Very well written. Temperamentally, Barron has always struck me as a man with a diplomat's heart who wishes to reconcile feuding opposites, hence he is predisposed to seek the middle way as a matter of course. This isn't a bad temperament to have, particularly when trying to shepherd a parish, congregation or diocese, whether they are Corinthians in the New Testament or a tempestuous group in the midwestern United States Unfortunately, its tempting to let this devolve into a rationalistic mindset that fails to understand what's at play in the supernatural realm driving all of this toward an Apocalyptic conclusion.
Its quite remarkable how many members of the conventional Diocesan presbyterate and episcopate view Vatican II as an unassailable topic that has a higher degree of certitude than even Trent. When pressed, many of them seem to have replaced the First Commandment with the 2nd Vatican Council as a type of loyalty oath. For them, dissent isn't just in bad taste and equivalent to mixing up the shrimp and salad fork at the annual Bishop's fundraising dinner for seminarians, its inconceivable and sometimes I think they're secretly biting their tongue to avoid rending their garments and screaming "blasphemy".
Not to pick on the Jesuits, but if you look at the list of Jesuit partisans of the Council who were discarded as "too conservative" once it got rolling, its quite breath taking -- De Lubac is just one that comes to mind.
Cardinal Manning's prescient sermons on the Anti Christ still rings in my ear, and I don't see any kind of reconciliation with modernity on the horizon. As we roll toward the inevitable "final confrontation" either in the transition to the 5th and 6th age under Holehauser or the end of all ages in the Apocalypse I don't see the center holding for anyone.
Matt Gaspers had a revealing clip of Prevost at the Synodal press conferences in Rome when he did a recent livestream with Ryan Grant and Gasper's exasperation was evident when watching Prevost try to soft shoe the obvious dissent of the African clergy as just "local customs" and then, of course, he had to point out that in parts of Africa, homosexuality is a crime meriting the death penalty.
In the sense of Barron above, it strikes me that Prevost also thinks that he can negotiate a "middle way" between Francis's more edgy views and those of everyone else but still keep rolling along the Synodal roller coaster. But seeing that weird montage after the election of Cupich, Roche and the various Rogue's Gallery of Oceans 13 St Gallen Mafia heist perpetrators I am not optimistic.
We're heading toward another key Fatima date on December 10th, 2025 and I think another big milestone is about to land as we head toward an even bigger one in 2029.
Barron is a celebrity cleric. Look at who and what he’s surrounded himself with. His life is, in his words, about defending Vatican II. He’s an influencer and that’s reprehensible for a cleric. Furthermore he’s supposed to be shepherding a diocese. Those poor people. He’s overstayed his time in the limelight. Get the hook.
Barron is my bishop, and I consider myself incredibly blessed to have him as my spiritual father, in part because I am only Catholic today because of his online ministry bringing me back to the Church. And I've heard countless other testimonies from people online who say the same, that Bishop Barron — through Word on Fire — brought them into the Church. There's nothing reprehensible about that. And as far as I know he has served our diocese just fine while also keeping up with his online ministry.
LOL. You’re full of yourself. Do you think I or anyone actually cares what you say? That’s hysterical coming from a woman in love with a celebrity bishop. ROFLMAO
"...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?"
With all due respect, you need to adjust your perspective. The fact that you think sixty years is a long time from the perspective of the Catholic Church is, frankly, ridiculous.
Sixty years is nothing, and it's not at all surprising that the ideological errors of the 1960s have still not been rooted out — errors which were, to my point, developing over centuries.
Vatican II doesn’t express “the ideological errors of the 1960s” but rather the already condemned errors of the 19th and early 20th Centuries. All that was required was the enforcement of these condemnations.
Vatican II doesn't express any errors — the ideological errors have been within the clergy, not within the council documents. And these ideologically-driven clergy using the council to justify their errors doesn't mean that the council actually contains these errors, any more than Protestants using the Bible to justify their heresy means that the Bible actually contains these heresies.
