# Bishop Barron – Christian Charity vs. the Dangers of Misguided Empathy

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 10 Sep 2026, 37 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/74918832/christian_charity_vs_suicidal_empathy.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Word on Fire show.
[0:01] Speaker 2: I'm Matthew Petrusik, senior director of the Word on Fire
[0:03] Speaker 2: Institute and the host of the Word on Fire show.
[0:05] Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us.
[0:07] Speaker 2: The evolutionary behavioral scientist and public intellectual Gad Saad has
[0:11] Speaker 2: recently published an influential book entitled Suicidal Empathy, Dying to
[0:15] Speaker 2: be Kind. In it, Saad argues that much of the
[0:18] Speaker 2: West has unfortunately come to embrace a perversely deficient understanding
[0:22] Speaker 2: of empathy, twisting the natural and otherwise noble human capacity
[0:27] Speaker 2: to feel and respond to other people's sufferings into a
[0:30] Speaker 2: moral license to upend the moral, economic, and political order.
[0:34] Speaker 2: According to the dictates of suicidal empathy, for example, society
[0:38] Speaker 2: should prioritize criminals over victims, illegal immigrants over citizens, law
[0:43] Speaker 2: breakers over law abiders, racial identity over competence, adult sexual
[0:48] Speaker 2: expression over childhood innocence, and trans women, that is men
[0:52] Speaker 2: pretending to be women, over real women. Suicidal empathy's endgame,
[0:57] Speaker 2: Saad warns, is nothing less than societal ruin and the
[1:00] Speaker 2: eventual totalitarian eclipse of the individual. How, from a Catholic perspective,
[1:05] Speaker 2: should we assess these claims? Is Saad's characterization of suicidal
[1:09] Speaker 2: empathy and its dangers accurate? If so, how should we
[1:12] Speaker 2: as Christians constructively respond? What role in particular should the
[1:16] Speaker 2: biblical conception of love play in defining what it means
[1:19] Speaker 2: to show true compassion and care for those in need?
[1:23] Speaker 2: Here to discuss Saad's book and to explain how authentic
[1:25] Speaker 2: Christian charity is and is not related to empathy is.
[1:29] Speaker 1: Bishop Robert Barron. Bishop, welcome back to the studio.
[1:42] Speaker 3: Thanks, Matt.
[1:43] Speaker 2: So today we're talking about a highly influential and very
[1:46] Speaker 2: timely new book by Gad Saad called Suicidal Empathy. But
[1:51] Speaker 2: before we do, there's lots to talk about there. What
[1:53] Speaker 2: have you been up to recently?
[1:54] Speaker 3: Yeah, a number of things. But I think when this
[1:56] Speaker 3: comes out, this will have happened a while ago, but
[1:58] Speaker 3: I had the great privilege of interviewing the vice president
[2:01] Speaker 3: of And so we set up this time and we
[2:04] Speaker 3: had to get to his residence. And getting him to
[2:07] Speaker 3: see the vice president is a little bit of a
[2:08] Speaker 3: workout in terms of security. We went through several different levels,
[2:12] Speaker 3: dogs and things, examining the car and then being wandered
[2:15] Speaker 3: several times. And finally, they brought us to the pool house,
[2:19] Speaker 3: which is a little house adjacent to the main house
[2:22] Speaker 3: of the vice president. And cameras rolling there. It was
[2:25] Speaker 3: kind of a small space. And then he just came
[2:27] Speaker 3: right on time. I shook his hand, and within, I'd say,
[2:30] Speaker 3: 25 seconds, we were, you know, having the conversation. But
[2:33] Speaker 3: that was a delight, and he was great, and we
[2:36] Speaker 3: had a great conversation for an hour.
[2:38] Speaker 1: Yeah, and again, it's available in the Bishop Barron Presenter. Yeah,
[2:41] Speaker 1: it's out on the different platforms. Definitely, definitely, definitely worth
[2:44] Speaker 1: a watch.
[2:45] Speaker 2: All right, well, let's turn to Gadsad's new book, This
[2:48] Speaker 2: Suicidal Empathy. The full title is Suicidal Empathy, Dying to
[2:53] Speaker 2: be Kind. I love that, dying to be kind. So, again,
[2:56] Speaker 2: we'll get into sort of evaluating and analyzing it. Before
[2:58] Speaker 2: I do, let's just sort of lay the foundation of
[3:00] Speaker 2: what his argument is. Starting with what– how is he
[3:04] Speaker 2: defining empathy? How do we define it as a concept
[3:07] Speaker 2: distinct from other concepts?
[3:08] Speaker 3: I mean, just literally, pathé means feeling. Empathy means to–
[3:11] Speaker 3: feel into. It's like to enter into the feelings of
[3:14] Speaker 3: somebody else. I think as he uses it, it's, you know,
[3:17] Speaker 3: to spare the feelings of somebody, to make sure that
[3:19] Speaker 3: their feelings aren't hurt. If I'm empathetic, I feel what
[3:23] Speaker 3: you feel, and I want to make your life as
[3:25] Speaker 3: kind of emotionally comfortable and rewarding as possible. That's empathy
[3:29] Speaker 3: for somebody.
[3:30] Speaker 2: And, you know, Saad is an evolutionary scientist who focuses
[3:35] Speaker 2: on behavior and So he recognizes empathy as being grounded
[3:39] Speaker 2: in our evolutionary nature, as he describes it, but also
[3:41] Speaker 2: being a virtue. So what do you think he's getting
[3:44] Speaker 2: at there? Why would we think of it as something good?
[3:46] Speaker 3: Well, and we'll get to the fuller discussion there because it's,
[3:50] Speaker 3: to me, very interesting and very telling that it's not listed,
[3:53] Speaker 3: of course, as one of the classic virtues in the tradition.
[3:56] Speaker 3: I think what he means is, look, all things being equal,
[4:01] Speaker 3: it's a good thing to respect someone's feelings. I mean,
[4:03] Speaker 3: you don't go out of your way to hurt someone's feelings.
[4:06] Speaker 3: I mean, that itself would be a kind of act
[4:08] Speaker 3: of injustice, I think, to go out of your way.
