# Are Reverent Liturgies & Social Justice at Odds - Bishop Barron's Daily Sermons

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 23 Jul 2026, 34 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/73038766/are_reverent_liturgies_social_justice_at_odds.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show.
[0:01] Speaker 2: I'm Matthew Patrisak, senior director of the Word on Fire
[0:04] Speaker 2: Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show.
[0:06] Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us.
[0:08] Speaker 2: Does being committed to social justice entail neglecting the liturgy? Conversely,
[0:14] Speaker 2: do reverent liturgies entail downplaying or even ignoring the church's
[0:18] Speaker 2: mission to care for the poor?
[0:21] Speaker 1: The answer to both questions is a resounding no.
[0:25] Speaker 2: But how should we more precisely understand the right relationship
[0:29] Speaker 2: between the liturgy of the Church and the virtue of.
[0:31] Speaker 1: Justice, including social justice?
[0:33] Speaker 2: Should liturgical concerns inform how we think about justice? Should justice,
[0:38] Speaker 2: in turn, inform how we understand and participate in the liturgy,
[0:42] Speaker 2: including the Holy Mass? More broadly, is the right worship
[0:46] Speaker 2: of Our Lord equal in importance to performing good actions?
[0:49] Speaker 2: Or should one be given more priority over the other?
[0:53] Speaker 2: And how practically speaking, can we as a church overcome
[0:56] Speaker 2: the unnecessary divisions between so called liberal Catholics and conservative Catholics.
[1:03] Speaker 2: Here to help us address these and related questions on
[1:06] Speaker 2: the relationship between the liturgy and social justice is Bishop
[1:09] Speaker 2: Robert Barron.
[1:20] Speaker 1: Welcome back, Bishop to the studio. Goodnes see you, good
[1:24] Speaker 1: to have you again.
[1:25] Speaker 2: So before we get into today's topic, which is on
[1:28] Speaker 2: the relationship between the liturgy, the Church's liturgy, and justice
[1:32] Speaker 2: in general and social justice in particular, what have you
[1:35] Speaker 2: been up to recently?
[1:36] Speaker 3: Well, a number of things, but most notably the Eucharistic
[1:39] Speaker 3: Congress down in Indianapolis, which was a marvelous experience. I've
[1:44] Speaker 3: said to many that I've never spoken to a crowd
[1:47] Speaker 3: that size. I walked out that last night. There are
[1:50] Speaker 3: fifty thousand people in the stadium. Before then, I think
[1:53] Speaker 3: it was twenty six thousand when I was in Kracole.
[1:56] Speaker 3: I spoke at World his day to a big stadium,
[1:58] Speaker 3: but it was like another that's right level. But just
[2:02] Speaker 3: the enthusiasm and the and then the great thing about
[2:04] Speaker 3: those you know, kind of raucous quality of that crowd.
[2:07] Speaker 3: But then when the blessed sacraments brought in, fifty thousand
[2:10] Speaker 3: people like that become focused and silent and reverent. Was amazing.
[2:16] Speaker 2: It was outstanding. I was there too, and the procession
[2:19] Speaker 2: as well. You couldn't see the Eucharist in the distance,
[2:22] Speaker 2: but then you see the wave of people going down
[2:24] Speaker 2: on their knees.
[2:24] Speaker 1: It's just easy.
[2:25] Speaker 3: Yeah, that was earlier in the day on Saturday procession outdoors,
[2:28] Speaker 3: and it was extraordinary.
[2:30] Speaker 1: I'll remember the rest of my life.
[2:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, So you recently wrote an article entitled the higher
[2:35] Speaker 2: you go liturgically, the lower you should go in service
[2:38] Speaker 2: of the poor, and we're going to use that to
[2:40] Speaker 2: help frame our conversation today. But as we usually do,
[2:43] Speaker 2: let's lay down some conceptual groundwork, starting with the liturgy.
[2:47] Speaker 2: So and it sort of brought us sense what is
[2:50] Speaker 2: the liturgy in the church and what's it's functioned, both
[2:54] Speaker 2: for the church as a whole and for individual Catholics.
[2:57] Speaker 3: It's the official public prayer of the Church. The liturgy,
[3:01] Speaker 3: the work of the people is kind of what the
[3:03] Speaker 3: word means originally in the Greek, but it comes to
[3:06] Speaker 3: me the public official worship of the Church. And you know,
[3:10] Speaker 3: worship is at the heart of the manner because when
[3:12] Speaker 3: we worship God aright, we become rightly ordered. So it's
[3:16] Speaker 3: the act by which the church kind of defines itself
[3:19] Speaker 3: and the Church becomes who it's meant to be. It's
[3:23] Speaker 3: the source and summit. You know, Vatican too calls the
[3:25] Speaker 3: eucharust the source and summit. But it's what it's really
[3:27] Speaker 3: all about is this official public praise of God.