A recent example of this is the Bishop of Charlotte, who is using Vatican II to justify his ban of the Latin Mass, claiming that using Latin in the Mass prevents full and active participation of the laity, when in reality Vatican II prescribed that the Latin language be preserved in the Mass.
A new sect was founded at Vatican II. It calls itself the conciliar or synodal church and it is controlled by modernists who are not members of the Church as they don't publicly profess the Catholic faith. It is an undeclared sect that eclipses the Church.
Confused on when explaining how revolutions are bad the American Revolution is left out. Could it be that not all revolutions are bad? A point which would undermine the pinnings of this article.
In any case, the point wasn't exactly that all revolutions are bad, but rather that all revolutions represent change from what came before, and that applies even to the moderates.
“Throughout history,” the paragraph proceeding this line makes a pretty strong condemnation of Revolution and marks the cause as an overthrowing of authority. Mostly besides the point from the purpose of your article, but still I’d say an inaccurate historical assessment of Revolution.
What you're doing is a abusing your perceived position of power as a physician. The problem is you're well out of your areas of expertise and Mr Wright is a specialist in his field. The facts back his point of view.
I recommend Taylor Marshall's book, Infiltration. In Chapter 9, The Communist Infiltration of the Priesthood, "Clearly, high-ranking priests and bishops before and during Vatican II were infiltrated Freemasons. The testimonies provided by Bella Dodd and Manning Johnson, along with the guilt and expulsion of Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, reveal that Infiltration of the Catholic clergy had been accomplished before and after 1940 (90)."
Clearly, human beings have free will and if free will has been defiled; then, there will be strange fruit. Imagine what the Holy Spirit mitigated!
Nostra Aetate. Don’t condone anti-Semitism, meaning, hate for Jews and racial groups based on their race (but not confusing legitimate criticism for hate).
Dialogue with the Jews. If Logos entails dialogue, then dialogue we must. But the problem isn’t the dialogue, it’s the timidity of the Church in speaking to Jewish and to a lesser extent the Muslim religious leaders.
Dignitatus Humanae. Rejecting religious freedom could result in loss of religious freedom for Catholics in the secular world. How do we tout God’s gift of freedom to us but then proscribe that freedom? They must choose the truth of Christ freely and choose the Catholic Church. I don’t have an explanation for how the Spirit of Truth apparently abandoned us.
The Holy Ghost hasn't abandoned us. Paul VI abandoned the Church, was not Pope, and so Vatican II was not a true Ecumenical Council but the inauguration of a new religion.
How is it possible that a supposedly Spirit guided Pope could abandon the Church? Please see my comment on that as I need more knowledgeable types such as yourself to address this.
I would eventually soften what was becoming anti-Semitic feelings about two years after I started to see what Jew critics were saying during the Covid business and then I plunged into the history of these people and saw the evidence of “perfidy” or evil scheming, first hand. As I was watching numerous videos of rabbi‘s trash talking Christianity, as well as numerous Jewish and Christian sources making videos which also pointed the finger at the Jews and their scheming ways, I noticed that it was time for me to accept the fact that my eyes were opened, but I asked myself How does God want me to use this new knowledge and what attitudes should I have towards the Jews?
Since it is clear to me that not all Jews are evil schemers, and in fact some if not many do not agree with that evil scheming and what it’s doing to western civilization, my reaction would be to follow NA and avoid antisemitism. So how does one avoid antisemitism? One avoids antisemitism by accepting the truth of their historical behaviors but not condemn the entire race, which would be the true definition of antisemitism. Again, keep in mind that I’m trying to understand what God and the Spirit are expecting of me. Jones thinks that it is time to end dialogue with the Jews, but he is also a firm advocate of logos and talking things out. But it occurred to me that if he is an advocate of logos, then he cannot say “end the dialogue.” What we should do is not end the dialogue, but ask our leaders in the Church to work for the conversion of the Jews that are perpetrating their acts that violate the moral order.
Below is what Bishop Barron actually wrote regarding "beige Catholicism. Not what the Commonweal hit piece wants us to believe.
"I commenced my writing career, roughly twenty-five years ago, as a critic of liberal Catholicism, which I referred to, in one of the first articles I ever published, as “beige Catholicism.”
