Bishop Robert Barron attacked, responds with condemned errors
Revolutions turn on their own, and the revolution of Vatican II is no different—as Bishop Robert Barron is finding out.
Revolutions turn on their own, and the revolution of Vatican II is no different—as Bishop Robert Barron is finding out.
WM Reports: Bishop Robert Barron of Word on Fire has issued a video on X, passionately defending his credentials as an advocate for Vatican II and its doctrine of religious liberty, which was condemned by so many Roman Pontiffs since the French Revolution.
His response came to an article by Daniel Rober in Commonweal Magazine, titled “Living Vatican II.” In spite of Barron having made the Robber Council of Vatican II—the inauguration of the most destructive religious revolution in history—the “lodestar” and “touchstone” of his intellectual life, he is now being deemed insufficiently enthusiastic in his presentation of it.
Let’s see what he said, followed by some comments on the nature of revolutions and the eternal fate of the “moderate revolutionaries” like Barron.
Here’s what he said:
Hello everybody, it’s Bishop Barron.
You know, I’ve been involved within the public conversation for a long time, and I’m used to people agreeing and disagreeing; I’ve no problem with that. But once in a while there’s an article or speech that’s that such a gross misrepresentation of my position, that I feel obligated to respond.
A case in point is an article that appeared recently in the pages of Commonweal magazine. Now, listen to this characterization of my attitude towards Vatican II:
“There’s been some movement in right-leaning parts of the Catholic landscape to bury Vatican II through historical relativizing. Bishop Robert Barron has been a leader in this approach, with his critique of ‘beige Catholicism.’”
Look, anybody even vaguely associated, even vaguly aware of my work, knows Vatican II and its defence is a lodestar of my intellectual life. I’ve criticized Catholic progressivism for trying to go beyond Vatican II. I’ve criticized Catholic radical traditionalism for trying to undermine Vatican II.
Furthermore, Word on Fire brought out not one, but two major volumes that feature all the documents of Vatican II, surrounded by deeply appreciative commentary, trying to show its relevance to our time. Vatican II to me has been a touchstone of my intellectual life. Burying it? I’ve been celebrating Vatican II. My ministry has been celebrating Vatican II for all these years.
You know, if someone disagrees with an approach that I might take to some of the documents… but to accuse me of trying to bury it is just ridiculous. It’s just calumny.
Yes, indeed I critique ‘beige Catholicism.’ And I’ve said over and over again, the kind of Catholicism that emerged in our country after the Council—I always said, not because of the Council, but rather represents a misappropriation, a very poor implementation of the council.
So there’s just so much nonsense to claim that I’m trying to bury Vatican II. On the contrary.
But then there’s a second critique here which angers me too. He talks about Dignitatis Humanae, the great statement from Vatican II and Nostra Aetate, etc. etc., and he says
“[This doesn’t] deter many Christian nationalists, or Catholic intellectuals like Patrick Deneen, from advocating for policies and approaches”—now listen—“championed by the recently formed Religious Liberty Commission, whose members include Bishop Barron and Cardinal Timothy Dolan—that undermine religious freedom for non-(conservative) Christians.”
Give me a break.
I was asked by the President to be part of this commission. I did exactly what Fr Theodore Hesburgh did sixteen separate times in the 20th century, when he agreed to be on presidential commissions under the presidencies of five different presidents—I think it was three Democrat, two Republican. There’s no way that Hesburgh could possibly have agreed with all the positions of those presidents, but he agreed to serve on a commission to look into important issues in public life.
I was asked to be on a commission to look into religious liberty, which the bishops of our country have felt now for decades to be a central idea.
But here’s the main point. On that commission we have, indeed, Catholics, we have Evangelical Christians, we have mainstream Protestant Christians, we have Jews, and we have Muslims—all represented on a 13-member commission. That’s a pretty fair representation on a relatively small commission. And the stated purpose of it is to guarantee religious liberty for everybody in our country. Not “religious liberty for conservative Christians”—whatever that’s supposed to mean.
I’ll let Patrick Deneen speak for himself. But it was implying that I am somehow advocating for only religious liberty for Catholic conservatives—that’s absurd. You know everybody, again, I’m happy to enter into the public dialogue, but this sort of gross misrepresentation of someone’s position—and the simplest, even Google search would have revealed how absurd these characterizations are.
So can I just very publicly and very directly refute this ridiculous claim.1
Barron’s embrace of Religious Liberty
In brief, let’s note that the religious liberty which Barron insists that he is defending was condemned by the Church on multiple occasions. One such occasion can be found in Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Libertas:
Justice therefore forbids, and reason itself forbids, the State to be godless; or to adopt a line of action which would end in godlessness — namely, to treat the various religions (as they call them) alike, and to bestow upon them promiscuously equal rights and privileges.
Since, then, the profession of one religion is necessary in the State, that religion must be professed which alone is true, and which can be recognized without difficulty, especially in Catholic States, because the marks of truth are, as it were, engraven upon it.2
This is why the same Pope also wrote in E Giunto:
On other occasions, in public documents addressed to the Catholic world, We have demonstrated how erroneous is the doctrine of those who, under the seductive name of “liberty of worship,” proclaim the legal apostasy of society from its Divine Author.