[3:31] Speaker 2: You've heard this question many times before, but I think
[3:33] Speaker 2: it's always important when we're discussing the allergy is the
[3:36] Speaker 2: question that comes from skeptics who say, why would God
[3:41] Speaker 2: either need or want to be worshiped, especially liturgically.
[3:44] Speaker 1: How do we answer that right?
[3:46] Speaker 3: Because he doesn't need it. God needs nothing. God is
[3:48] Speaker 3: the creator of all things, so how could the who
[3:50] Speaker 3: made everything from nothing possibly need anything? So God has
[3:54] Speaker 3: no needs. It's such an important idea because most of
[3:58] Speaker 3: false religion is dedicated upon the assumption that God does
[4:01] Speaker 3: have needs or the gods have needs, and therefore they're
[4:04] Speaker 3: going to start manipulating the world because they need certain things.
[4:08] Speaker 3: The true God, who made everything ex nilo, needs nothing,
[4:11] Speaker 3: so it doesn't need our liturgy. Now we can say
[4:15] Speaker 3: that God wants it in the sense that God wants
[4:18] Speaker 3: us to be fully alive. What He wants is for
[4:20] Speaker 3: us fully to flourish, which happens when we give right
[4:24] Speaker 3: praise to God. So I always think of it as
[4:27] Speaker 3: our great active worship breaks against the divine self sufficiency
[4:31] Speaker 3: and then comes back to our benefit. It's beautiful, it's
[4:34] Speaker 3: for us, it's not forgot just as you know our
[4:37] Speaker 3: does God need our moral excellence? No, God need anything.
[4:41] Speaker 3: You know, maybe we could speak of I need you
[4:44] Speaker 3: to do that for me. I need you to you know,
[4:46] Speaker 3: God needs nothing. He wants our moral excellence because he's
[4:51] Speaker 3: His nature is love and to love us, to will
[4:53] Speaker 3: the good of the other. So of course God wants
[4:55] Speaker 3: moral excellence from us. He wants our worship, but not
[4:58] Speaker 3: in any kind of needy way. The countrary. When you
[5:01] Speaker 3: fall into that trap, all kinds of trouble emerges in
[5:04] Speaker 3: the spiritual life and the theological life.
[5:07] Speaker 2: So another another critique that comes from skeptics is that
[5:10] Speaker 2: the liturgy is just a collection of words you can
[5:13] Speaker 2: think of, you know Hamlet's line, words, words, moves.
[5:16] Speaker 1: So what is the role of the word in the liturgy.
[5:20] Speaker 3: Well, look at you know, in the Bible, the word
[5:23] Speaker 3: is efficacious, not just descriptive, but especially God's word. So
[5:28] Speaker 3: when God speaks, things happen. God makes things to be.
[5:33] Speaker 3: A quittness will say that God's knowledge is never derivative
[5:36] Speaker 3: the way ours is. So you came in this morning,
[5:38] Speaker 3: and I look at you, and then oh man is
[5:41] Speaker 3: wearing this or that? You know, My knowledge of you
[5:43] Speaker 3: is derivative. But God, God's the unmoved, mover, the uncaused cast.
[5:47] Speaker 3: So God never benefits from something outside himself. Rather, things
[5:51] Speaker 3: are because God knows them. So think of the divine
[5:54] Speaker 3: speech here. Don't don't raify it as though God's a big,
[5:57] Speaker 3: you know, vocal court in the sky. But God, God's
[6:00] Speaker 3: speech means God's an intelligent act by which things come
[6:06] Speaker 3: to be, you know. Now, the liturgy is a play
[6:10] Speaker 3: of divine speech and human speech. It's a call and
[6:13] Speaker 3: response in a way. It's God calling out to us.
[6:16] Speaker 3: We call back to God, and in that conversation we're
[6:20] Speaker 3: drawn into deeper friendship with God. So that's what the
[6:23] Speaker 3: language comes in. The language is so important. We speak
[6:27] Speaker 3: of the matter and form of the sacraments, for example,
[6:29] Speaker 3: and the sacraments are liturgical acts, you know, baptism and
[6:32] Speaker 3: confirmation and so on, and they always involve something material,
[6:36] Speaker 3: whether it's it's oil of confirmation or water baptism, or
[6:39] Speaker 3: the bread and wine used to you know, confect the Eucharist.
[6:43] Speaker 3: Because we're embodied peoples, we need to appeal to the senses.