By this designation, I meant a faith that had become culturally accommodating, hand-wringing, unsure of itself; a Church that had allowed its distinctive colors to be muted and its sharp edges to be dulled.
In a series of articles and talks as well as in such books as And Now I See, The Strangest Way, and especially The Priority of Christ, I laid out my critique of the type of Catholicism that held sway in the years after the Second Vatican Council. . .
I emphasized Christocentrism as opposed to anthropocentrism, a Scripture-based theological method rather than one grounded in human experience, the need to resist the reduction of Christianity to psychology and social service, a recovery of the great Catholic intellectual tradition, and a robust embrace of evangelical proclamation.
In all of this, I took as my mentor Pope John Paul II, especially the sainted pontiff’s interpretation of Vatican II as a missionary council, whose purpose was to bring Christ to the nations."
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.
After reading Leo XIII’s letter to the Brazilian emperor at the end of the 19th century, it seems clear to me that it is intended for “Catholic countries” who are moving away from being Catholic to accommodating to other religions. That is precisely what the USA is not and never has been, quite the contrary. So Bishop Barron’s participation in a religious liberty commission in the USA is not contrary to Leo’s admonition. In fact, it is the first amendment of the US Constitution that makes it possible for people like Bishop Barron to evangelize the one true faith in the USA without fear of persecution by the state.
I’m going to admit up front that I have no particular knowledge or expertise in these matters, but I believe I have a rational mind that is capable of discerning arguments that are coherent. I also start from the premise that an ecumenical council of the OHCA church is entitled to an automatic and very significant presumption of validity and authority. To do otherwise is to commit the same error you seem to be attributing to Vatican II, unless I am failing to understand that your argument is premised on the fundamental invalidity of Vatican II.
Therefore, if I am able to make sense of something like DH in light of the earlier papal pronouncements, which you believe stand in contradiction to DH, then I am compelled to accept that understanding and reject any other that would contradict it.
The declarations of the Holy See that you offer seem to condemn absolute religious freedom, i.e. indifferentism, that is without constraints like Natural Law and the divine authority of the Church. I think this can be understood as a point of significant distinction from what DH proposes. Phrases such as ”within due limits,” and “provided that just public order be observed,” can be read as placing real “natural law” type limitations on religious liberty. Thankfully, Vatican II gives us a definition of “religious freedom” as contemplated by DH.
“This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power…”. So “religious freedom,” as used by the council seems to mean we “are to be immune from coercion.” Is this not in line with Catholic teaching and the necessity of free will?
Moreover, does anyone seriously think that pointing out the evil of coercion by human power is somehow “revolutionary”? It seems like a bridge too far to suggest much less to affirmatively argue that Vatican II stands for the idea of a “right to error,” or a “right to blaspheme.” It seems much better understood as a right to not be coerced, especially given the historical and political circumstances of the 50 years leading up to the council. God gives us freedom to choose him or reject him, so much more the right to choose or reject the beliefs of other mere creatures. Having faith in the power of truth, goodness and beauty as understood in our religion to prevail upon the minds of confused beings, I fail to see the catastrophe your views seem to reflect. If I have mischaracterized your views please forgive me.
Very well written. Temperamentally, Barron has always struck me as a man with a diplomat's heart who wishes to reconcile feuding opposites, hence he is predisposed to seek the middle way as a matter of course. This isn't a bad temperament to have, particularly when trying to shepherd a parish, congregation or diocese, whether they are Corinthians in the New Testament or a tempestuous group in the midwestern United States Unfortunately, its tempting to let this devolve into a rationalistic mindset that fails to understand what's at play in the supernatural realm driving all of this toward an Apocalyptic conclusion.
Its quite remarkable how many members of the conventional Diocesan presbyterate and episcopate view Vatican II as an unassailable topic that has a higher degree of certitude than even Trent. When pressed, many of them seem to have replaced the First Commandment with the 2nd Vatican Council as a type of loyalty oath. For them, dissent isn't just in bad taste and equivalent to mixing up the shrimp and salad fork at the annual Bishop's fundraising dinner for seminarians, its inconceivable and sometimes I think they're secretly biting their tongue to avoid rending their garments and screaming "blasphemy".