[4:11] Speaker 3: If justice is rendering to each his due and people
[4:14] Speaker 3: are due respect, to go out of your way to
[4:16] Speaker 3: hurt their feelings is an act of injustice. So, sure.
[4:20] Speaker 3: But so all things being equal and sort of in itself,
[4:23] Speaker 3: it's a decent thing to enter into the feelings of
[4:26] Speaker 3: somebody else and try to respect those. So as far
[4:30] Speaker 3: as it goes, it's a good thing. You know, I'd
[4:32] Speaker 3: rather be empathetic than non-empathetic. As we'll get to, it's
[4:37] Speaker 3: the exaggeration of it. It's the, I would say, placing
[4:41] Speaker 3: of it as the central defining value. Now we got problems.
[4:45] Speaker 1: Well, let's turn to that.
[4:46] Speaker 2: So again, tracing his argument, how does he lay out
[4:50] Speaker 2: how something that is otherwise good and maybe even noble,
[4:54] Speaker 2: how does it go so wrong?
[4:56] Speaker 3: So I think, and I agree with him here, it
[4:57] Speaker 3: goes wrong when it becomes exaggerated to the point that
[5:01] Speaker 3: it stands athwart of Truth, reality, and justice. So when
[5:06] Speaker 3: he's saying, I'm so empathetic with you that I'm going
[5:12] Speaker 3: to spare your feelings, even if it means I won't
[5:14] Speaker 3: tell you the truth. I'm so empathetic that I'm going
[5:18] Speaker 3: to make sure your feelings aren't hurt, even if that
[5:20] Speaker 3: involves now an act of deep injustice toward you or
[5:24] Speaker 3: to somebody else. It's giving such primacy to something that
[5:28] Speaker 3: doesn't deserve it, see? And that's from an epistemic standpoint.
[5:33] Speaker 3: the problem he's put his finger on, which I think
[5:35] Speaker 3: is very interesting. When you take something that shouldn't be
[5:38] Speaker 3: in the central place and you put it there, the
[5:41] Speaker 3: whole system begins to shake apart. We'll notice how in
[5:45] Speaker 3: the great moral tradition, the right things are placed in
[5:49] Speaker 3: the center, and then things will fall into place. You'll see,
[5:52] Speaker 3: for example, if justice and love are your central values,
[5:57] Speaker 3: then you'll know when to be empathetic. You'll know when
[6:01] Speaker 3: it's appropriate to respect someone's feelings and when it's not, right?
[6:06] Speaker 3: But maybe we'll get there. But I think that's a
[6:08] Speaker 3: very important point, is what belongs at the center of
[6:12] Speaker 3: our preoccupations? Do it biblically. You shall love the Lord
[6:17] Speaker 3: your God with all your heart, all your soul, all
[6:20] Speaker 3: your mind. See, God must be placed at the center
[6:23] Speaker 3: of our preoccupations. Everything else now in relation to God,
[6:27] Speaker 3: If empathy itself becomes a kind of God, now we're
[6:32] Speaker 3: in trouble.
[6:32] Speaker 2: Wishing more on that epistemic dimension of empathy and suicidal
[6:36] Speaker 2: empathy in particular. Saad spends a whole chapter on what
[6:40] Speaker 2: he calls forbidden knowledge.
[6:43] Speaker 1: What did you think about that?
[6:44] Speaker 2: The connection he's making between suicidal empathy and suppressing true
[6:49] Speaker 2: but otherwise controversial statements about reality.
[6:51] Speaker 3: Right, and that's the problem. If you say, look, I've
[6:54] Speaker 3: just discovered something that is true, but I know— If
[6:57] Speaker 3: I say that, it's going to really hurt someone's feelings
[7:01] Speaker 3: or it's really going to go against a renyant narrative.
[7:05] Speaker 3: You know, I thought of there was Bernard Lonergan, the
[7:08] Speaker 3: great Catholic epistemologist and philosopher. And he has these four imperatives, right?
[7:13] Speaker 3: Be attentive. So what's really going on? Be intelligent, meaning
[7:19] Speaker 3: have bright ideas, clever hypotheses about what's going on. Be
[7:26] Speaker 3: reasonable means now make a judgment. What is really going on?
[7:30] Speaker 3: You got this idea, that idea, which one is right?
[7:33] Speaker 3: You make a judgment. But then finally, he says, be responsible,
[7:37] Speaker 3: which means act in accord with the truth that you know.
[7:41] Speaker 3: So if I've come to know something is true, but
[7:43] Speaker 3: I say, not going to publish it. I'm not going
[7:47] Speaker 3: to announce it. I'm not going to tell you about
[7:49] Speaker 3: it because it's going to get me in trouble. It's
[7:51] Speaker 3: going to hurt someone's feelings. I'm now epistemically unconverted, Lonergan
[7:57] Speaker 3: would say, you know? But one form of that lack
[8:01] Speaker 3: of conversion means I'm not attentive. And a lot of
[8:04] Speaker 3: us are like that. We don't really see what's going on.
[8:07] Speaker 3: It's the ostrich thing, right? Or I'm not intelligent. I
[8:11] Speaker 3: see what's going on, but I never really think about
[8:12] Speaker 3: it that deeply. I'm unconverted, see, epistemically. Or I see
[8:17] Speaker 3: what's going on. I'm pretty clever about it, but I
[8:19] Speaker 3: never make a judgment. Ah, it's a lot of us.
[8:22] Speaker 3: Because you make a judgment- Then, you know, that guy's
[8:24] Speaker 3: going to get mad. That guy will get mad, right?
[8:27] Speaker 3: And then finally, I've made a judgment. I know what's true,
[8:33] Speaker 3: but I'm not going to act on it. I'm not
[8:34] Speaker 3: going to tell you. I'm not going to publish. I'm
[8:36] Speaker 3: not going to cause trouble. Those are all forms of epistemic,
[8:41] Speaker 3: you might say, moral failure, right? I think that's what
[8:44] Speaker 3: he's driving at here with the truth issue.
