From the National Catholic Distorter Reporter:
Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron hosted an invite-only meeting of Catholic media professionals last week to discuss “disturbing trends in the online Catholic world,” including the rise of “radical Traditionalist” movements that are often marked by personal attacks and vitriolic commentary.
The private meeting took place July 29 via Zoom and was confirmed to NCR by Brandon Vogt, content director for Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.
Vogt said that the meeting was initiated at his suggestion and had a threefold purpose, to discuss:
- A “culture of contempt” among Catholics online;
- The rise of “tabloid style” news in the Catholic press, “often in service of accruing web traffic and video views”;
- The influence of the so-called “radical Traditionalist” (or “rad-trad”) movements online.
Go here to read the rest. With a Church in meltdown mode under a far Left Pope who has difficulty distinguishing heresy from orthodoxy, Bishop Robert Barron knows what the main problem in the Church is: meany conservative Catholics online. PopeWatch can think of few better symbols of why the Church is such a disaster area currently.
Link to this post now on His Grace’s Twitter feed. Good post! I’m sick of these shepherds thinking they can get away with mistreating their sheep.
Bishop Barron’s reaction is sign we are winning. It is good to have the attention, not to mention additional converts, to the unvarnished truth of what is happening in the Church and the world due tof the ineffectiveness and actual cooperation of a weak and politicized hierarchy.
I guess Brandon and Bishop Barron mean Mark Shea. Or even Scott Eric Alt. Or maybe increasingly Steven Greydanus. Heck, even Dawn Eden has gotten nastier in recent years. He means them too, correct? But certainly he would have to consider some decidedly not ‘rad-trad’ online Catholics in that discussion for it to be anywhere close to credible.
One would think someone with the media experience of a Bp. Barron would know that holding a secret invite-only meeting where the names of the invitees are not divulged undermines his stated goal of better Catholic discourse online. I would be curious who the invitees are.
Reminds me of a cartoon which appeared in The Washington Monthly which showed a vehicle on cinderblocks with no wheels labeled ‘school system’. Parts are strewn everywhere with labels like ‘social promotion’ and a man labeled ‘education establishment’ is holding up one and saying, ‘that’s the problem. Not enough money’. All the trouble in the Church, so let’s set priorities and fuss about the Society for Tradition, Family, and Property. And Michael Voris.
How many of them are not hollow men?
Well, I hope that at the least his secret meeting helped him get his panties unbunched. I mean, if we have a reasonable hope that everyone is/will be in heaven, he shouldn’t get so upset about a few harsh comments online. After all, what does it matter at this point anyway?
Bishop Barron is right, and as the most online member of the hierarchy, it’s good that he calls it out. It’s only natural that the more traditionalist people would get pettier during a progressive papacy (and vice versa), but we’re not called to be natural, we’re called to be supernatural. Of course, the most “rad-trad” people think the papacy is always too progressive, and they’re angry all the time. There can be occasions where stridency is appropriate, but if you start thinking it’s always the right call, you’ve probably lost the message.
Traditionalism has been the whipping boy in the Catholic sphere for decades now. Whenever mainstream figures need to condemn Catholics for being too mean, it’s always traditionalists that get condemned. This happens even in cases where the traditionalists aren’t even really being mean. Keep track of the debates between Dr. Feser and his opponents in the Church: his opponent will almost always attack Feser before Feser himself has done anything but state his position, and the position itself will be one that it is line with the obvious interpretation of traditional Church teaching (like “use of the death penalty is not inherently against Church teaching” or “it is possible for people to end up in hell.”)
Bishop Robert ‘hell is empty’ Barron, he of Christianity as the ‘privileged path,’ (pandering to some Jewish interviewer) makes a good living off a therapeutic parody of the Faith. He is probably perceptive enough to know the fruity V2 crew sell a greviously inferior product. Catholics ultimately have nothing to fear from a collection of elderly Marxist homosexuals. They will die off. I hope they all repent.
The Vatican II paradigm is dying. There’s no way to stop it. It’s just a matter of when. There are many (most) in the hierarchy, like Barron, who have built their entire edifice on it. His flailing about is natural and we see it more and more from the conciliar laity as well. It will continue. There are many, many more that are just as perplexed as Barron. But they stay silent and hope the inevitable resurgence of Tradition is just a passing fad. It isn’t.
The attacks will get worse but that’s ok, too.
B. Barren was very trad until Cardinal George passed away. Then B. Cupich was assigned by a pro gay Vatican to Chicago and B> Barren started to get wobbly. Some issue came up that prompted me to call him a traitor in a comment box – don’t remeber quite what is was – but it was a stark departure from his prior orthodoxy. Then he was appointed a Bishop in LA. He is just playing the game folks. He will sell out the Magisterium for his career.
Pray – You put “hell is empty” in quotes. Did Bishop Barron ever say that?
Freemenrtrue – I remember getting caught up in that game of guessing which bishops were good based on, say, some article about a professor in a seminary the bishop had attended. One guy was good because he was an auxiliary under a bishop we liked, but then he moved to his own diocese and a friend heard something bad about his chancery office, so we move him from the “heroes” to “villains” list. The sides change all the time because the scraps of information we used were so vague they didn’t really tell us anything about the bishops.
Bishops are not black and white. They’re barely even black and white on a certain issue we may care about. When I look at the things Barron has said about hell, which appear to me to be permissible but probably incorrect, they simply don’t merit the kind of reaction they’ve gotten.
I worry more about the things Barron and most of his brother bishops don’t say. Such as condemnation of priests preaching and writing books and going on TV, saying things that are manifestly in violation of dogmatic church teachings about faith and morals, for example. Or permitting vocal pro-abortion politicians who purport to be Catholic to receive publicly the Holy Eucharist, because “we don’t want to politicize the Sacraments.” Horse hockey. Either you stand for the Truth of Christ or you are a hireling, not a shepherd. Bishop Barron is perilously close to the former label, I fear.
Frank, that’s because it’s better to say nothing, and be thought powerless than to say something, and be proven powerless when you’re ignored.
Ernst, that’s a great point. Thanks.