Not to pick on the Jesuits, but if you look at the list of Jesuit partisans of the Council who were discarded as "too conservative" once it got rolling, its quite breath taking -- De Lubac is just one that comes to mind.
Cardinal Manning's prescient sermons on the Anti Christ still rings in my ear, and I don't see any kind of reconciliation with modernity on the horizon. As we roll toward the inevitable "final confrontation" either in the transition to the 5th and 6th age under Holehauser or the end of all ages in the Apocalypse I don't see the center holding for anyone.
Matt Gaspers had a revealing clip of Prevost at the Synodal press conferences in Rome when he did a recent livestream with Ryan Grant and Gasper's exasperation was evident when watching Prevost try to soft shoe the obvious dissent of the African clergy as just "local customs" and then, of course, he had to point out that in parts of Africa, homosexuality is a crime meriting the death penalty.
In the sense of Barron above, it strikes me that Prevost also thinks that he can negotiate a "middle way" between Francis's more edgy views and those of everyone else but still keep rolling along the Synodal roller coaster. But seeing that weird montage after the election of Cupich, Roche and the various Rogue's Gallery of Oceans 13 St Gallen Mafia heist perpetrators I am not optimistic.
We're heading toward another key Fatima date on December 10th, 2025 and I think another big milestone is about to land as we head toward an even bigger one in 2029.
Barron is a celebrity cleric. Look at who and what he’s surrounded himself with. His life is, in his words, about defending Vatican II. He’s an influencer and that’s reprehensible for a cleric. Furthermore he’s supposed to be shepherding a diocese. Those poor people. He’s overstayed his time in the limelight. Get the hook.
Barron is my bishop, and I consider myself incredibly blessed to have him as my spiritual father, in part because I am only Catholic today because of his online ministry bringing me back to the Church. And I've heard countless other testimonies from people online who say the same, that Bishop Barron — through Word on Fire — brought them into the Church. There's nothing reprehensible about that. And as far as I know he has served our diocese just fine while also keeping up with his online ministry.
So true. Bishop Barron, along with priests from Nigeria, have kept me a Catholic.
That is the most shallow analysis. Read what the bishop says. It is obvious that you never have.
LOL. You’re full of yourself. Do you think I or anyone actually cares what you say? That’s hysterical coming from a woman in love with a celebrity bishop. ROFLMAO
OK, keep it peaceful please. This isn't to turn into a slanging match.
Fortis Esperantis, you've made your points clear too and there is no need for further elaboration. You can start your own site if you need to.
"...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?"
With all due respect, you need to adjust your perspective. The fact that you think sixty years is a long time from the perspective of the Catholic Church is, frankly, ridiculous.
Sixty years is nothing, and it's not at all surprising that the ideological errors of the 1960s have still not been rooted out — errors which were, to my point, developing over centuries.
Vatican II doesn’t express “the ideological errors of the 1960s” but rather the already condemned errors of the 19th and early 20th Centuries. All that was required was the enforcement of these condemnations.
Vatican II doesn't express any errors — the ideological errors have been within the clergy, not within the council documents. And these ideologically-driven clergy using the council to justify their errors doesn't mean that the council actually contains these errors, any more than Protestants using the Bible to justify their heresy means that the Bible actually contains these heresies.
A recent example of this is the Bishop of Charlotte, who is using Vatican II to justify his ban of the Latin Mass, claiming that using Latin in the Mass prevents full and active participation of the laity, when in reality Vatican II prescribed that the Latin language be preserved in the Mass.
The council contains errors and its proponents like Fr Ratzinger publicly confirm that the council is an anti-syllabus. https://www.traditioninaction.org/ProgressivistDoc/A_031_RatzingerCouterSyllabus.htm
A new sect was founded at Vatican II. It calls itself the conciliar or synodal church and it is controlled by modernists who are not members of the Church as they don't publicly profess the Catholic faith. It is an undeclared sect that eclipses the Church.