[8:47] Speaker 2: That Lonergan approach is so helpful for understanding the deeper
[8:50] Speaker 2: issues at stake.
[8:51] Speaker 3: Well, Lonergan was a Jesuit. And so as a Jesuit,
[8:55] Speaker 3: he's very interested in the question of conversion, you know,
[8:58] Speaker 3: of what brings you to Christ. But I think he
[9:02] Speaker 3: saw the applicability of that conversion language to the epistemic dimension.
[9:07] Speaker 3: We have fallen minds. So he's helped me more than
[9:10] Speaker 3: anyone to see what that means. So your mind is fallen. Yeah.
[9:13] Speaker 3: It's inattentive, unintelligent, unreasonable, and irresponsible. That's a fallen mind.
[9:19] Speaker 3: Most of us have that most of the time, see? Now,
[9:22] Speaker 3: I would argue, I think with what Gad said here,
[9:26] Speaker 3: that wokeism represents a beautiful example of the fallen mind.
[9:31] Speaker 2: Well, we'll turn more to wokeism and progress in just
[9:33] Speaker 2: a moment, sort of bookending the sort of description of
[9:36] Speaker 2: Saad's argument. He pulls no punches in saying this will
[9:39] Speaker 2: lead to the destruction of Western civilization.
[9:42] Speaker 1: I just want to. Quote him on this.
[9:44] Speaker 2: He says, suicidal empathy is, quoting him here, suicidal empathy
[9:48] Speaker 2: is a deadly contagion of one of humanity's most noble virtues.
[9:51] Speaker 2: If not properly contained, it will destroy the West, unquote. Bishop,
[9:56] Speaker 2: do you think this claim is accurate in its severity?
[9:59] Speaker 3: Yeah. But I see I would broaden it a bit.
[10:03] Speaker 3: The West, which is grounded in Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem,
[10:06] Speaker 3: let's say, has a keen sense of the centrality of
[10:11] Speaker 3: certain epistemic and moral and aesthetic values. Put it that way.
[10:15] Speaker 3: These are the things that ground Western consciousness. When those
[10:19] Speaker 3: get compromised, and they have been, that to me is postmodernism,
[10:23] Speaker 3: much of wokeism, is a questioning of those values. Yeah,
[10:29] Speaker 3: you've undermined the foundations of the West. Read the postmoderns.
[10:33] Speaker 3: I mean, they're upfront about it. That's what they're doing
[10:36] Speaker 3: is they're kind of deconstructing Western civilization. And so putting
[10:41] Speaker 3: something like empathy at the center where it doesn't belong,
[10:45] Speaker 3: where it's I would argue justice, truth, and love belong.
[10:50] Speaker 3: When those are jettisoned in favor of empathy, it's like
[10:54] Speaker 3: an engine that's poorly put together and the engine will
[10:57] Speaker 3: shake apart. So this moral framework, an epistemic framework that
[11:01] Speaker 3: puts empathy at the center is going to shake apart.
[11:05] Speaker 3: And that's what's happening.
[11:06] Speaker 2: You've been a long time vocal critic of progressivism, wokeism.
[11:11] Speaker 2: You've already mentioned it. Say a little bit more about
[11:13] Speaker 2: the connection you see there from sort of the ideology
[11:15] Speaker 2: perspective and suicidal empathy.
[11:18] Speaker 3: Yeah, well, that's it, isn't it? I think wokeism has
[11:22] Speaker 3: placed empathy, let's say, fellow feeling for those viewed as marginalized,
[11:28] Speaker 3: put that so central to the moral project that the
[11:31] Speaker 3: other things that ought to be in the center are
[11:33] Speaker 3: themselves marginalized. Hence, truth, well, you know, if it bothers
[11:37] Speaker 3: someone too much, don't talk about it. How about meaning? Oh, meaning,
[11:41] Speaker 3: that's up to you to decide. And if you decide that, oh, no, this, that, uh,
[11:46] Speaker 3: Structure of meaning is going to hurt the feelings of
[11:48] Speaker 3: a large group of people. Well, then don't talk about it.
[11:52] Speaker 3: Moral values. Well, if you keep harping on those moral values,
[11:55] Speaker 3: you're going to really hurt the feelings of certain people. See,
[11:58] Speaker 3: what you've done is in the name of empathy, which
[12:00] Speaker 3: is not a central, unquestionable value, you've now compromised things
[12:07] Speaker 3: that are central and non-negotiable values. That's the epistemic problem,
[12:13] Speaker 3: you know. What properly belongs in the center? Now, we
[12:18] Speaker 3: could revisit the classical people, justice and temperance and prudence,
[12:25] Speaker 3: and I would broaden the two to love and truth.
[12:29] Speaker 3: Those things are properly central to the moral enterprise. Empathy
[12:33] Speaker 3: is not one of those.
[12:35] Speaker 2: I'll try to ask this question as sincerely without it
[12:38] Speaker 2: being a critique of or criticism or rejection of progressivism,
[12:41] Speaker 2: but On the one hand, as you're describing it, it's
[12:44] Speaker 2: this ideology that rejects all objective values and all objective
[12:47] Speaker 2: moral claims that simply don't exist. They're the result of
[12:51] Speaker 2: power structures. But as suicidal empathy is bringing out, it's
[12:54] Speaker 2: also highly moralizing that you must act in certain ways
[12:57] Speaker 2: with these specific groups of people. Is there any way
[13:00] Speaker 2: internally to square those two claims or is it just
[13:03] Speaker 2: sort of hopelessly incoherent?
[13:05] Speaker 3: Well, I think it's incoherent, again, for the reason that
[13:06] Speaker 3: it's taken something that is valid but secondary and making
[13:11] Speaker 3: it primary, making it the central organizing principle of the
[13:15] Speaker 3: moral enterprise. That is not going to work. So that's
[13:18] Speaker 3: where the moralizing will come in. I mean, God knows
[13:21] Speaker 3: the wokest people moralize all the time. But they're doing
[13:24] Speaker 3: it in an incoherent way because their central value is,
[13:28] Speaker 3: as I think he properly points out, is empathy rather
[13:31] Speaker 3: than love, truth, and justice. And when that happens, the
[13:35] Speaker 3: thing will shake apart and actually will do far more
[13:38] Speaker 3: damage to the human project.
