I know this will get a lot of hate because there are both trads and lefties that love to hate on Barron/WOF, but I hope this goes well. It seems that Barron has been one of the most effective evangelists out there bringing converts into the Church in the English world (probably only behind Fr. Mike Schmitz). The digital world is huge and only getting bigger, the Church absolutely could use more priests who can dedicate their time to online evangelization.
In addition, a group pursuing digital evangelization in community, with a governance structure, etc can help protect against some of the lack of accountability, self reliance, cults of personality & general nuttiness the internet encourages
I would suggest that Bishop Barron has been more influential than Fr. Schmitz, mainly because it was "Catholicism" that helped pique my interest while I was at university in 2012 😁
There's a pretty funny episode of Too Far With Laura Horn about the horseshoe theory of trad and leftist catholics. "Most cringe member of the clergy?" (The trad and the leftist respond in unison) "Bishop Robert Barron! Actually the whole USCCB!"
Please -- the USCCB stands on its own in terms of cringe. And Horn's attempt to portray Bishop Barron as the flip side of the USCCB coin is itself cringeworthy.
"Lest too great a variety of religious orders leads to grave confusion in God’s church, we strictly forbid anyone henceforth to found a new religious order. Whoever wants to become a religious should enter one of the already approved orders. Likewise, whoever wishes to found a new religious house should take the rule and institutes from already approved religious orders. We forbid, moreover, anyone to attempt to have a place as a monk in more than one monastery or an abbot to preside over more than one monastery."
Ha ha. I know most of them were founded by saints who must have seen a need that existing orders at their times were not meeting, but I do wonder sometimes if there need to be so many.
Interesting bit of trivia about Lateran IV: because of the decree you cited, that's why St Dominic did not write his own rule for his newly-founded Order of Preachers. Rather, he chose the Rule of St Augustine, which he had lived as a Canon of the Cathedral in Osma, Spain before starting his preaching mission in southern France. To this day, the friars and the contemplative nuns of the Order follow the Rule of St Augustine.
I don't know of any religious orders devoted to evangelization on the internet, so this might be a really useful development. Or I may need more education about what's out there.
The Daughters of Saint Paul were founded to evangelize with "new media" which at the time meant print publishing, radio, and TV, but now also includes a lot of work on the internet
There is a male branch of the religious family founded by Blessed James Alberione (the founder of the Daughters of St Paul), called the Society of St Paul or the Paulines. However, as far as I know, they are not thriving, at least here in the U.S.
Mixed feelings. Bishop Baron is certainly a talented and gifted teacher of the faith. But we probably have too many religious orders and institutes. Not sure we need another one. Will the rules and statutes governing this new order really improve upon what is already out there? That said, if it bears fruit I am all for it. I also feel the same about the Evangelization hubs being started in Philadelphia. I am glad that people are trying to find new ways to Evangelize.
Bishop Barron has had this dream for a while. His 2017 book "To Light a Fire on the Earth," which I read in a book club soon after its release, mentions his desire for a WOF religious order.
Does anyone know why Francis exiled Barron to Winona, MN? When he was consecrated a bishop and sent to L.A., the reason seemed obvious (if not ingenious) in light of his evangelistic success. The next Fulton Sheen perhaps in the see of Hollywood. Then 7 years later he is given a one way plane ticket from Tinseltown to rural MN, instead of being the successor to Abp Gomez. Makes no sense. It's like placing a lamp under a bushel basket... Did Barron desire to return to the Chicago region? Just seems like a bishop with over 3 million followers on Facebook and over 15 million views on YouTube should be shepherd of a much higher profile see with greater resources to maximize his charism (like his native Chicago, for example). Thoughts?
probably best for us to not speculate. While it may seem like a banishment, we can pray that the Church in Winona have been gifted a bishop who leads well
I wouldn't view it as an exile. Clearly both Francis and Barron feel that the latter has not just the charism of an evangelist, but also the charism of a bishop. And an integral part of the episcopal charism is the exercise of governance. You can't really do that as an auxiliary.
Plus, in the days of the Internet and air travel, Winona, MN isn't exactly Siberia. It could very well have been a boon to WOF overall, especially its lay staff with families, to be headquartered in place with a significantly lower cost of living.