Oh, they're playing "The Game" alright, it's just not Catholicism.
Confused on when explaining how revolutions are bad the American Revolution is left out. Could it be that not all revolutions are bad? A point which would undermine the pinnings of this article.
You should read this by our friend:
https://open.substack.com/pub/americanreform/p/contra-lazar-is-america-really-a
In any case, the point wasn't exactly that all revolutions are bad, but rather that all revolutions represent change from what came before, and that applies even to the moderates.
“Throughout history,” the paragraph proceeding this line makes a pretty strong condemnation of Revolution and marks the cause as an overthrowing of authority. Mostly besides the point from the purpose of your article, but still I’d say an inaccurate historical assessment of Revolution.
Exactly. The American Revolution was as far as I know, was not based on a policy of revenge.
And?
Another deluded paranoiac condemning an orthodox bishop
Ad hominem attacks should be beneath you.
It is a diagnosis based on the presented materiel.
What you're doing is a abusing your perceived position of power as a physician. The problem is you're well out of your areas of expertise and Mr Wright is a specialist in his field. The facts back his point of view.
@anyone, explain to me the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit/Ghost in guiding the Church. How can a council err if the Spirit guides it?
I recommend Taylor Marshall's book, Infiltration. In Chapter 9, The Communist Infiltration of the Priesthood, "Clearly, high-ranking priests and bishops before and during Vatican II were infiltrated Freemasons. The testimonies provided by Bella Dodd and Manning Johnson, along with the guilt and expulsion of Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, reveal that Infiltration of the Catholic clergy had been accomplished before and after 1940 (90)."
Clearly, human beings have free will and if free will has been defiled; then, there will be strange fruit. Imagine what the Holy Spirit mitigated!
Nostra Aetate. Don’t condone anti-Semitism, meaning, hate for Jews and racial groups based on their race (but not confusing legitimate criticism for hate).
Dialogue with the Jews. If Logos entails dialogue, then dialogue we must. But the problem isn’t the dialogue, it’s the timidity of the Church in speaking to Jewish and to a lesser extent the Muslim religious leaders.
Dignitatus Humanae. Rejecting religious freedom could result in loss of religious freedom for Catholics in the secular world. How do we tout God’s gift of freedom to us but then proscribe that freedom? They must choose the truth of Christ freely and choose the Catholic Church. I don’t have an explanation for how the Spirit of Truth apparently abandoned us.
The Holy Ghost hasn't abandoned us. Paul VI abandoned the Church, was not Pope, and so Vatican II was not a true Ecumenical Council but the inauguration of a new religion.
Publishing more on that next week, so stay tuned.
Thanks for helping me out. Not Pope? Okay I will read it.
How is it possible that a supposedly Spirit guided Pope could abandon the Church? Please see my comment on that as I need more knowledgeable types such as yourself to address this.
I would eventually soften what was becoming anti-Semitic feelings about two years after I started to see what Jew critics were saying during the Covid business and then I plunged into the history of these people and saw the evidence of “perfidy” or evil scheming, first hand. As I was watching numerous videos of rabbi‘s trash talking Christianity, as well as numerous Jewish and Christian sources making videos which also pointed the finger at the Jews and their scheming ways, I noticed that it was time for me to accept the fact that my eyes were opened, but I asked myself How does God want me to use this new knowledge and what attitudes should I have towards the Jews?
Since it is clear to me that not all Jews are evil schemers, and in fact some if not many do not agree with that evil scheming and what it’s doing to western civilization, my reaction would be to follow NA and avoid antisemitism. So how does one avoid antisemitism? One avoids antisemitism by accepting the truth of their historical behaviors but not condemn the entire race, which would be the true definition of antisemitism. Again, keep in mind that I’m trying to understand what God and the Spirit are expecting of me. Jones thinks that it is time to end dialogue with the Jews, but he is also a firm advocate of logos and talking things out. But it occurred to me that if he is an advocate of logos, then he cannot say “end the dialogue.” What we should do is not end the dialogue, but ask our leaders in the Church to work for the conversion of the Jews that are perpetrating their acts that violate the moral order.
