To Light a Fire on the Earth
by Robert Barron and John L Allen Jr, image books, 272pp, £20
The seasoned Catholic journalist and commentator John Allen spent 20 hours interviewing Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron in 2016 and 2017. This book is the result.
For those who have not yet encountered Bishop Barron’s Word on Fire website and internet ministry, Allen provides a thorough, well-researched introduction. In it he compares Barron to Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who brought the faith to millions of American homes in the 1950s and 1960s, suggesting that Barron makes the faith “not only plausible but more convincing, more humane and ultimately more loving than its cultural despisers”.
Given Barron’s popularity and influence in the US, it is worth assessing Allen’s portrait of this modern master broadcaster. Barron grew up in the post-Vatican II era, during the Church’s “deep commitment to social justice”. He discovered Shakespeare and Aquinas in his teens, and chose to study in Paris after his ordination in Chicago in 1986. He was influenced by Cardinal Lustiger, commenting: “He exuded a wonderful, confident, spiritual Catholicism … This was someone who had suffered.”
Recognising, like others who observed the sorry mess of post-Vatican II catechesis, that neither lapsed Catholics nor those outside the Church had ever been exposed to the reasonableness and coherence of the faith, Barron, encouraged by Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, made it his mission to start a new form of evangelisation, showing how “smart and beautiful” Catholicism really is (“smart” being an American word for “worthy of intellectual respect”).
With this in mind, he made an acclaimed 10-part film series, Catholicism, emulating Kenneth Clark’s famous Civilisation series made for the BBC in the 1960s, to highlight the beauty of the faith.
The idea of the beauty of God, reflected through great art and the medieval Gothic cathedrals, was a deliberate strategy. In a postmodern society, Barron is convinced that the Church’s doctrinal and moral teaching should only be presented once people have been “hooked by the beauty of the faith … [then] people will be more receptive to the idea that such beauty is inextricably linked to a way of life”.
Alongside beauty comes goodness: the example of holy figures, such as Thérèse of Lisieux, Bernadette of Lourdes and Mother Angelica. In his 2016 series, The Pivotal Players, Barron chose 12 thinkers, artists, mystics and saints, including GK Chesterton and Flannery O’Connor, to show how splendidly diverse Catholics can be. He believes that the Church’s mission is “not to produce nice people: its mission is to produce saints”.
By his own admission, Barron is not a liturgist. He also thinks that “the genius of [Pope] Francis” is to move from “harping at sexual ethics” to a “sense of joyfulness”, and to see the Church as not only true and good but “also gorgeous, fun, fulfilling, life-affirming”, in Allen’s words.
Allen portrays a man at ease in the post-modern world, someone who sees himself as an evangelist rather than a proselytiser, who loves baseball and Bob Dylan and relaxes playing golf.
There is much that is attractive in this portrait – especially for Catholics who love literature and who deplore the modern atheist’s rejection of the faith as benighted, superstitious and dangerous. Barron doesn’t water down the Church’s teaching on sexual ethics. But he is convinced that you will not attract those of no religious affiliation if you put these issues at the forefront of evangelisation.
Still, a few questions come to mind. For a start, being interviewed by John Allen. He is an honest commentator of the Catholic scene but he tends to the liberal wing of the Church and is very keen to show that Barron is a “regular guy” (rather than a gloomy, rule-book Catholic). His interview style is nothing like, say, that of the French journalist Nicolas Diat, whose series of conversations with Cardinal Robert Sarah memorably produced God or Nothing.
Allen tells us that it is almost impossible to “find anyone with a cross word to say about [Barron]”. But if you do spell out the truth you will make enemies – as Christ promised his followers. Fulton Sheen did not aspire to be a “regular guy”: he wanted to inspire people to see the awesome reality of the Church and did not shy away from hard sayings. However, he lived in more respectful times.
My final caveat is that Bishop Barron follows Hans Urs von Balthasar in stating: “It’s legitimate to hope for universal salvation.” He avoids the subject of hell. This makes him very unpopular in one quarter at least, that of Church Militant, the website run by Michael Voris. Voris, following traditional Church teaching, the witness of many saints and the words of Christ himself, believes in reminding people of the consequences of unconfessed grave sin. He brings holy fear into the discussion where Barron would rather talk about Michelangelo and Aquinas.
I am very drawn to Barron’s method – after all, who wants to upset people? But nevertheless I don’t think it is enough.
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.