[6:48] Speaker 3: But then every sacrament involves form as well, and the
[6:52] Speaker 3: form it's more intelligible comes from speech. So speech that specifies,
[6:57] Speaker 3: you know. So when I'm confirming a kid, I say,
[6:59] Speaker 3: you know, be healed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.
[7:01] Speaker 3: I'm rubbing oil onto his forehead, and I'm saying those
[7:05] Speaker 3: words that specify what it means, you know. So liturgy
[7:10] Speaker 3: involves both matter and form. It involves the sensible, the visual,
[7:15] Speaker 3: and it involves the intelligible.
[7:17] Speaker 2: You say a little more about the importance of the
[7:18] Speaker 2: physicality of the liturgical elements, for example, the vestments and
[7:25] Speaker 2: the incense in some forms in the bells.
[7:27] Speaker 3: Why angels, that's the great answer with Tomas the Quintas saying,
[7:30] Speaker 3: why do we need both matter and form? And because
[7:32] Speaker 3: we're not angels. If we were angels, it would all
[7:34] Speaker 3: be at the formal level, the high intellectual level. But
[7:37] Speaker 3: we're embodied spirits in fact, for a quietness. You know,
[7:40] Speaker 3: we come to know even the highest things, but through
[7:43] Speaker 3: the senses we come to know God. But we start
[7:46] Speaker 3: with the senses. All knowledge comes from the senses. So
[7:49] Speaker 3: the same thing is true liturgically, is that we need
[7:52] Speaker 3: these sensible signs to engage our sensorium and to engage
[7:56] Speaker 3: our intelligence ultimately, and it's the kind of angel that
[8:00] Speaker 3: says we can get by with just the words. You know,
[8:05] Speaker 3: on got too polemical. But one of the great prost
[8:07] Speaker 3: and Catholic divides is there there was such a stress
[8:10] Speaker 3: in Prostantism upon the word, and they were recovering something.
[8:13] Speaker 3: It's important, you know, but there was such a stress
[8:16] Speaker 3: upon it that there was a kind of denuding of
[8:19] Speaker 3: the liturgy and the church of the visual. And so
[8:22] Speaker 3: you see it in the iconoclasm of the Reformation, where
[8:24] Speaker 3: churches literally were statues were hammered and windows were broken
[8:29] Speaker 3: and so on. That's not a Catholic sensibility. I mean,
[8:33] Speaker 3: we like the visual and the sensible smoke and bells
[8:37] Speaker 3: and colorful vestments and so on. It's not distracting us.
[8:42] Speaker 3: It's deepening our holistic response to God. And then one
[8:46] Speaker 3: more step there, Matt is the incarnation is that God
[8:50] Speaker 3: made an icon of himself. So Paul says that Jesus
[8:53] Speaker 3: is the icon of the invisible God. Well, he means
[8:56] Speaker 3: that the humanity of Jesus is the icon the visible
[8:59] Speaker 3: representation of the invisible God. Well, that's the ground for
[9:03] Speaker 3: all Christian art and for the visibility of the liturgy.
[9:08] Speaker 3: It comes from an incarnational principle, so we see the
[9:11] Speaker 3: liturgy as necessary for the right worship of God.
[9:14] Speaker 2: Is there a way to distinguish, in a sort of
[9:16] Speaker 2: a basic fundamental sense, between an authentic liturgy and an
[9:19] Speaker 2: inauthentic liturgy.
[9:21] Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I might be tempted to use Joseph
[9:24] Speaker 3: Rotsinger's idea of is it God centric or is it
[9:27] Speaker 3: human centric? And maybe it's overstating things a bit, it's
[9:31] Speaker 3: too simplictic, but there's something right in that instinct. Is
[9:33] Speaker 3: the liturgy directing you to God? Or is it kind
[9:36] Speaker 3: of going like this is directing you back to yourself?
[9:40] Speaker 3: Is the community turned in on itself in a kind
[9:43] Speaker 3: of circle of self preoccupation or is it orienting us
[9:47] Speaker 3: towards the divine? And one way to gauge that, and
[9:50] Speaker 3: Rotzknger certainly would have held this is are you following
[9:53] Speaker 3: the Roman right? Because the Roman right, and it's kind
[9:57] Speaker 3: of beautiful simplicity and austerity, intellectual clarity, poetic richness is
[10:03] Speaker 3: trying to do just that. So, you know, say the
[10:06] Speaker 3: words and do what the ritual is telling you to do.
