Posted on 08/04/2020 10:15:30 AM PDT by ebb tide
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:
"Rad trads" are often young Catholics who prefer traditional liturgy, including the Latin Mass, and subscribe to more conservative political beliefs and religious practices.
"All of these are major pastoral issues, which is why I proposed to Bishop Barron, in his capacity as bishop, to host a meeting with various Catholic media leaders to discuss these items," said Vogt.
Barron is the founder of Word on Fire and an auxiliary bishop in Los Angeles. In recent weeks, he has used his sizable social media presence to call out the "armies of commenters" fueled by "internet provocateurs" who have attacked him on Twitter following an article he published regarding the respective roles of the bishop and the laity.
"May I, as a spiritual father, issue a kind of pastoral cry of the heart to my fellow Catholics who practice this sort of thing?" he asked in a video posted July 7.
"Cut it out," he pleaded.
Barron dubbed the attacks "mean-spirited" and "unjust" and said that he preferred the online pushback he received from debating the new atheists in the early days of his online ministry to that of the "Twitter mobs" of certain Catholics today. He said that he had three full-time staff members spend their workdays deleting the recent inappropriate comments leveled at him.
In another video posted on July 22, he criticized certain traditionalists who have rejected the Second Vatican Council.
"For me, it's impossible to repudiate Vatican II and claim to be a traditionalist," he said.
Vogt said the meeting of Catholic media professionals discussed the online behavior of traditionalists who "ruthlessly criticize the pope and bishops, and question the authority of the Second Vatican Council, often to the point of repudiation."
While neither Barron nor Vogt specifically identified individuals or organizations responsible for targeted online attacks, much of the criticism directed at Barron has been fueled by fringe right-wing sites such as LifeSiteNews and Church Militant.
This is not the first time that Barron has puzzled over how to control the fractured nature of online Catholic commentary.
In an interview with National Catholic Register earlier this year, he suggested that bishops may want to consider introducing "something like a mandatum for those who claim to teach the Catholic faith online, whereby a bishop affirms that the person is teaching within the full communion of the Church."
NCR has confirmed that representatives of America Media, Catholic News Agency, Catholic News Service, Crux and Our Sunday Visitor were present on the call.
In an Aug. 3 email, Vogt told NCR that the meeting was conducted off-the-record "to facilitate free and transparent dialogue."
"It was not a press conference and no formal statements were composed (or even discussed)," he wrote.
Vogt said the meeting was not hosted in coordination with the Communications Committee of the U.S. bishops nor with the Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, of which Barron is the chair.
"This was simply a bishop having a pastoral discussion with Catholic leaders in the media, in his capacity as shepherd of souls," said Vogt.
Barron is wimp who has to huddle behind closed doors with like-minded people like John Allen's Crux and the Jesuits America Magazine.
Ping
Radical tradition. An oxymoron, therefore a lie. All lies come from the devil, the father of them. I suppose the Bible has become too traditional now as well.
I’m a Catholic media professional who wasn’t invited to this meeting. For the record, I am an attorney (sole practitioner) who has represented a significant number of lay Catholic broadcasting apostolates before the FCC; my first such client came to me in 1996.
I am a traditional Catholic; I pray for the restoration of the traditional Mass, faith and sacraments.
I also have the right to call out Bishops and priests who engage in heresy and false practice. The 4th Century great St. Athanasius, who fought the Arian Heresy, one said that the floor of hell is paved with the skulls of bad bishops. It is a matter of Christian charity to insist that our leaders bear true faith and allegiance to sacred scripture and sacred tradition.
Bp. Barron, to name one example, fell into the heresy that the late Fr. Richard McBrien of unhappy memory taught, that Mary was not a virgin and that Jesus Christ had biological brothers and sisters.
Here in Washington, we had the spectacle of Abp. Wilton Gregory allowing Nancy Pelosi to speak from the pulpit in St. Matthew’s Cathedral and supporting the Marxist, anti-Catholic “Black Lives Matter” movement.
Interestingly, Vatican II called for greater lay participation in the affairs of the Church. Well, Bp. Barron, you can’t have it both ways. It is the laity who sees the novus ordo church for what it is, and who demands something a heck of a lot better. We want our traditional Mass back—the Mass which has been described as the most beautiful thing this side of heaven.
I invite you to take a look at classic venues of Roman Catholic worship such as Chartres cathedral in France or St. John Lateran in Rome, and then look at places such as the new “Rog Mahal” cathedral (also called the Taj Mahony) in Los Angeles. The magnificent vs. the banal. This is a good metaphor for what the modernists have done to the Mass, faith and sacrraments post-Vatican II.
Thank-you for that information on Bishop Barron. I was unaware of it until now.
The Rog Mahal is at the corner of Grand and Temple, but it is neither.
So Church Militant is on the fringe? What about the SSPX that Church Militant likes to spend so much time attacking? What about The Wanderer or The Remnant? And what about the sedevacantists who, whatever their faults, at least have a consistent position with regard to Vatican II: it is heresy being taught by heretical “popes”.
I’d like some proof that Bishop Barron said that, are you confusing this with his explaining Historical Jesus?
How many "Jesus'" do you think there are?
Summary of a supposedly polite twitter dialog:
1) Taylor Marshall: Will the Bishops help in defending the toppling of saint statues?
2) Bishop Barron: According to Vatican II, that’s the laity’s job
3) Marshall: Source?
4) Barron: BLOCK
Black and white thinkers cannot handle complexity or subtlety, they put things in simple terms not to understand, but because they can’t understand.
Just like you, Marchmain, Jorge is also not a black and white thinker, e.g. adultery can be “accomodated”, Holy Communion to non-Catholics is negotiable etc.
In fact, nothing is black and white to the modernists.
Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ.
Which is, as I accurately stated, entertaining the *possibility* of Hell being empty. Such a position explicitly contradicts Scripture and Tradition and is certainly not what the Catechism teaches, nor is what Benedict said about this the same as what Barron said. Hoping to persevere and praying for all men to be saved is not hoping that Hell is empty.
Thank-you. It’s nice to hear from a non-modernist.
Did you watch the video?
The specifics of “hell” are not ours to ponder.... regardless how it may pain some....
We are invited to ponder what Scripture reveals, as St. Thomas Aquinas did in his various ponderings on Hell. Scripture quotes Christ stating that many enter the broad road that leads to destruction, that the angels will throw the weeds into the fire, that the goats will depart to His left into eternal punishment, that Judas is the son of perdition, etc. Barron chooses to ignore this, the rest of Scripture, the Church Fathers, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the entire Tradition and the Catechism (see 1033ff for example) in preference for the speculations of Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar. My reply is what St. Padre Pio said to the man who came to confession and said he didn't believe in Hell: "You will when you get there."
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