[13:41] Speaker 2: Do you see any Marxist or communist elements driving suicidal empathy,
[13:45] Speaker 2: especially recognizing that empathy is only for certain groups, those
[13:49] Speaker 2: associated with the oppressed, and certainly not for those who
[13:52] Speaker 2: are defined as oppressors?
[13:54] Speaker 3: I think that's it. That— binary of oppressor and oppressed.
[13:58] Speaker 3: And so, you know, the Frankfurt School is behind Fairmont awokism,
[14:02] Speaker 3: critical theory, and those are both certainly influenced by Marxism.
[14:07] Speaker 3: And I think that's one form that it takes is
[14:10] Speaker 3: the dividing of the world into antagonistic groups of oppressor
[14:13] Speaker 3: and oppressed. Catholic social theory, for example, would see society,
[14:17] Speaker 3: I think, in a much more subtle and variegated way
[14:19] Speaker 3: as a play of interdependent you know, classes and modes
[14:25] Speaker 3: of being and modes of organization. But the Marxist binary
[14:30] Speaker 3: haunts us today. So you're on one side or the other.
[14:33] Speaker 3: Everyone is so impossibly eager to get on the right
[14:37] Speaker 3: side of that binary. I want to be oppressed. You know,
[14:40] Speaker 3: I want to be an oppressed person, so I get
[14:42] Speaker 3: special consideration. But see what that's done is it's turned
[14:47] Speaker 3: us into— We're simply antagonistic constantly, and there's no way out,
[14:55] Speaker 3: it seems. You know, there's the guilty oppressors, but what's
[14:59] Speaker 3: the route of salvation? You know, how is justice ever found?
[15:04] Speaker 3: I don't think in a wokest framework there's a solution
[15:07] Speaker 3: to that problem.
[15:08] Speaker 2: Connected to that, to, you know, surveying the landscape, moral
[15:12] Speaker 2: landscape is best you can tell. Do you think suicidal
[15:15] Speaker 2: empathy is a result of sort of just an honest
[15:16] Speaker 2: mistake of good feelings that are just misguided? Or is
[15:19] Speaker 2: this something being orchestrated and calculated for political ends?
[15:23] Speaker 3: Well, I do think it's trickled down from the universities.
[15:25] Speaker 3: And I've said that for a long time. I think
[15:27] Speaker 3: you can almost trace when the contagion came from the
[15:31] Speaker 3: universities in Europe to American universities. postmodernism and the Frankfurt
[15:37] Speaker 3: School and critical theory and all that. And then it
[15:39] Speaker 3: worked its way through the university system. And then, you know,
[15:42] Speaker 3: when you say universities, it's very powerful because you're saying
[15:46] Speaker 3: the places that train other university professors, high school teachers,
[15:50] Speaker 3: grade school teachers, people very influential in the wider culture
[15:54] Speaker 3: have taken in this perspective. So I think it trickled
[15:58] Speaker 3: down very much from that. I do think there are
[16:01] Speaker 3: a lot of people who, in the wokest camp who
[16:04] Speaker 3: mean well, and they would see empathy as the same
[16:09] Speaker 3: as love. And it's not. And to my mind, as
[16:14] Speaker 3: I read Gad Saad's book, that's what came to mind
[16:17] Speaker 3: all the time. Empathy and love are different things. And
[16:22] Speaker 3: if you conflate them, or you reduce love to empathy,
[16:26] Speaker 3: then you've got the problem that he's put his finger on.
[16:28] Speaker 2: Let's now turn more directly in looking at how the
[16:31] Speaker 2: Catholic and Oxford tradition, the biblical tradition, can help us
[16:34] Speaker 2: understand and respond to this problem. So, Bishop, what, biblically speaking,
[16:38] Speaker 2: starting there, insight, do we have into the problem and
[16:42] Speaker 2: in the origin of suicidal empathy? What is it getting
[16:44] Speaker 2: wrong about humanity? What is it getting wrong about the
[16:47] Speaker 2: nature of the moral world?
[16:48] Speaker 3: It's getting wrong what love is. So, and I know
[16:52] Speaker 3: we talked before we went on camera here. It is
[16:55] Speaker 3: a limitation of the English language that we don't have
[17:00] Speaker 3: a word that really gets at what the Bible and
[17:03] Speaker 3: the great tradition mean. Because love is a very ambiguous word.
[17:06] Speaker 3: I mean, English is an incredibly rich language and subtle,
[17:09] Speaker 3: but it's a weakness of English that we don't have
[17:12] Speaker 3: a word that really names it. That's why I go
[17:15] Speaker 3: back to Thomas Aquinas all the time. To love is
[17:18] Speaker 3: not to have positive feelings about someone, it's not to
[17:22] Speaker 3: empathize with someone. To love is to will the good
[17:27] Speaker 3: of the other. And I like the austerity of that language.
[17:32] Speaker 3: Love is an act of the will, not a feeling
[17:35] Speaker 3: of the heart. Now, can it be accompanied by feelings
[17:39] Speaker 3: of the heart? Yes. Can feelings of the heart clue
[17:44] Speaker 3: you into the direction of love? Yeah, I think they're related.
[17:48] Speaker 3: And there I'd look to someone like Dietrich von Hildebrand
[17:50] Speaker 3: that wanted to bring the heart into the discussion more
[17:54] Speaker 3: than it had been. I think he's right about that.
[17:57] Speaker 3: But let's keep the clarity on austerity.
[17:59] Speaker 1: Of the definition.
[18:00] Speaker 3: To love is to will the good of the other.
[18:04] Speaker 3: Empathy is not to hurt the feelings of another. Those
[18:08] Speaker 3: are entirely different because sometimes to love someone means you
[18:14] Speaker 3: are going to hurt his feelings or her feelings, right?
[18:18] Speaker 3: I'll give you a couple of simple examples, but you know, we,
[18:21] Speaker 3: anyone that's lived a little bit sees all this stuff.