[10:09] Speaker 3: There's a great objectivity to that, and it orders you
[10:13] Speaker 3: properly toward the divine. When I was coming of age,
[10:16] Speaker 3: you know, you're probably too young for this, but there
[10:18] Speaker 3: was a tendency to say, no, no, let's let's add
[10:20] Speaker 3: lib and let's be creative, and you know, don't get
[10:23] Speaker 3: don't get tied to this old book, but do it
[10:25] Speaker 3: your own way. And that was a disaster telling the truth,
[10:29] Speaker 3: you know, I don't. I mean, maybe Shakespeare could pull
[10:32] Speaker 3: it off with someone who add libbing words that were
[10:34] Speaker 3: so compellingly beautiful, but most of us can't, you know.
[10:37] Speaker 3: And so to stick with the ritual of the church
[10:40] Speaker 3: was a way of orienting us away from our own personality,
[10:43] Speaker 3: as our own hang ups, toward the properly sacred.
[10:46] Speaker 2: The liturgy is universal, properly right, and that's you know,
[10:50] Speaker 2: that's important.
[10:51] Speaker 3: Uh, there's a there's an objectivity, you know. Go back
[10:54] Speaker 3: to the Shakespeare example again. Let's say I go to
[10:57] Speaker 3: a production of Hamlet. Now, Hamlet can be done in
[10:59] Speaker 3: all kinds of different way, is different costuming and put
[11:02] Speaker 3: in different settings. But I don't want Tom playing with
[11:04] Speaker 3: the words, you know, I don't want I'm a new
[11:06] Speaker 3: creative approach to handling. I don't want that. I'm going
[11:08] Speaker 3: to Hamlet, to hear a Hamlet. Yeah, so in a
[11:11] Speaker 3: similar way, you don't want to be playing with the
[11:12] Speaker 3: words of the liturgy.
[11:13] Speaker 1: That's a fantastic analogy.
[11:15] Speaker 2: So you brought up Rats and your pope and at
[11:16] Speaker 2: the sixteenth who was also deeply involved with Vatican Two.
[11:20] Speaker 2: How do we respond to the critique coming from sectors
[11:24] Speaker 2: of the church that Vatican Two had a negative effect
[11:27] Speaker 2: on the liturgy.
[11:28] Speaker 3: No, not Vatican two. Look, I know all about the
[11:31] Speaker 3: negative effect on the allurgy. I live through it as
[11:34] Speaker 3: a kid, this time of radical experimentation, and that was
[11:38] Speaker 3: caused by a deep misreading of Vatican Two and by
[11:42] Speaker 3: a sort of liturgical experimentalism, I think, a self regarding
[11:47] Speaker 3: psychological approach to the liturgy. So there were abuses of
[11:50] Speaker 3: the liturgy, for sure, I live through them. I've lived
[11:54] Speaker 3: through even the reform of the reform, the attempt to
[11:57] Speaker 3: get it back online. But don't blame Vatican two. Don't
[12:00] Speaker 3: blame Sacrosanta, Concilium, the Great Document, and the liturgy. Everything
[12:04] Speaker 3: I've been talking about so far, in many ways is
[12:07] Speaker 3: predicated upon Sacrasanta and Concilia that came up out of
[12:10] Speaker 3: the liturgical movement of the early to mid twentieth century.
[12:13] Speaker 3: Think of Guardini, think of Carl adam our Country, think
[12:16] Speaker 3: of Godfrey Deekman, Virgil Michael Reynold Hillenbrand, all those people,
[12:21] Speaker 3: they were the ones who set the tone for Sacrasanta Concilium.
[12:24] Speaker 3: Also Pious the tenth, Pious the twelfth, all had a
[12:28] Speaker 3: role to play in that. So don't bad mouth that.
[12:32] Speaker 3: That's where I cautioned the you know, the rad traad peoples.
[12:34] Speaker 3: Don't bad mouth any of that bad mouth indeed the
[12:38] Speaker 3: weird corruption of it that happened after the Council. But
[12:42] Speaker 3: we get back online precisely by returning to Vatican two.
[12:45] Speaker 2: So this is episode's on the relationship between the liturgy
[12:48] Speaker 2: and justice, specifically social justice. When we get into your
[12:50] Speaker 2: article in just a moment, but let's lay down some
[12:53] Speaker 2: perceptual groundwork for justice as well. So what is the
[12:55] Speaker 2: Church's basic understanding of justice and why is it not
[12:58] Speaker 2: only important but virtue a cardinal virtue.
[13:01] Speaker 3: Yeah, and that goes back, of course before the Church,
[13:03] Speaker 3: as you well know, to the classical philosophical tradition that
[13:06] Speaker 3: sees justice as one of the cardinal or hinge virtues
[13:09] Speaker 3: of the of the moral life. Justice I mean, I
[13:12] Speaker 3: would use the old Platonic definition rendering to each his due.