Bishop Sheen, who I truly believe is a wonderful example in many areas of his life and will one day be rightfully canonized, is an example of how Catholics are going to have to grapple with our own complexities. In a span of only about 3 years, there were over 16 sex abuse cases in his small diocese. And he ordained something like 15 priests who went on to become abusers. Sheen probably shouldn’t be the scapegoat alone, as this sort of systematic managerial neglect takes a lot of people enthusiastically defending whatever the Church is doing. His talent for evangelization was a huge gift, whereas his administrative/shepherding gifts were lacking.
It is worth considering how the Church has successfully concealed so many issues by painting complainants as people who are disgruntled, and Bishop Sheen’s famous statement “there are not 100 people in the U.S. who hate the Church, but millions who hate what they wrongly perceive to be the Church.”
You can look up the credibly accused list and overlay it with the mere 3 years he was in charge. Again, be very careful not to make him the only fall guy. But the whole “People only hate what they think is the Catholic Church” was a line I found very familiar to keeping me from talking about my own adverse, spiritual manipulations. But the solution is not to throw away all that he’s done. Sheen is a remarkably important evangelizer who has many good healthy lessons to teach us.
Looking further, I’ve found some ambiguous data on this. Hard to tell who is inflating, who is not. The Diocese of Rochester issued a very cautious statement in 2019. What I appreciate is it grapples with the complexity of the man. A very good man, perhaps not fully aware of how to manage a diocese in terms of behavioral issues. https://www.dor.org/statement-regarding-the-beatification-of-the-venerable-archbishop-fulton-j-sheen/
Being the archbishop of a diocese like Chicago or New York is a lot of work, probably much more than it was in Fulton Sheen's day: more lawsuits, regulations, PR, etc. A diocese like Winona-Rochester is probably good for a Bishop running a side gig like WoF
A smaller diocese may give Barron the opportunity to continue devoting some time to WOF, whereas a larger diocese would consume all of his attention. Just a guess, but Winona might give him the ability to tend to both.
Winona wasn’t the “exile.” Being sent to LA as an auxiliary was the exile. If you’ll recall, he was Rector of St Mary of the Lake / Mundelein when he was made a bishop. Cupich certainly didn’t want Barron as his auxiliary, and sending him out to “Hollywood” was a lateral move that saved face. Winona, as someone else mentioned, gives Barron the experience of being an Ordinary, for wherever he should go next under the next papacy.
Given that an auxiliary bishop of Galveston-Houston was sent to Austin as bishop and is now the new Archbishop of his former diocese, the two are not mutually exclusive.
I thought the Rome was putting the kibosh (at least, a temporary moratorium of sorts) on founding new Societies of Consecrated Life? Or at least, Rome's guidance was to try to renew/reform/reinvent/etc. an existing order before appealing to Rome to start something brand new.
I remember reading something about that in 2023 or 2024 somewhere, but maybe I'm totally off-the-mark.
I agree with Devin and others that there are already too many congregations and that Bishop Barron should not begin a new apostolic society or association of diocesan clergy with a special preaching charism (The desire to found a "religious order" is a misnomer, as a religious order is a specific canonical term implying a certain historicity and more autonomy; there has not been a new men's religious order since the 17th C.) The best course of action is simply to promote the Order of Preachers to young men interested in this particular charism...the OPs...the Dominicans...the Black Friars...the Hounds of the Lord, call them what you will. Our beloved Hounds have, as their primary function, to be gifted preachers of the Word who preach orthodoxy and oppose heresy in all forms, much like what Bishop Barron proposes. Furthermore, the OPs are really starting to get into multi-media presentations of the faith, and few men as a group are better educated. I suppose there is a certain amount of pride and satisfaction (the good kind, mostly) in wanting to establish a new congregation of preaching padres for charismatic guys like Bishop Barron, and I truly like and appreciate his zeal, but I would have to disagree with him here; a new preaching congregation is not needed in this day and age. And, founding a new society will take him away from his main function even more, which is to shepherd a diocese, and not serve as a religious superior. We already have an order of preachers, and that dog hunts.