What is of interest here, however, is that such “liberty” is the source of incalculable harm to both governments and peoples.3
You can read more about these condemnations here:
While it is true that the language of Commonweal is a little vague, it is clear what Barron denies holding. He rejects the accusation of defending the traditional doctrine above as:
“Absurd” (twice)
“A gross misrepresentation”
A “ridiculous claim.”
The very purpose of his video is to make perfectly clear that he is defending not only Vatican II, but its doctrine of religious liberty, specifically in the sense which the Church condemned for centuries.
There is nothing “moderate” or “conservative” about this approach. This—along with other aspects of Barron’s ideology, including his distortion (and therefore denial) of the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus—is why the words moderate or conservative are necessarily relative, and only make sense if they modify the word revolutionary.
Revolutions eat their own
Having built his life and career around the Robber Council of Vatican II, Barron is now discovering what countless “moderate” or “conservative” revolutionaries have learned before him: revolutions do not remain static. They develop, mutate—and they turn on their own.
Throughout history, the architects and defenders of revolutionary change have often found themselves cast out, denounced, or destroyed by the very movements they helped create. Many early partisans of the French Revolution ended their lives at the guillotine. Many Bolsheviks of 1917 were later sent to the Gulag. Those who overthrew one order are soon found to be outdated by the new order, and are overthrown in turn.
This is a natural result of what is unleashed when authority, order and the rule of law are destroyed. All that remains is power, whether exercised by the will of tyrants of mobs. In such a climate, survival depends on keeping pace with the revolution’s latest developments, however incoherent, contradictory or unfaithful the initial ideals. Those who hesitate or cling to outdated phases of the movement risk being accused of infidelity even to the original movement, and being crushed.
John Lane has described the dynamic of the necessary fear-based obedience in these terms:
I'm obeying—why? Because I'm frightened. Because the tyrant will punish me merely for failing to go along with what he demands.4
He applies this, and its developing nature, to the nature of the revolution that was Vatican II:
Now, in the revolution that constituted Vatican II, what became immediately apparent was the abandonment of the notion of the rule of law. So, we discussed this before—John XXIII did away with the notion that the law existed and that it would be enforced. And as soon as you say you're not enforcing the law, then it's not an ordinance anymore—an ordinance of reason. One of the conditions for law is gone. If you're not enforcing it, it isn’t the law. There's no such thing as law.
And inevitably, in that type of environment, arises a tyranny—sort of Freemasonic in its character. People have their ear attuned to what's the latest, so that they can stay out of trouble by going along with whatever the latest is.5
Even to be eaten last is still to be eaten
The most successful and longest-lasting revolutions are those that are eventually moderated, and allow some level of equilibrium to be restored; at which point, the knives may indeed be turned on the more radical partisans. The Elizabethan Settlement is one example: a “moderate” Protestant regime emerged in England after years of upheaval, and the Puritans were marginalised. Many fled to the American colonies. But before such a settlement is reached, revolutions often destroy those too slow to adapt—especially the moderates.
This is the danger now facing figures like Bishop Barron. It is increasingly clear that adhering to the documents of Vatican II is no longer enough. As the Charlotte Diocese controversy demonstrates, even those who defend Vatican II’s teachings—and reject pre-conciliar doctrine in doing so—can be targeted for failing to keep up with the “synodal” phase of the revolution.
This is so, even though Barron is himself has been a participant—even if a critical one—of the Synod on Synodality.
Conclusion
It does not matter how many condemned errors Barron accepts, just as it does not matter how may true doctrines he retains: the Conciliar Church is now the Synodal Church. The instability of the “middle way” cannot hold, and the lawlessness unleashed by the Second Vatican Council may yet turn on him too.
Will Barron be swept away by those pushing the Vatican II agenda further and further, or will Leo XIV bring the moderation needed to consolidate the chaos into a new, more stable phase?
That remains to be seen.
But one thing is certain: as far as the true Catholic Church is concerned, “moderate” revolutionaries are just as foreign as their more radical colleagues. The regimes that follow revolutions—no matter how tempered or refined—remain ruptures. They are not heirs of the old order, but enemies of it.
The Elizabethan Church was no continuation of English Catholicism. And while the Synodal Church may have superseded the Conciliar Church, neither were continuations of the Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ.
And this is why we, speaking to Bishop Barron as a fellow man for whom Christ shed his precious blood, say:
“Save yourself from this perverse generation” (Acts 2.40). Stop trying to reason with the true radicals with arguments based on Vatican II and the “post-conciliar magisterium.” Leave aside the immoral use of the term “radical traditionalists.” Break out of the Robber Council’s paradigm. Join us!
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Libertas n. 21. The Pope continues:
This religion, therefore, the rulers of the State must preserve and protect, if they would provide — as they should do — with prudence and usefulness for the good of the community. For public authority exists for the welfare of those whom it governs; and, although its proximate end is to lead men to the prosperity found in this life, yet, in so doing, it ought not to diminish, but rather to increase, man’s capability of attaining to the supreme good in which his everlasting happiness consists: which never can be attained if religion be disregarded.
Ibid.
"...a very poor implementation of the council." Sixty years now, Bishop Barron, and they still haven't got it right? As Casey Stengel, manager of the terrible 1962 New York Mets, said, "Can't anybody here play this game?"
The problem for Bishop Barron is not that Vatican II has been misinterpreted in its application but rather that the Catholic faith was misinterpreted in its application at Vatican II.