[13:16] Speaker 3: In a way you could argue, I think that justice
[13:19] Speaker 3: is the hinge virtue of the hinge virtues, because it
[13:23] Speaker 3: means doing what's right. It's giving. It's like, right now
[13:28] Speaker 3: we're performing a just act in the measure that we're
[13:30] Speaker 3: both giving respect to each other. If I were abusing
[13:33] Speaker 3: you verbally, all right, well, I'm not giving what's due
[13:36] Speaker 3: to you as a human being. Your owe respect and
[13:39] Speaker 3: i'm olde respect, et cetera. So like even the simplest act,
[13:41] Speaker 3: or on the way over when people walk by me
[13:43] Speaker 3: and I said, you know, good morning, that's a just act.
[13:46] Speaker 3: I'm rendering what's due to that person. If I'm just
[13:49] Speaker 3: someone that's good morning to me, I just, you know,
[13:51] Speaker 3: brush by them. That's unjust. I'm not rendering what's due.
[13:55] Speaker 3: So my point there is it's not just grand acts
[13:57] Speaker 3: of you know, Martin Luther King, social justice is the
[14:00] Speaker 3: simplest act can be a just act. So it's a
[14:04] Speaker 3: cardinal virtue, a hinge virtue. Because the moral life really
[14:07] Speaker 3: depends upon how you live it and then the other
[14:10] Speaker 3: cardinal virtues surround it. Justice is threatened from the inside
[14:15] Speaker 3: by my disordered passions. So I need temperance, I need
[14:19] Speaker 3: balance in my internal life. It's also threatened by external forces.
[14:23] Speaker 3: They're telling me don't do that. They're threatening me not
[14:25] Speaker 3: to do what's right. So I need courage to hold
[14:28] Speaker 3: off those threats. And then finally I need prudence, which
[14:31] Speaker 3: is all right, the practical wisdom that tells me, yeah,
[14:35] Speaker 3: this is how you do the just thing right now,
[14:37] Speaker 3: this is what's called for here and now. So think
[14:41] Speaker 3: of justice now surrounded by those three other virtues. That
[14:45] Speaker 3: forms the foundation of the moral life. That's for I
[14:48] Speaker 3: think justice fits.
[14:49] Speaker 2: What kind of distinction should we draw between justice and charity?
[14:54] Speaker 3: Well, that opens up abysses, as they say, because I've
[14:58] Speaker 3: been articulating something that Aristotle have accepted, Plato more or less,
[15:01] Speaker 3: Cicero certainly, and the Catholic intellectual tradition took all that in.
[15:07] Speaker 3: It took in this framework for the moral life. But
[15:10] Speaker 3: that's the revelation added something else. It added what are
[15:13] Speaker 3: called the theological virtues. So beyond the natural or cardinal virtues,
[15:18] Speaker 3: you have the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love.
[15:22] Speaker 3: They come from the opening up of the transcendent world.
[15:25] Speaker 3: So faith, Acquainta says, is the yanawa vite spirituallyist. It's
[15:30] Speaker 3: the door of the spiritual life. Faith kicks open this
[15:34] Speaker 3: higher dimension. So now that ordinary life I'm describing of
[15:38] Speaker 3: walking over here and saying good morning and so on,
[15:40] Speaker 3: that's the ordinary world that we all experience. That there's
[15:43] Speaker 3: a higher world that contextualizes and conditions the lower world.
[15:48] Speaker 3: Faith opens me to that. Hope orders all of my
[15:51] Speaker 3: aspirations toward it. That my deepest aspiration. Now the trajectory
[15:56] Speaker 3: of my life is not just toward worldly attainment. You know,
[16:00] Speaker 3: let's say it for Aristotle, being a magnanimous person, or
[16:02] Speaker 3: being you know, successful in business or warfare or something. Fine.
[16:07] Speaker 3: But Hope says, no, no, my ultimate trajectory is toward God.
[16:10] Speaker 3: And then what's love or caritas? That's what heaven is.
[16:15] Speaker 3: Faith opens the door, Hope orients me toward it. Love
[16:19] Speaker 3: is what it is because deus caritas st right, God
[16:24] Speaker 3: is love. So the life of heaven is love. So
[16:28] Speaker 3: love willing the good of the other includes justice. So again,
[16:34] Speaker 3: go back to this morning, as I go by and
[16:36] Speaker 3: say good morning to someone, an act of justice, yeah
[16:39] Speaker 3: it is, Cicero would recognize. But I would press it.
