED IN DEFINING THE PROBLEM AS ONE MORE OF BLASPHEMY THAN OF TERRORISM.
The “both sides” framing — condemning the book and the attack, as if they were of equal weight — is the classic weasel approach.
“It lets the speaker appear to have “taken a stand” while actually deflecting from the core issue: an Islamic state-issued death sentence against a living person.
Condemning blasphemy is a theological opinion; condemning a fatwa is a moral judgment on an act of political violence. Collapsing the two into a single balanced sentence effectively sides with the fatwa by treating the speech as the primary problem.”
The courage to tell the truth was lacking. The assassination order was issued by an entity that commands fear and cowardince among many religious “leaders”.
We read: “Comparing his role to that of legendary Notre Dame president Father Theodore Hesburgh — who served on numerous presidential commissions across multiple administrations…”
A good point about availability, but maybe not the best model. Hesburgh also served on the board of the Rockefeller Foundation, a pro-abortion front, on the premise that he could vote on some issues while abstaining on others. That would be like the Church joining the World Council of Churches while also being reduced to just another (synodal?) seat at the table. Hesburgh also had his fingerprints on Catholic academia’s rogue 1967 “Land O’Lakes Declaration” of autonomy.
That went well… .In 1990 Pope St. John Paul II proclaimed his apostolic constitution “Ex Corde Ecclesia” for Catholic Universities/Colleges, and was almost totally ignored. The papal warning: the urgency of “proclaiming the meaning of truth, that fundamental value without which freedom, justice and human dignity are extinguished [….] the future of the world […] in danger.”
Instead of Catholic academia in step with the Incarnation, we now have autonomous “AI” STEM/high-tech in step with Wall Street.
Ex Corde Ecclesia:
“[….] The present age is in urgent need of this kind of disinterested service, namely of proclaiming the meaning of truth, that fundamental value without which freedom, justice and human dignity are extinguished [!]. By means of a kind of universal humanism a Catholic University is completely dedicated to the research of all aspects of truth in their essential connection with the supreme Truth, who is God. It does this without fear but rather with enthusiasm, dedicating itself to every path of knowledge, aware of being preceded by him who is ‘the Way, the Truth, and the Life’, the Logos, whose Spirit of intelligence and love enables the human person with his or her own intelligence to find the ultimate reality of which he is the source and end and who alone is capable of giving fully that Wisdom without which the future of the world would be in danger [!]” (n. 4).
I do not see where the Saviour was promised to lead Jews back into Judaism; or that He actually came to then lead that. Whether for the Jews or anybody else. Grace is the gift from God rooted and backgrounded in God.
If you root and background “grace” to Judaism, you are doing what the Lord did not.
Not to fear, the leftist protestant wing of Catholicism will soon be attacking Bishop Barron.