Henri-Dominique Lacordaire, who re-established the Order of Preachers in France after the Revolution, once wrote:
“Perhaps you will ask why we have preferred to reestablish an old Order rather than found a new one…if God should grant us the power to create a religious Order, we are sure that after much reflection we should find nothing newer, nothing better adapted to our times and needs, than the rule of St Dominic. It has nothing ancient but its history, and it would be pointless to rack our brains for the sole satisfaction of dating from yesterday.”
One characteristic of most of the greatest religious orders was that the founders never meant to establish a religious order. Saint Mother Teresa, Saint Francis, Saint Benedict, Saint Anthony of Egypt, Saint Ignatius and others started some type of apostolic work or prayer life that attracted others to follow them, in a way forcing the establishment of a religious order.
I am ambivalent about Bishop Barron, I like him for trying to spread knowledge about the faith, but I don't like his wishy-washiness in doing so, like telling Ben Shapiro that it is good for him to remain in Judaism instead of at least encouraging him to consider becoming a Catholic. That would show Bishop Barron having true love for Shapiro instead of just wanting to show to the world that he was not some Catholic fanatic.
A founder of an order must not just be someone who is attractive in his ability to explain the faith, but one who has so much zeal for it that he would die for it in an instant, like Cardinal Burke or Bishop Paprocki, or Cardinal O'Connor who would tell the truth even if it was not popular. I am not sure Bishop Barron would even sacrifice his media presence by saying something the world would strongly object to. So I wish him the best, but I have doubts about this being successful.
Just wanted to clarify re successful founders not being intentional about it...Cardinal O'Connor founded the Sisters of Life, and was certainly intentional - and they are flourishing. They are just awesome, I was with them for 3 years when he was alive.
I did not say all religious orders, but most. Cardinal O'Connor was despised by the left for his outspoken pro-life activity. He founded the Sisters of Life to save lives, both the physical life of babies and the souls of the mothers who did not murder their babies. They are one of the best religious orders out there. I just don't see Bishop Barron on the same high level as Cardinal O'Connor or this cause requiring an actual religious order, like Bishop Barron thinking his Word on Fire is some unique apostolate instead of one of many similar initiatives.
Also going to add here that part of what makes clergy like Barron and Schmitz popular is that these guys are rather independent and have their own way of presenting the truths of the faith. Just because one priest or bishop is good at sitting in front of a camera does not necessarily mean that a congregation should be founded to do the exact same thing and mimic a founder. On the contrary, both Barron and Schmitz are unique, or as we say, sui generis. Furthermore, they are diocesan priests/bishops not in vows. They have a certain freedom of style to present as they see fit because of this fact. WoF is private (not owned or controlled by the Roman Catholic Church), making piles of money, entirely controlled by Barron and his folks, and therefore it is free of ecclesial meddling and encumbrance. What happens when someone like Pope Francis or a particular unnamed American Cardinal nearby MN decides that the messaging of WoF or Schmidt's college-aged funky dorm-room close-up unshaven youtube style isn't popular in Roma? By creating a congregation, Bishop Barron could be subject to higher ecclesial obedience and unintentionally scuttle his organization. Remember Fr/Mr. Frank Pavone not so long ago? Although Pavone's group was private and nefarious things were evidently occuring, we see what happens when popes and cardinals get a little, well, overzealous in their pursuit of those who do not toe the line.
May God bless Bishop Barron and his WOF efforts to evangelize. The Church seems too preoccupied with administration and maintaining hierarchical control to be very active at the diocesan and parish level. He will need ongoing clerical involvement in WOF should he be elevated to head the Chicago diocese!
But did he answer your questions on the IVE high school seminary before he starts another one?
I know this will get a lot of hate because there are both trads and lefties that love to hate on Barron/WOF, but I hope this goes well. It seems that Barron has been one of the most effective evangelists out there bringing converts into the Church in the English world (probably only behind Fr. Mike Schmitz). The digital world is huge and only getting bigger, the Church absolutely could use more priests who can dedicate their time to online evangelization.
In addition, a group pursuing digital evangelization in community, with a governance structure, etc can help protect against some of the lack of accountability, self reliance, cults of personality & general nuttiness the internet encourages
Very true. There have been plenty of celebrity priests that have had very sad downfalls. Would prefer not to see any more of those.