[16:44] Speaker 3: I hope it was motivated to by a sense of love,
[16:47] Speaker 3: that I'm in the deepest way willing the good of
[16:51] Speaker 3: the other. You know. So in that way love caritas
[16:54] Speaker 3: includes justice, It perfects it. Quitea says that, or the
[16:59] Speaker 3: gratzia profaturum grace perfects nature. Doesn't eliminate, it doesn't eschew,
[17:04] Speaker 3: it doesn't demonize it at all. It takes it and
[17:07] Speaker 3: lifts it up into a higher context. That's where charity
[17:10] Speaker 3: comes in.
[17:11] Speaker 2: So so willing the good of the other, as writers,
[17:13] Speaker 2: seeing a charity sort of completes the giving the other
[17:15] Speaker 2: his or herd dud.
[17:16] Speaker 3: Yes, right, it lifts it up into the highest possible context.
[17:19] Speaker 3: Because ultimately, if I really love everyone, I will them
[17:23] Speaker 3: the good of heaven. I want them to join me
[17:27] Speaker 3: in the heavenly realm. So that's the highest good I
[17:29] Speaker 3: could possibly will them. So, you know, man, it's like
[17:33] Speaker 3: in Newman the Idea of University, he says, the idea
[17:36] Speaker 3: that a university is meant to produce the gentleman. Well,
[17:40] Speaker 3: a gentleman would be like an Arisotelian virtuous man, like
[17:43] Speaker 3: a Ciceronian statesman. And yes, and that's appropriate. The university
[17:47] Speaker 3: is meant to produce it. But then at the very end,
[17:49] Speaker 3: Newman says, but then there's something else. There's the saint,
[17:53] Speaker 3: and the saint typically doesn't look like a gentleman like Frands.
[17:57] Speaker 3: It is easy what a fine gentleman here, wouldn't be
[18:00] Speaker 3: tempted to say, or like, that's that's an Aristotelian virtuous man.
[18:03] Speaker 3: He's something else, Maximalie Colbert, what a gentleman, what a
[18:07] Speaker 3: gentlemanly act he performed at Auschwitz? He said, well, no,
[18:10] Speaker 3: that doesn't begin to you know, So that the saint
[18:14] Speaker 3: is something else because he or she has been conditioned
[18:17] Speaker 3: by the theological virtues. So it's a very to me,
[18:20] Speaker 3: a very interesting conversation to have. And the Catholic moral
[18:24] Speaker 3: tradition includes all of that.
[18:26] Speaker 2: That's a really great primer on virtue theory, Catholic virtue theory.
[18:29] Speaker 1: But let's turn briefly to social justice.
[18:31] Speaker 2: So social justice, as you know, understandably has very negative
[18:35] Speaker 2: connotations among among many when it's being defined from a
[18:38] Speaker 2: secular perspective. So how do we distinguish the Catholic conception
[18:42] Speaker 2: of social justice from sort of the reigning secular conception
[18:45] Speaker 2: of social justice?
[18:46] Speaker 3: Right, And that's happened in my lifetime really when I
[18:48] Speaker 3: was a kid. If you say social justice, people say, oh, yeah,
[18:50] Speaker 3: you know, it's smartin Luther King and it's the civil
[18:52] Speaker 3: rights movement and all that. But it came to be
[18:54] Speaker 3: a kind of cliche almost, and it came to signal
[18:58] Speaker 3: a very left wing approach to all those questions, or
[19:01] Speaker 3: a very this worldly approach. I prefer, therefore to speak
[19:05] Speaker 3: of like the church's social teaching, the church's social doctrine.
[19:09] Speaker 3: We should be advocating the social teaching of the church
[19:13] Speaker 3: coming up out of the Bible and Jesus and the
[19:15] Speaker 3: Church fathers and a clientas, but then finding very rich
[19:18] Speaker 3: expression in the popes from Leo the thirteenth to Francis,
[19:22] Speaker 3: that that's the tradition that we should be teaching, and
[19:25] Speaker 3: that embodies all of these virtues if you want. But
[19:28] Speaker 3: now see not just one on one, but seen within
[19:31] Speaker 3: a social context. What doesn't mean to render to each
[19:34] Speaker 3: as do now in a social context. So the church
[19:37] Speaker 3: speaks of not just church, but more broadly the tradition
[19:40] Speaker 3: of distributive justice and of legal justice and the communitative
[19:45] Speaker 3: justice and so on, and they're all different ways of
[19:47] Speaker 3: talking about what we owe each other in a social
[19:50] Speaker 3: context or a principle like the preferential option for the poor.
