By Jonah McKeown for CNA
June 2, 2022 Catholic News Agency The Dispatch 2 Print
In a Thursday press conference, Bishop Robert Barron, newly appointed to the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, said he got on his knees early that morning and asked the Lord to make him “a good shepherd.”
“My sincere prayer this morning is that the Lord will give me the grace always to be a good father,” Barron said during the June 2 press conference, expressing his “great gratitude to Pope Francis” for his appointment. “Nothing of importance is ever accomplished outside of prayer.”
Barron is the founder and face of Word on Fire, an Illinois-based Catholic multimedia apostolate that produces blogs, podcasts, videos, and educational materials.
Barron has served as an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles under Archbishop Jose Gomez since 2015. Pope Francis appointed him Bishop of Winona-Rochester on Thursday.
Barron noted that a bishop is called to be, as Pope Francis has taught, “a shepherd with the smell of the sheep.” He said he looks forward to working with local charitable organizations in Minnesota to assist the poor and disadvantaged in the diocese.
“I want to spend a good deal of time, in the spirit of Pope Francis, listening to you, learning what’s on your hearts,” he said to the press and faithful gathered at Rochester’s Co-Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist.
Listing his pastoral priorities as bishop, Barron emphasized Catholic education, reaching out to the disaffiliated, the cultivation of priestly vocations, and above all “The New Evangelization”, which he defined as “declaring the Lordship of Jesus Christ and inviting people to share in His life, in the Church.”
The Winona-Rochester diocese is large and relatively sparsely populated, with 130,000 Catholics spread among 20 counties in southern Minnesota. The diocese declared bankruptcy in late 2018 after facing more than 100 claims of clerical sex abuse.
Barron expressed his “sincere sorrow and apology” to those affected by the scandal, and spoke of his “absolute personal commitment” to do “everything in my power to make sure that environments are safe, especially for our young people, but for everybody. And to do everything I can to end the scourge of the clergy sex abuse scandal.”
In response to a question about whether he considered his new diocese a “backwater,” Barron replied that he did not, adding that “I’ve always done what I’ve been asked to do” and that he has striven in his ministry to “go where the Church sends me.” He also expressed interest in working with the colleges and universities in the region, and also gave a nod to the Mayo Clinic, the world-renowned medical campus located close to the co-cathedral in Rochester.
Barron said he “savors the opportunity” to engage with universities and the clinic, calling it an opportunity to show the Church’s support for science.
He also said he is excited for the opportunity to be the leader of a diocese, noting that as an auxiliary bishop, he didn’t have as much authority to implement a vision as he will have as an ordinary. He compared his appointment as an ordinary to his past role as rector of Mundelein Seminary, where he was able to implement his vision for the school’s educational direction in a way he couldn’t as a professor.
Barron described the Church’s “disaffiliation” of its own members as a pastoral concern he wants to address, adding that his “number one concern” is to reach young people who are leaving the Church.
In his introduction of Barron, departing Bishop John Quinn said he suspected the diocese would be “trading up” when a new bishop was appointed, but said he “didn’t know we’d be trading up so high.” Barron in turn praised the outgoing bishop for being known as one of the “kindest and most grace-filled” bishops in the national conference.
Winona and Rochester are about an hour’s drive apart, with Winona sitting on the western bank of the Mississippi River, across from Wisconsin. A Chicagoan, Barron joked that his heavy winter coat had gone unused during his years in California, but he was ready to take on Midwestern winters once more.
Barron expressed gratitude for the opportunity to work closely over the past seven years with Archbishop Gomez of Los Angeles, whom he called “one of the great Churchmen on the scene today.”
Gomez said in a statement that Barron “is a man of prayer, with a fine intellect and a beautiful zeal to spread the love of Jesus Christ. I am certain that he will be a great shepherd for the family of God in Winona-Rochester. I am very grateful for his service here in the Santa Barbara Pastoral Region over these past several years.”
Discussing his existing connections to his new diocese, Barron said he was befriended and mentored as a seminarian by Bishop John Vlazny, a Chicago native who led the then-Diocese of Winona beginning in 1987 to 1997.
Apart from that connection, Barron admitted he did not know much yet about the diocese, but that he is excited to visit and get to know all 107 parishes spread across the bottom portion of the state.
When asked about whether he will continue with his role at Word on Fire now that he is an ordinary, Barron said he will continue to do audio recordings of his weekly columns and homilies. Word on Fire has main offices in Chicago and Dallas, he said, plus a small office in his former city of Santa Barbara. He said he plans to bring that small office with him to Rochester.
Describing Word on Fire as his “pride and joy,” Barron said that although he has always contributed a lot of content to WOF, “I’ve never been involved in its day-to-day management.” He said WOF has historically taken up “about 10% of my time” and that there is “no ambiguity” that his work as bishop is his primary role.
Absent from the press conference was a discussion of recent questions raised about the workplace culture of Word on Fire. In recent weeks, Word on Fire has faced claims that its leaders mishandled charges of sexual impropriety related to the personal life of a high-ranking Word on Fire staffer.
Word on Fire has said that the process of handling the misconduct of the Word on Fire employee, Joseph Gloor, was undertaken by a sub-committee of Word on Fire’s board of directors, not by Bishop Barron.
Gloor ultimately was fired after an investigation, but a few anonymous former employees have said that they were left feeling discouraged and uncomfortable by the episode, and by certain aspects of the workplace culture at Word on Fire. Several staff members, including Catholic speakers Jackie and Bobby Angel and editor-at-large Elizabeth Scalia, announced their departure from Word on Fire amid the controversy in May.