I would suggest that Bishop Barron has been more influential than Fr. Schmitz, mainly because it was "Catholicism" that helped pique my interest while I was at university in 2012 😁
There's a pretty funny episode of Too Far With Laura Horn about the horseshoe theory of trad and leftist catholics. "Most cringe member of the clergy?" (The trad and the leftist respond in unison) "Bishop Robert Barron! Actually the whole USCCB!"
Please -- the USCCB stands on its own in terms of cringe. And Horn's attempt to portray Bishop Barron as the flip side of the USCCB coin is itself cringeworthy.
Bring back the Spirit of Lateran IV
"Lest too great a variety of religious orders leads to grave confusion in God’s church, we strictly forbid anyone henceforth to found a new religious order. Whoever wants to become a religious should enter one of the already approved orders. Likewise, whoever wishes to found a new religious house should take the rule and institutes from already approved religious orders. We forbid, moreover, anyone to attempt to have a place as a monk in more than one monastery or an abbot to preside over more than one monastery."
Ha ha. I know most of them were founded by saints who must have seen a need that existing orders at their times were not meeting, but I do wonder sometimes if there need to be so many.
Sometimes it’s not up to us to decide there are “too many religious orders”…
Correct, which is why it was determined by an ecumenical council.
Interesting bit of trivia about Lateran IV: because of the decree you cited, that's why St Dominic did not write his own rule for his newly-founded Order of Preachers. Rather, he chose the Rule of St Augustine, which he had lived as a Canon of the Cathedral in Osma, Spain before starting his preaching mission in southern France. To this day, the friars and the contemplative nuns of the Order follow the Rule of St Augustine.
I don't know of any religious orders devoted to evangelization on the internet, so this might be a really useful development. Or I may need more education about what's out there.
The Daughters of Saint Paul were founded to evangelize with "new media" which at the time meant print publishing, radio, and TV, but now also includes a lot of work on the internet
Thank you. Are there any male orders that do the same?
The EWTN Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word?
There is a male branch of the religious family founded by Blessed James Alberione (the founder of the Daughters of St Paul), called the Society of St Paul or the Paulines. However, as far as I know, they are not thriving, at least here in the U.S.
paulus.net
Thank you both.
Well, this has my hopes up for a Third Order for WOF. I would a role for laity, but I understand the purpose and why it will focus on priests.
Mixed feelings. Bishop Baron is certainly a talented and gifted teacher of the faith. But we probably have too many religious orders and institutes. Not sure we need another one. Will the rules and statutes governing this new order really improve upon what is already out there? That said, if it bears fruit I am all for it. I also feel the same about the Evangelization hubs being started in Philadelphia. I am glad that people are trying to find new ways to Evangelize.
So practically speaking, what is the difference between a private and public association of the faithful?
Since Bp. Barron is apparently a lifting bro, will that be part of the community's charism? :-)
Bishop Barron has had this dream for a while. His 2017 book "To Light a Fire on the Earth," which I read in a book club soon after its release, mentions his desire for a WOF religious order.
Does anyone know why Francis exiled Barron to Winona, MN? When he was consecrated a bishop and sent to L.A., the reason seemed obvious (if not ingenious) in light of his evangelistic success. The next Fulton Sheen perhaps in the see of Hollywood. Then 7 years later he is given a one way plane ticket from Tinseltown to rural MN, instead of being the successor to Abp Gomez. Makes no sense. It's like placing a lamp under a bushel basket... Did Barron desire to return to the Chicago region? Just seems like a bishop with over 3 million followers on Facebook and over 15 million views on YouTube should be shepherd of a much higher profile see with greater resources to maximize his charism (like his native Chicago, for example). Thoughts?
probably best for us to not speculate. While it may seem like a banishment, we can pray that the Church in Winona have been gifted a bishop who leads well
I wouldn't view it as an exile. Clearly both Francis and Barron feel that the latter has not just the charism of an evangelist, but also the charism of a bishop. And an integral part of the episcopal charism is the exercise of governance. You can't really do that as an auxiliary.