[19:54] Speaker 3: It speaks of what I owe to those who are
[19:57] Speaker 3: especially burdened in a society. Do I have a special
[20:01] Speaker 3: obligation socially to them something is as simple as paying
[20:04] Speaker 3: your taxes. Well, that's an expression of legal justice. It's
[20:07] Speaker 3: my individual as an individual relating to the government government.
[20:12] Speaker 3: We speak of distributive justice. How the government relates to
[20:16] Speaker 3: the individuals in society. So I pay taxes and then
[20:19] Speaker 3: we receive social benefits, et cetera. So now broad that
[20:23] Speaker 3: out to all kinds of other fields. And you have
[20:24] Speaker 3: the church's social doctrine. And I'm with John Paul too.
[20:28] Speaker 3: I think knowing the Church's social doctrine is key to
[20:31] Speaker 3: the new evangelization. It's a way that we evangelize our society.
[20:35] Speaker 3: So let's not turn to your article. The higher you
[20:37] Speaker 3: go liturgically, the lower you should go and serve it
[20:39] Speaker 3: to the poor. And the very introductory paragraph you write
[20:43] Speaker 3: in quoting you here, the worship of God must lead,
[20:46] Speaker 3: must must lead to the care for the poor, and
[20:48] Speaker 3: the care for the poor must lead to the worship
[20:50] Speaker 3: of God. Similar Bishop about why you chose the word
[20:53] Speaker 3: must there. Why is there an imperative in the relationship
[20:56] Speaker 3: between those two. I think I'm just trying to honor,
[20:58] Speaker 3: you know, Jesus, the two great commandments, that you love God,
[21:00] Speaker 3: and because you love God, of course you love your neighbor. Now,
[21:03] Speaker 3: why the principle is if I love God above all things,
[21:06] Speaker 3: and that's that's the that's always the first commandment, well,
[21:09] Speaker 3: then I will naturally, inevitably, as a consequence, love everything
[21:14] Speaker 3: that God loves.
[21:16] Speaker 2: You know.
[21:16] Speaker 3: The example I've used here before. Maybe it's a little corny,
[21:19] Speaker 3: but when I was out in California, I twice got
[21:21] Speaker 3: out to the Reagan Ranch, right, which is not far
[21:23] Speaker 3: from my house in Santa Barbara up in the mountains,
[21:26] Speaker 3: and the Reagan Ranch. It's Ronald Reagan. It's kind of
[21:30] Speaker 3: rustic and simple. The house is very simple. The bedroom
[21:35] Speaker 3: was was two single beds kind of smashed together, and
[21:37] Speaker 3: his bed was too short, so there was like this
[21:39] Speaker 3: weird little ottoman coming off the end of it. There
[21:42] Speaker 3: were mice in the house. He loved to go out
[21:45] Speaker 3: and chop wood and the right horses. Well. Nancy Reagan right,
[21:50] Speaker 3: his wife, was known for her kind of a high
[21:52] Speaker 3: society lady, and loved, you know, very elegant settings, and
[21:55] Speaker 3: that in the beginning she was not a big fan
[21:57] Speaker 3: of the ranch for obvious amazements, you know, But she
[22:01] Speaker 3: loved him and he loved the ranch, and so she
[22:05] Speaker 3: loved the ranch. And the people that knew them say,
[22:09] Speaker 3: that's exactly how it works. She really did come to
[22:11] Speaker 3: love it because she loved him and he loved the ranch.
[22:14] Speaker 3: So I love God above all things great? Well, who
[22:17] Speaker 3: is God love everybody? And so must I must therefore
[22:22] Speaker 3: love everybody else Because I love God, I love what
[22:24] Speaker 3: He loves, you know. So that's why the liturgy, which
[22:27] Speaker 3: gives expression to our great praise and worship of God,
[22:30] Speaker 3: this is the liturgical movement people must lead to now,
[22:33] Speaker 3: a commitment to loving our neighbor.
[22:36] Speaker 2: The same more than about sort of the reverse, reversing
[22:39] Speaker 2: that form. And I think it's clear you've just laid
[22:41] Speaker 2: it out very clearly of how loving God would necessarily
[22:44] Speaker 2: entail loving the neighbor in a very concrete way. But
[22:47] Speaker 2: how would loving the neighbor be specifically caring for the poor,
[22:49] Speaker 2: How would that necessarily lead to the love of God?