[18:24] Speaker 3: You're a university professor. Someone writes a lousy paper for
[18:29] Speaker 3: you and you give the grade of C and the student,
[18:33] Speaker 3: especially raised in our culture today, it expects an A
[18:36] Speaker 3: for everything. Right. And they see, and their feelings are
[18:40] Speaker 3: deeply hurt. I don't get that. They are. I remember
[18:43] Speaker 3: my feelings being hurt by bad grades when I was
[18:45] Speaker 3: a kid. Um, If I'm empathetic, that's my prime value, empathy, oh,
[18:53] Speaker 3: I'll change the grade. You know, I don't want to
[18:55] Speaker 3: hurt your feelings. And obviously, this is really affecting you,
[18:57] Speaker 3: so I'll give you an A. Well, what have you
[19:00] Speaker 3: done there? Well, first, you're standing in for truth because
[19:04] Speaker 3: it's not a good paper. It's not an A paper.
[19:06] Speaker 3: It's a C paper. But press it further. You're also
[19:11] Speaker 3: being unjust to that young person because you're You're discouraging
[19:16] Speaker 3: that young person from improving. I remember I had a
[19:20] Speaker 3: tough teacher. He was really good at freshman high school,
[19:22] Speaker 3: at Fenwick High School, taught us English. And he was
[19:25] Speaker 3: tough and did not take, you know, like, oh, no,
[19:28] Speaker 3: that sentence is okay. No, if your sentence was lousy,
[19:31] Speaker 3: he told you and it was covered with bad marks. And,
[19:34] Speaker 3: you know, he would even read bad sentences aloud. So
[19:38] Speaker 3: we would all like laugh at them. You know, what
[19:41] Speaker 3: a bad sentence. Well, thank God for him. Thank God
[19:45] Speaker 3: for him, because I spent much of my life writing,
[19:48] Speaker 3: and I go back to him. I really do. I
[19:51] Speaker 3: go back to things he taught me. What if he
[19:54] Speaker 3: had just said, oh, whatever you write, you get an A,
[19:57] Speaker 3: because I don't want to hurt your feelings. It would
[20:00] Speaker 3: be an act of deep injustice to me, right? So
[20:04] Speaker 3: you see what's going on there is I'm not negating
[20:08] Speaker 3: empathy or saying it's a bad thing in itself, but
[20:11] Speaker 3: it doesn't belong at the center of our concerns. What
[20:14] Speaker 3: does belong there is truth, justice, and love, which is
[20:19] Speaker 3: willing the good of the other. Giving that kid a C,
[20:24] Speaker 3: that's willing his good, right? Because it's telling him the
[20:27] Speaker 3: truth and urging him to get better. It's an act
[20:30] Speaker 3: of justice and love, even though it prompted very bad feelings.
[20:35] Speaker 3: Someone goes out for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. They're a
[20:38] Speaker 3: trombone player, right? And they're okay. They're pretty good, but
[20:43] Speaker 3: not Chicago Symphony level. And the guy says, nope, sorry,
[20:48] Speaker 3: we're not going to accept you. Feelings hurt? Undoubtedly. Deeply hurt. Angry? Probably.
[20:56] Speaker 3: What if you were to say, you're the head of
[20:57] Speaker 3: the Chicago Symphony. I don't want that guy's feelings to
[21:01] Speaker 3: be hurt. So yeah, we'll let you in the orchestra.
[21:04] Speaker 3: Come on, you're part of it. Oh, thank God you're
[21:06] Speaker 3: including me. And now you're being nice to me. No,
[21:09] Speaker 3: you're not. You have to be nice to that person
[21:11] Speaker 3: or anybody else, because now you're lowering the standards of
[21:15] Speaker 3: one of the finest orchestras in the world so that
[21:18] Speaker 3: those who come to hear the orchestra are now not
[21:21] Speaker 3: going to be hearing music at the finest level, are they?
[21:23] Speaker 3: And that trombone player that get one little bit better.
[21:28] Speaker 3: And it's going to be surrounded by players much better
[21:30] Speaker 3: than he, and it's going to be heard and embarrassed over. See,
[21:34] Speaker 3: the point is to say, no, you're not good enough
[21:37] Speaker 3: for this is maybe not empathetic, but it's an act
[21:42] Speaker 3: of love, an act of justice, an act of truth.
[21:46] Speaker 3: That's what matters. That's what needs to be at the
[21:49] Speaker 3: heart of the moral enterprise. Um, And I think Gad
[21:54] Speaker 3: Saad is putting his finger on this confusion, say, this
[22:00] Speaker 3: confusion between authentic love and empathy.
[22:03] Speaker 2: You know, I'm thinking of how you brought up Lonergan earlier,
[22:06] Speaker 2: who helps us understand that our intellect is fallen. Could
[22:10] Speaker 2: we also say that our emotional life is fallen and
[22:13] Speaker 2: we shouldn't take feelings about ourselves or others, but certainly
[22:16] Speaker 2: about ourselves, as necessarily normative, that maybe we do feel bad,
[22:20] Speaker 2: but we shouldn't feel bad.
[22:21] Speaker 3: That's right. And that feelings, look at Plato, you know,
[22:24] Speaker 3: knew this a long time ago that the feelings are
[22:26] Speaker 3: like the horses, you know, they're full of energy and
[22:29] Speaker 3: they're going in different directions. And it needs reason is
[22:33] Speaker 3: the charioteer that has the reins. And without the feelings,
[22:36] Speaker 3: that cherry won't go anywhere. I mean, they're going to
[22:38] Speaker 3: drive it. But under the aegis of reason, that's fundamentally right.
[22:44] Speaker 3: Of course, we all have feelings about all kinds of things.