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
Feasting, praise, poetry: Rediscovering and celebrating Pentecost anew
“The Role of the Priest in Today’s Catholic School” conference to be held July 12-14
Sharonell Fulton has fostered more than 40 children through Catholic Social Services. / Photo courtesy of Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
Philadelphia, Pa., Nov 23, 2021 / 16:08 pm (CNA). The city of Philadelphia will pay Catholic Social Ser… […]
Columbia, S.C., Aug 2, 2018 / 12:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Planned Parenthood has filed a lawsuit challenging a South Carolina executive order barring Medicaid funds from going toward any health services at abortion clinics.
Washington D.C., May 1, 2017 / 04:30 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- More than 50 members of Congress have written President Donald Trump asking for a broad executive order that protects religious freedom.
“Freedom to follow one’s conscience, faith and deeply held moral convictions is at the heart of our country’s identity,” said Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-Ill.), one of the letter’s signatories.
House Republicans recently sent a letter to President Trump asking for an executive order that could protect the religious freedom of various entities, USA Today reported.
“We write to express our encouragement and support for prompt executive action ensuring religious liberty protections for all Americans and look forward to working with you on complementary legislation,” the letter stated.
Religious freedom advocates have warned that, due to various mandates and rules issued during the Obama administration, religious institutions that uphold traditional marriage or do not cooperate with abortions and contraceptive use could soon face federal action if no executive order is issued to protect them.
A draft of such an executive order was leaked earlier this year, but was reportedly scuttled due to the efforts of Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner.
“Americans don’t give up those freedoms when they open a family business or enter the workplace or provide health coverage for their employees,” Hultgren stated. “The federal government has recently handed down more and more mandates on Americans – it’s time to reverse this trend. Protecting individual liberty is crucial to ensuring a free society.”
One example the lawmakers cited for where such an order could be effective was a repeal of the HHS birth control mandate, which caused hundreds of religious non-profits and other employers to sue the federal government claiming the mandate forced them to violate their consciences.
The Trump administration has not yet stopped defending the mandate in court, although White House advisor Leonard Leo told Axios recently that the administration was not planning to defend the mandate indefinitely, but was rather still considering the best “litigation proof” route for lifting the mandate’s burden on religious employers.
Another reason for an executive order would be the protection of health care providers and crisis pregnancy centers from mandates that they perform abortions or cover them in employee health plans, the letter claimed.
“Despite clear federal statutes to the contrary, medical professionals have been forced by their employing hospitals to assist in abortions and state governments such as California have required religious organizations to cover abortion in their health plans,” the members of Congress stated.
Currently, the Weldon Amendments bars federal funding of states that force employers to provide abortion coverage for employees. But after California ruled that health care plans – including those of churches and religious organizations – had to include coverage for elective abortions, the head of the Office of Civil Rights at the federal Department of Health and Human Services decided last summer that the state had not violated the Weldon Amendment.
An executive order, the Congressmen claim, could fix this violation of the freedoms of churches and religious employers.
Also at stake is the tax-exempt status of schools and other religious institutions which teach that marriage is one man and one woman, the letter claimed.
For this, the signatories cited President Obama’s solicitor general Donald Verrilli, who said in 2015 oral arguments in the same-sex marriage case Obergefell v. Hodges, that the ability of these colleges to retain their tax-exempt status if same-sex marriage is the law of the land is “certainly going to be an issue.”
The Trump administration, the members of Congress said, “need not and should not wait for Congress to act before ordering the federal government to stop discriminating against individuals and institutions because of their reasonable beliefs on issues of deep concern to people of faith and good will.”
Another way an executive order could protect religious freedom would be to protect federal contractors, and dioceses and churches that provide military chaplains, from having to comply with mandates that they support same-sex marriage.
The Russell Amendment had upheld this freedom and was included in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act that passed the House, but was removed by Senate Republicans so the bill could pass the Senate.
“Any Executive Order should make it clear that religious freedom entails more than the freedom to worship but also includes the ability to act on one’s beliefs,” the U.S. Bishops’ Conference stated earlier this year on the need for an executive order.
“It should also protect individuals and families who run closely-held businesses in accordance with their faith to the greatest extent possible.”
Praise the Lord! Moving up the Catholic SPQR but small enough of a Bishopric so that Bishop Barron can continue his ministry of bringing the good news to frequently discouraged, and often times disaffected American Catholics like myself.
Bishop Barron is an enormously gifted man who has done great work, from his “Catholicism” series to his pop-culture reflections and irenic engagement of nonbelievers. For years I called him one of my heroes.
I’m disheartened by his response to the clear rebuke of a half-dozen employees leaving Word on Fire over what what they consider a lack of transparency, an intimidating workplace culture where they did not feel safe, and inappropriate and insensitive handling of sexual misconduct allegations. Bishop Barron talks about wanting to be “a shepherd with the smell of the sheep,” but that wasn’t what many of his employees experienced.
God bless Elizabeth Scalia for her courage and charity. On her blog, explaining her departure, she wrote:
It is my sincere wish that the tilted ship may yet be righted, and if Word on Fire ever fed you well, or helped you in your life of faith, I hope you will pray for its correction and flourishing, because the mission is still a very worthy one.
That’s my hope and prayer as well — but few ships are righted if the captain can’t admit that his crew may have a point about the ship listing in the first place.
Your email address will not be published.
All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.
The place of grandparents in handing on the Faith
“The Role of the Priest in Today’s Catholic School” conference to be held July 12-14
Bishop Barron expresses ‘great gratitude’ for his appointment to Winona-Rochester
Feasting, praise, poetry: Rediscovering and celebrating Pentecost anew
Thirteen years after Pope John Paul II canonized 120 Catholic saints who were martyred in China, Beijing’s Communist authorities still prohibit Mainland publications on their lives. This means that what most Chinese Catholics hear about […]
Sign up to receive a weekly email with news, analysis, and commentary from a voice you can trust!