Plus, in the days of the Internet and air travel, Winona, MN isn't exactly Siberia. It could very well have been a boon to WOF overall, especially its lay staff with families, to be headquartered in place with a significantly lower cost of living.
Bishop Sheen, who I truly believe is a wonderful example in many areas of his life and will one day be rightfully canonized, is an example of how Catholics are going to have to grapple with our own complexities. In a span of only about 3 years, there were over 16 sex abuse cases in his small diocese. And he ordained something like 15 priests who went on to become abusers. Sheen probably shouldn’t be the scapegoat alone, as this sort of systematic managerial neglect takes a lot of people enthusiastically defending whatever the Church is doing. His talent for evangelization was a huge gift, whereas his administrative/shepherding gifts were lacking.
It is worth considering how the Church has successfully concealed so many issues by painting complainants as people who are disgruntled, and Bishop Sheen’s famous statement “there are not 100 people in the U.S. who hate the Church, but millions who hate what they wrongly perceive to be the Church.”
Where are you getting these numbers about the cases in his diocese?
You can look up the credibly accused list and overlay it with the mere 3 years he was in charge. Again, be very careful not to make him the only fall guy. But the whole “People only hate what they think is the Catholic Church” was a line I found very familiar to keeping me from talking about my own adverse, spiritual manipulations. But the solution is not to throw away all that he’s done. Sheen is a remarkably important evangelizer who has many good healthy lessons to teach us.
https://www.bishop-accountability.org/dioceses/usa-ny-rochester/
Not all they accuse are guilty. Sued is not the same as lost/won lawsuit.
Looking further, I’ve found some ambiguous data on this. Hard to tell who is inflating, who is not. The Diocese of Rochester issued a very cautious statement in 2019. What I appreciate is it grapples with the complexity of the man. A very good man, perhaps not fully aware of how to manage a diocese in terms of behavioral issues. https://www.dor.org/statement-regarding-the-beatification-of-the-venerable-archbishop-fulton-j-sheen/
Being the archbishop of a diocese like Chicago or New York is a lot of work, probably much more than it was in Fulton Sheen's day: more lawsuits, regulations, PR, etc. A diocese like Winona-Rochester is probably good for a Bishop running a side gig like WoF
A smaller diocese may give Barron the opportunity to continue devoting some time to WOF, whereas a larger diocese would consume all of his attention. Just a guess, but Winona might give him the ability to tend to both.
Winona wasn’t the “exile.” Being sent to LA as an auxiliary was the exile. If you’ll recall, he was Rector of St Mary of the Lake / Mundelein when he was made a bishop. Cupich certainly didn’t want Barron as his auxiliary, and sending him out to “Hollywood” was a lateral move that saved face. Winona, as someone else mentioned, gives Barron the experience of being an Ordinary, for wherever he should go next under the next papacy.
Banishment. + Barron went from an auxiliary to having a diocese of his own. That is a promotion. He now has more actual power than in LA.
Given that an auxiliary bishop of Galveston-Houston was sent to Austin as bishop and is now the new Archbishop of his former diocese, the two are not mutually exclusive.
I thought the Rome was putting the kibosh (at least, a temporary moratorium of sorts) on founding new Societies of Consecrated Life? Or at least, Rome's guidance was to try to renew/reform/reinvent/etc. an existing order before appealing to Rome to start something brand new.
I remember reading something about that in 2023 or 2024 somewhere, but maybe I'm totally off-the-mark.
I agree with Devin and others that there are already too many congregations and that Bishop Barron should not begin a new apostolic society or association of diocesan clergy with a special preaching charism (The desire to found a "religious order" is a misnomer, as a religious order is a specific canonical term implying a certain historicity and more autonomy; there has not been a new men's religious order since the 17th C.) The best course of action is simply to promote the Order of Preachers to young men interested in this particular charism...the OPs...the Dominicans...the Black Friars...the Hounds of the Lord, call them what you will. Our beloved Hounds have, as their primary function, to be gifted preachers of the Word who preach orthodoxy and oppose heresy in all forms, much like what Bishop Barron proposes. Furthermore, the OPs are really starting to get into multi-media presentations of the faith, and few men as a group are better educated. I suppose there is a certain amount of pride and satisfaction (the good kind, mostly) in wanting to establish a new congregation of preaching padres for charismatic guys like Bishop Barron, and I truly like and appreciate his zeal, but I would have to disagree with him here; a new preaching congregation is not needed in this day and age. And, founding a new society will take him away from his main function even more, which is to shepherd a diocese, and not serve as a religious superior. We already have an order of preachers, and that dog hunts.