[22:48] Speaker 3: But they've got to be controlled by reason and see
[22:50] Speaker 3: reasons governed by truth, justice, and love. When that's the combination,
[22:56] Speaker 3: now you're going to move forward confidently. Of course, you're
[23:00] Speaker 3: a parent. Any parent knows it. If you were to say,
[23:04] Speaker 3: In regard to my kids, my number one value is
[23:07] Speaker 3: to be empathic with them, empathetic, that I will never
[23:11] Speaker 3: hurt their feelings. I mean, you'd be the worst parent
[23:14] Speaker 3: in creation, right? My main job here is never hurt
[23:18] Speaker 3: my kids' feelings. Parents all the time are hurting kids' feelings,
[23:23] Speaker 3: all the time, right? Because you're motivated by truth, justice,
[23:27] Speaker 3: and love. You want what's best for that child, right?
[23:31] Speaker 3: God help us if parents have now forgotten that distinction
[23:35] Speaker 3: and empathy is now their primary value. Those kids will
[23:39] Speaker 3: be out of control, deeply unhappy, morally dysfunctional, right? I
[23:45] Speaker 3: mean– Yes.
[23:46] Speaker 1: Confirmed.
[23:48] Speaker 3: Right? But I think that's the best image is the
[23:51] Speaker 3: whole country is getting seduced in this direction of I
[23:55] Speaker 3: want to be the empathetic parent, not the loving parent. Yeah. Now,
[23:59] Speaker 3: something I said in an ex-post in a reaction to
[24:01] Speaker 3: this book is I kept thinking, Jesus does not say,
[24:05] Speaker 3: be empathetic with one another. He doesn't say, be empathetic
[24:10] Speaker 3: with your enemy. He says, love one another. Love your enemy.
[24:15] Speaker 3: Nor does John the Evangelist say, God is empathy. I mean,
[24:21] Speaker 3: I challenge you to read the Bible and tell me
[24:22] Speaker 3: that God is empathy. But the right formulation is God
[24:27] Speaker 3: is love. Right. God wills the good of his creation,
[24:32] Speaker 3: which means, man alive, there'll be a lot of hurt feelings. See,
[24:37] Speaker 3: but that confusion, even like the prevalence when I was
[24:42] Speaker 3: coming of age of the word compassion. See, compassion is
[24:44] Speaker 3: like empathy, passio, feeling in Latin, cum, to feel with. Okay,
[24:50] Speaker 3: I like compassion. I'm not against it, right? compassion is
[24:54] Speaker 3: good in itself, like empathy. But compassion and love are
[24:58] Speaker 3: not the same thing, right? I can, like, take it,
[25:01] Speaker 3: I mean, again, going back to your, I'm not a parent,
[25:03] Speaker 3: you're a parent, that when you have to correct one
[25:06] Speaker 3: of your kids and you express love in a challenging way,
[25:11] Speaker 3: I bet you feel compassion for your child.
[25:16] Speaker 1: Like, See them suffer.
[25:18] Speaker 3: Right. I know how this is landing in their hearts
[25:22] Speaker 3: and minds right now. I get it, of course, you know.
[25:26] Speaker 3: But nevertheless, you love rather than show compassion. And the
[25:32] Speaker 3: blurring of that distinction is the source of a lot
[25:35] Speaker 3: of mischief. Yeah.
[25:37] Speaker 1: And that's using the parent analogy.
[25:39] Speaker 2: That's a sacrifice not only for the recipient of the
[25:42] Speaker 2: tough truth, but the giver of.
[25:43] Speaker 1: The tough truth as well.
[25:45] Speaker 3: I totally get that. It would break your heart that
[25:47] Speaker 3: your kids have to suffer. But I think so many— my
[25:52] Speaker 3: father was a wonderful man in so many ways when
[25:54] Speaker 3: I was coming of age. And he was a deeply compassionate,
[25:57] Speaker 3: empathetic person. He really was. But he was a person
[26:01] Speaker 3: of love. And he guided me through some tough times
[26:05] Speaker 3: knowing like, yeah, I know how hard this is, but
[26:08] Speaker 3: this is the right thing for you to do. Like, one,
[26:11] Speaker 3: I've told this story a few times here in the
[26:12] Speaker 3: diocese that I joined the altar service when I was,
[26:15] Speaker 3: how old were you? Like nine or something. And I
[26:18] Speaker 3: went to the first meeting, I signed up, and then
[26:21] Speaker 3: I decided, I don't know, this is too much. I
[26:24] Speaker 3: don't like this. I don't want to get that early
[26:26] Speaker 3: and I don't want to wear this cassock. And so
[26:28] Speaker 3: I came home and I said, you know, I'm not
[26:30] Speaker 3: going to do this. And my father said to me,
[26:33] Speaker 3: you know, if you don't want to sign up for something,
[26:35] Speaker 3: you don't have to. But once you do, then you
[26:39] Speaker 3: do it. Well, I remember that to this day, And
[26:43] Speaker 3: it's a guiding principle of my life. It has been
[26:47] Speaker 3: where I've committed to something, you know, like, oh God,
[26:50] Speaker 3: I don't want to do this. I remember when I
[26:52] Speaker 3: went to Paris to do my doctoral studies and I
[26:57] Speaker 3: get off the plane. I'm in this foreign city, this language.
[27:00] Speaker 3: I kind of barely knew it was hot, uncomfortable. I
[27:04] Speaker 3: was living in this little tiny room at the Redemptor's house.
[27:08] Speaker 3: Believe me, my feelings were, get me out of here, right?
[27:13] Speaker 3: But I remembered my father. No, when you sign up
[27:17] Speaker 3: for it, you don't have to sign up. I didn't
[27:18] Speaker 3: have to go to Paris. I could have told, you know,
[27:21] Speaker 3: my superiors, no, I don't want to do doctoral studies.
[27:24] Speaker 3: But I signed up for it. So you stay. Well,
[27:27] Speaker 3: what is that? That's the voice of truth, love, and justice,
[27:31] Speaker 3: not the voice of your feelings. But I think Gad
[27:35] Speaker 3: Saad is right. When the feelings move into the central place,
[27:39] Speaker 3: God help us.
[27:40] Speaker 2: You know, one of the sort of generic assumptions about
[27:43] Speaker 2: what defines Christianity from the secular side, but also I
[27:46] Speaker 2: think among many Christians, is you're supposed to be nice
[27:49] Speaker 2: and you're supposed to be kind. Are those actually meaningful
[27:51] Speaker 2: moral categories from this deeper understanding of charity you're describing?