Below is what Bishop Barron actually wrote regarding "beige Catholicism. Not what the Commonweal hit piece wants us to believe.
"I commenced my writing career, roughly twenty-five years ago, as a critic of liberal Catholicism, which I referred to, in one of the first articles I ever published, as “beige Catholicism.”
By this designation, I meant a faith that had become culturally accommodating, hand-wringing, unsure of itself; a Church that had allowed its distinctive colors to be muted and its sharp edges to be dulled.
In a series of articles and talks as well as in such books as And Now I See, The Strangest Way, and especially The Priority of Christ, I laid out my critique of the type of Catholicism that held sway in the years after the Second Vatican Council. . .
I emphasized Christocentrism as opposed to anthropocentrism, a Scripture-based theological method rather than one grounded in human experience, the need to resist the reduction of Christianity to psychology and social service, a recovery of the great Catholic intellectual tradition, and a robust embrace of evangelical proclamation.
In all of this, I took as my mentor Pope John Paul II, especially the sainted pontiff’s interpretation of Vatican II as a missionary council, whose purpose was to bring Christ to the nations."
https://www.wordonfire.org/articles/barron/the-evangelical-path-of-word-on-fire/
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/leo-pope-rober-conciliar-francis-church-vatican-ii
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.
After reading Leo XIII’s letter to the Brazilian emperor at the end of the 19th century, it seems clear to me that it is intended for “Catholic countries” who are moving away from being Catholic to accommodating to other religions. That is precisely what the USA is not and never has been, quite the contrary. So Bishop Barron’s participation in a religious liberty commission in the USA is not contrary to Leo’s admonition. In fact, it is the first amendment of the US Constitution that makes it possible for people like Bishop Barron to evangelize the one true faith in the USA without fear of persecution by the state.
Thanks Marty. Your points were acknowledged by Leo XIII in Testem Benevolentiae but he also taught that they were very much not the whole story.
The problem is not so much serving on such a commission, but the rationale given for it.
You can also read some more about the America situation here:
https://www.wmreview.org/p/is-america-a-christian-nation-american
I’m going to admit up front that I have no particular knowledge or expertise in these matters, but I believe I have a rational mind that is capable of discerning arguments that are coherent. I also start from the premise that an ecumenical council of the OHCA church is entitled to an automatic and very significant presumption of validity and authority. To do otherwise is to commit the same error you seem to be attributing to Vatican II, unless I am failing to understand that your argument is premised on the fundamental invalidity of Vatican II.
Therefore, if I am able to make sense of something like DH in light of the earlier papal pronouncements, which you believe stand in contradiction to DH, then I am compelled to accept that understanding and reject any other that would contradict it.
The declarations of the Holy See that you offer seem to condemn absolute religious freedom, i.e. indifferentism, that is without constraints like Natural Law and the divine authority of the Church. I think this can be understood as a point of significant distinction from what DH proposes. Phrases such as ”within due limits,” and “provided that just public order be observed,” can be read as placing real “natural law” type limitations on religious liberty. Thankfully, Vatican II gives us a definition of “religious freedom” as contemplated by DH.
“This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power…”. So “religious freedom,” as used by the council seems to mean we “are to be immune from coercion.” Is this not in line with Catholic teaching and the necessity of free will?
Moreover, does anyone seriously think that pointing out the evil of coercion by human power is somehow “revolutionary”? It seems like a bridge too far to suggest much less to affirmatively argue that Vatican II stands for the idea of a “right to error,” or a “right to blaspheme.” It seems much better understood as a right to not be coerced, especially given the historical and political circumstances of the 50 years leading up to the council. God gives us freedom to choose him or reject him, so much more the right to choose or reject the beliefs of other mere creatures. Having faith in the power of truth, goodness and beauty as understood in our religion to prevail upon the minds of confused beings, I fail to see the catastrophe your views seem to reflect. If I have mischaracterized your views please forgive me.