I've been subscribed to Aquinas 101 for years and recommended it to anyone interested in covering the summa and his proofs for the existence of God.
Henri-Dominique Lacordaire, who re-established the Order of Preachers in France after the Revolution, once wrote:
“Perhaps you will ask why we have preferred to reestablish an old Order rather than found a new one…if God should grant us the power to create a religious Order, we are sure that after much reflection we should find nothing newer, nothing better adapted to our times and needs, than the rule of St Dominic. It has nothing ancient but its history, and it would be pointless to rack our brains for the sole satisfaction of dating from yesterday.”
Then, again, I’m somewhat biased…
😉
One characteristic of most of the greatest religious orders was that the founders never meant to establish a religious order. Saint Mother Teresa, Saint Francis, Saint Benedict, Saint Anthony of Egypt, Saint Ignatius and others started some type of apostolic work or prayer life that attracted others to follow them, in a way forcing the establishment of a religious order.
I am ambivalent about Bishop Barron, I like him for trying to spread knowledge about the faith, but I don't like his wishy-washiness in doing so, like telling Ben Shapiro that it is good for him to remain in Judaism instead of at least encouraging him to consider becoming a Catholic. That would show Bishop Barron having true love for Shapiro instead of just wanting to show to the world that he was not some Catholic fanatic.
A founder of an order must not just be someone who is attractive in his ability to explain the faith, but one who has so much zeal for it that he would die for it in an instant, like Cardinal Burke or Bishop Paprocki, or Cardinal O'Connor who would tell the truth even if it was not popular. I am not sure Bishop Barron would even sacrifice his media presence by saying something the world would strongly object to. So I wish him the best, but I have doubts about this being successful.
Just wanted to clarify re successful founders not being intentional about it...Cardinal O'Connor founded the Sisters of Life, and was certainly intentional - and they are flourishing. They are just awesome, I was with them for 3 years when he was alive.
I did not say all religious orders, but most. Cardinal O'Connor was despised by the left for his outspoken pro-life activity. He founded the Sisters of Life to save lives, both the physical life of babies and the souls of the mothers who did not murder their babies. They are one of the best religious orders out there. I just don't see Bishop Barron on the same high level as Cardinal O'Connor or this cause requiring an actual religious order, like Bishop Barron thinking his Word on Fire is some unique apostolate instead of one of many similar initiatives.
Also going to add here that part of what makes clergy like Barron and Schmitz popular is that these guys are rather independent and have their own way of presenting the truths of the faith. Just because one priest or bishop is good at sitting in front of a camera does not necessarily mean that a congregation should be founded to do the exact same thing and mimic a founder. On the contrary, both Barron and Schmitz are unique, or as we say, sui generis. Furthermore, they are diocesan priests/bishops not in vows. They have a certain freedom of style to present as they see fit because of this fact. WoF is private (not owned or controlled by the Roman Catholic Church), making piles of money, entirely controlled by Barron and his folks, and therefore it is free of ecclesial meddling and encumbrance. What happens when someone like Pope Francis or a particular unnamed American Cardinal nearby MN decides that the messaging of WoF or Schmidt's college-aged funky dorm-room close-up unshaven youtube style isn't popular in Roma? By creating a congregation, Bishop Barron could be subject to higher ecclesial obedience and unintentionally scuttle his organization. Remember Fr/Mr. Frank Pavone not so long ago? Although Pavone's group was private and nefarious things were evidently occuring, we see what happens when popes and cardinals get a little, well, overzealous in their pursuit of those who do not toe the line.
May God bless Bishop Barron and his WOF efforts to evangelize. The Church seems too preoccupied with administration and maintaining hierarchical control to be very active at the diocesan and parish level. He will need ongoing clerical involvement in WOF should he be elevated to head the Chicago diocese!
Thanks so much for this explainer! It's very easy to follow, and helps explain some things I didn't know.