[27:55] Speaker 3: Stay with love. See, you know, again, I'm not against
[27:58] Speaker 3: kindness or niceness. Be nice. Be kind. Sure. Sure. All
[28:03] Speaker 3: things being equal. But kindness and niceness are not the
[28:06] Speaker 3: same as love. That's why it was Dostoevsky famously said,
[28:10] Speaker 3: now it's a cliche, but famously said that love is
[28:12] Speaker 3: a harsh and dreadful thing. Authentic love. Being nice is
[28:17] Speaker 3: never harsh and dreadful. Being kind isn't harsh and dreadful.
[28:21] Speaker 3: But real love is, you bet. Because love means willing
[28:24] Speaker 3: the good of the other. And that can mean something
[28:27] Speaker 3: very demanding and harsh and frightening, right? That's why to
[28:33] Speaker 3: be in relation to the God whose love It's a
[28:36] Speaker 3: fearful thing to fall in the hands of a living God,
[28:38] Speaker 3: says the Bible.
[28:39] Speaker 1: Right.
[28:40] Speaker 3: To fall in the hands of the empathetic, that's easy, right?
[28:44] Speaker 3: But a God of real love who wants what's right
[28:48] Speaker 3: for me and true for me and good for me,
[28:51] Speaker 3: that's a different game.
[28:52] Speaker 2: Bishop, I wish I could say that all of the
[28:54] Speaker 2: mischief of suicidal empathy is coming from the secular world,
[28:57] Speaker 2: but unfortunately it's not. As you know, there's many Christians
[29:01] Speaker 2: denominations that sort of have embraced this idea when you
[29:03] Speaker 2: said goddess empathy, I envisioned a bumper sticker perhaps on
[29:07] Speaker 2: the back of a Volvo who used empathy as the
[29:10] Speaker 2: primary category for describing what it means to love thy neighbor.
[29:17] Speaker 2: So what's sort of a pithy way of addressing that
[29:20] Speaker 2: form of suicidal empathy that's been falsely Christianized?
[29:25] Speaker 3: I think of here in Rochester, there was a church
[29:27] Speaker 3: that had the sign out in front of it. And
[29:30] Speaker 3: it says, love thy neighbor. And then it was like
[29:32] Speaker 3: an asterisk. And that means like black neighbor, brown neighbor.
[29:36] Speaker 1: Progressive ideology.
[29:37] Speaker 3: So there was a sign. And I kept thinking, yes,
[29:40] Speaker 3: but you have to define what you mean by love.
[29:43] Speaker 3: Because I bet what you, the author, that sign meant
[29:46] Speaker 3: by love is something like be nice to, be kind to,
[29:50] Speaker 3: and be empathetic with. Well, okay, you know, as far
[29:54] Speaker 3: as it goes. But see, if real love is involved—
[29:58] Speaker 3: And that means offering moral challenge to somebody. You know,
[30:02] Speaker 3: that's a different game being played. But I think the
[30:04] Speaker 3: Christian churches have been kind of lulled into this. And
[30:09] Speaker 3: then the fact that wokeism has so come to dominate
[30:11] Speaker 3: the culture. And see, I would argue, man, I think
[30:14] Speaker 3: I said it in my response on X, was as
[30:18] Speaker 3: Christianity has become attenuated and we become less of a
[30:22] Speaker 3: cultural force, wokeism has moved in. And that's the problem.
[30:27] Speaker 3: And not enough Christians know the distinction between love and
[30:30] Speaker 3: empathy to challenge it. And so the wokest philosophy is now, oh,
[30:36] Speaker 3: of course, you know, empathy, that's what matters the most. No,
[30:40] Speaker 3: love matters the most. Justice, truth matter the most.
[30:44] Speaker 2: So, you know, Bishop, one of the pillars of the
[30:46] Speaker 2: Catholic social thought tradition is the preferential option for the poor. Now,
[30:50] Speaker 2: that too is sometimes used as evidence in support of
[30:53] Speaker 2: a kind of empathetic view of, look, we're called to
[30:56] Speaker 2: Pay attention to the marginalized, to the voiceless, to the
[30:59] Speaker 2: most vulnerable. And what that means is to raise up
[31:01] Speaker 2: their interest over and above the interests of others.
[31:05] Speaker 1: How do we distinguish the authentic Catholic.
[31:08] Speaker 2: Understanding of the preferential option from the form of this
[31:10] Speaker 2: kind of hijacking of it?
[31:11] Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, no, because I think it's perfectly legitimate. If
[31:14] Speaker 3: you say there's these deep inequalities, deep injustices in society,
[31:18] Speaker 3: is it right to prefer to give a sort of–
[31:21] Speaker 3: special attention to those who are disadvantaged. Sure. No problem.
[31:25] Speaker 3: That's an expression of justice. You're trying to will the
[31:28] Speaker 3: good of the other. You're trying to render to the
[31:30] Speaker 3: other his due, you know? No, I have no quarrel
[31:33] Speaker 3: with that. And I'm with, you know, Leo XIII, who
[31:36] Speaker 3: would say, when the demands of necessity and propriety are
[31:40] Speaker 3: met in your own life, the rest of what you
[31:41] Speaker 3: own belongs to the poor. Well, that's pretty challenging stuff.
[31:44] Speaker 3: Or Thomas Aquinas speaks of the universal destination of goods.
[31:48] Speaker 3: Same idea, that the world belongs to God, not to us.
[31:51] Speaker 3: We are stewards of it. So the purpose of the
[31:58] Speaker 3: goods that I own is ultimately the common good. That's
[32:01] Speaker 3: Thomas Aquinas. I'm fine with that. That's good Catholic social teaching.
[32:05] Speaker 3: The relevant point, again, is love versus empathy. So if
[32:08] Speaker 3: you're doing that under the aegis of love, of truly
[32:11] Speaker 3: willing the good of the other, then fine, fine. And,
[32:14] Speaker 3: you know, here's the two, Matt, people of goodwill can
[32:16] Speaker 3: disagree about that. But what is the good of the
[32:19] Speaker 3: other in this case? Well, sure. That's why we got
[32:21] Speaker 3: Democrats and Republicans, why you've got liberals and conservatives of
[32:25] Speaker 3: goodwill who are disagreeing about the details of that. Fine.
[32:29] Speaker 3: I have no quarrel with that. But see, what we're
[32:33] Speaker 3: talking about is a confusion at a much more fundamental level.
[32:36] Speaker 3: It's not two people disagreeing about what's the best way
[32:38] Speaker 3: to will the good of the poor, it's now I've
[32:43] Speaker 3: jettisoned justice, truth, and love in favor of empathy. That's
[32:47] Speaker 3: the more fundamental problem.
[32:48] Speaker 2: Before moving on to our listener question, in sort of
[32:51] Speaker 2: a summary way, Bishop, looking at that contingent of the
[32:55] Speaker 2: woke progressive ideology, who is sincerely misguided, and they do have,
[32:59] Speaker 2: let's say, good hearts, what kind of message can we
[33:01] Speaker 2: give them as evangelists to sort of recognize the goodness
[33:05] Speaker 2: that is there, the desire of rightness that's there, or
[33:08] Speaker 2: maybe even righteousness? but helps them avoid the trap that
[33:11] Speaker 2: they're currently caught in.
[33:12] Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that's a good instinct, I think. And I've
[33:15] Speaker 3: often recommended that is when you're dialoguing with someone you
[33:17] Speaker 3: disagree with is find the point of contact. And the
[33:20] Speaker 3: point of contact, I would argue, and even as it
[33:23] Speaker 3: comes through critical theory and all that, it's a vestige
[33:27] Speaker 3: of Christianity, which has been the dominant thought form in
[33:32] Speaker 3: the West. And even those like Marx and company and
[33:35] Speaker 3: Foucault that repudiate it, In a way, you can't get
[33:38] Speaker 3: around it. That's, you know, Tom Holland's point in Dominion
[33:40] Speaker 3: is that you can't get around this Christian formation. And
[33:44] Speaker 3: so to see in this sort of sympathetic, empathic, you know,
[33:48] Speaker 3: concern for the marginalized and the poor, yeah, that is
[33:51] Speaker 3: a vestige of Christianity, indeed. As Holland argues, you know,
[33:56] Speaker 3: that concern for the suffering other, for the marginalized, that
[34:00] Speaker 3: goes right back to the cross of Jesus. Yeah, quite right.
[34:03] Speaker 3: So— Begin with that, but then make the– as Sokolowski
[34:07] Speaker 3: would say, philosophy is the art of making distinctions. Then
[34:11] Speaker 3: make the right distinction between empathy and love, and then
[34:15] Speaker 3: you'll be in the right place. It's– again, I would
[34:19] Speaker 3: stay with that. It's as Christianity has receded culturally. These
[34:24] Speaker 3: kind of aberrant forms of Christianity– and you might read
[34:27] Speaker 3: wokeism that way as sort of an aberrant form of
[34:30] Speaker 3: Christianity has asserted itself aggressively– And it will borrow the language,
[34:36] Speaker 3: like that sign, you know, it'll borrow the language of Christianity.
[34:41] Speaker 3: But at the heart of it is something that's really
[34:42] Speaker 3: not biblical, not Christian.
[34:44] Speaker 2: Well, it is now time for our listener question. Today
[34:51] Speaker 2: we have the young Augustine, a young man from Long Island,
[34:57] Speaker 2: asking about the classic question, where was God before time began?
[35:01] Speaker 3: Okay. Hi, Bishop Aaron.
[35:04] Speaker 1: I'm Augustine from Long Island, New York, and my question
[35:08] Speaker 1: is where God was before time existed.
[35:10] Speaker 3: May I say, Augustine, young Augustine, that is a very
[35:13] Speaker 3: Augustinian question. I don't know if you've read Augustine, but
[35:16] Speaker 3: he was preoccupied with the question of time and God's
[35:19] Speaker 3: relation to time. So you're living up to your name.
[35:22] Speaker 3: That's beautiful. Here's a quick answer. Time is a creature.
[35:26] Speaker 3: So before creation, there is no time. God is eternal,
[35:31] Speaker 3: which doesn't mean he exists endlessly in time. That's like
[35:35] Speaker 3: a vampire. He's outside of time. He's not caught in time.
[35:40] Speaker 3: So even to speak of like what's before creation is anomalous.
[35:45] Speaker 3: It's a category error, right? There isn't a before creation. Before, during, after,
[35:51] Speaker 3: that begins with creation, right? Time itself is a creature,
[35:58] Speaker 3: and God is outside of time. So he's not before creation.
[36:04] Speaker 3: He's other than creation, which includes time. That's a little
[36:09] Speaker 3: bit of a technical answer, but it's, you know, my inspiration,
[36:12] Speaker 3: Thomas Aquinas, but behind him, your hero, Augustine, is the
[36:16] Speaker 3: one who helped us think through those things.
[36:18] Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, Augustine, for reaching out to us.
[36:21] Speaker 2: If you'd like to ask Bishop Barron a question for
[36:23] Speaker 2: a future Word on Fire show, please visit askbishopbarron.com. Again,
[36:27] Speaker 2: that's askbishopbarron.com. Well, thank you again for a very enlightening conversation.
[36:33] Speaker 3: Always a pleasure, man. Thanks.
[36:34] Speaker 1: See you next time.
[36:35] Speaker 3: All right.
[36:36] Speaker 2: That does it for us today. Thanks for joining us
[36:38] Speaker 2: on the Word on Fire show. If you're interested in
[36:39] Speaker 2: learning more about how Word on Fire can help you
[36:42] Speaker 2: grow closer to Christ, become a better evangelist with and
[36:45] Speaker 2: for others, and work for the common good, consider joining
[36:48] Speaker 2: the Word on Fire Institute. Check us out at institute.wordonfire.org.
[36:52] Speaker 1: That's institute.wordonfire.org. We'll see you next time.

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