[22:53] Speaker 3: Heready go back to I'll go outside the Catholic tradition
[22:55] Speaker 3: to Emmanuel leving Us, the great twentieth century Jewish philosopher,
[22:58] Speaker 3: you know, who said the deepest source of moral value
[23:02] Speaker 3: is the face of the sufferer. You know, So he
[23:07] Speaker 3: kind of eschewed abstract approaches the moral life. But when
[23:11] Speaker 3: you see the face of someone who's suffering, what you
[23:15] Speaker 3: sense ultimately is God. What you sense is the ultimate
[23:19] Speaker 3: meaning of things, the ultimate purpose of things. The deepest
[23:23] Speaker 3: summons of a human heart is towards that active love.
[23:26] Speaker 3: And so in that sense, the love of neighbor naturally
[23:30] Speaker 3: conduces toward the love of God. It's in loving my neighbor,
[23:34] Speaker 3: and that can be easier than loving God. Can seem
[23:38] Speaker 3: kind of abstract, or how do I do that exactly,
[23:39] Speaker 3: But the simplest act of love actually opens me to
[23:44] Speaker 3: the source of all love, the reason why I love
[23:48] Speaker 3: in the first place. So in that sense it works
[23:51] Speaker 3: in the reverse. The more I give myself to the
[23:54] Speaker 3: person in need, the more I'm open to the source
[23:57] Speaker 3: of love.
[23:58] Speaker 2: So it's not only a logical relationship. Self is kind
[23:59] Speaker 2: of an experiential encounter with the other.
[24:02] Speaker 3: I think so, I think. So it's just kind of
[24:04] Speaker 3: a sacramental thing. You know, think of the great saints
[24:06] Speaker 3: who they start with the simplest act of love. Something
[24:10] Speaker 3: I tell people a lot when they write to me
[24:12] Speaker 3: and say, and I have trouble believe in God, and
[24:14] Speaker 3: I've read arguments, and you know what, what do I do?
[24:18] Speaker 3: And it's an old answer. I say, perform an active
[24:21] Speaker 3: love today. Find someone that's in need, who's who's good.
[24:25] Speaker 3: You can will and do it, and you'll find yourself
[24:29] Speaker 3: on the path that leads you to Deaus who asked
[24:33] Speaker 3: Caritas right, if God is love, that when I love,
[24:37] Speaker 3: I'm moving into the space of God. Willy nilly, you know,
[24:41] Speaker 3: even unbeknownst to myself, I'm moving into the divine space
[24:44] Speaker 3: when I love. That's part of how I would read
[24:46] Speaker 3: someone like Lebinas on that, you know, in the face
[24:49] Speaker 3: of the suffering other, I'm moving into God's space.
[24:53] Speaker 2: You also say in the article you use the word
[24:55] Speaker 2: that it's dangerous to choose either one of the two,
[24:59] Speaker 2: either to go in the literature direction or to go
[25:00] Speaker 2: to the ry.
[25:02] Speaker 1: What what's the danger? What's the potential that I.
[25:04] Speaker 3: Will bifurcate exactly what we're talking about. I'll bifurcate this relationship,
[25:07] Speaker 3: and I'll the God I'll start loving isn't the true God. Right,
[25:11] Speaker 3: So if Nancy Reagan will say, you know, I did
[25:13] Speaker 3: I love Ronnie. I just can't stand that Ranch, you know,
[25:18] Speaker 3: Or let's say she's I've come so to love that Ranch,
[25:21] Speaker 3: but I'm not crazy about him anymore. It was the
[25:24] Speaker 3: coming together, you know that that mattered. So I think
[25:27] Speaker 3: in the same way, the danger is, look, and we've
[25:30] Speaker 3: seen that is I can fly off into a sort
[25:32] Speaker 3: of abstract you know, maybe monasticism or something, right, I
[25:37] Speaker 3: just caught up in the in the abstract love of God,
[25:41] Speaker 3: or I go into becoming a social justice warrior. And
[25:44] Speaker 3: the key is it's both at the same time. Now
[25:47] Speaker 3: Dorothy Day and now Virgil Michael, and now Romano Guardini
[25:50] Speaker 3: and now Sacrosota Vincilia and Dorothy Day, all those people
[25:54] Speaker 3: they got that, they got that relationship. And that's one
[25:57] Speaker 3: of my fears after the council did get bifurcated.
[26:01] Speaker 2: So let's let's try and put a finer point on this,
[26:04] Speaker 2: because I think it's You've made it crystal clear abstractly,
[26:07] Speaker 2: you know how how the love of God and relates
[26:09] Speaker 2: to the relationship to caring for the poor.
[26:12] Speaker 1: Let's bring it down to the liturgical level.
[26:14] Speaker 2: So we think of liturgy, we're talking specifically, for example,
[26:17] Speaker 2: what's taking place in the mass within a church.
[26:19] Speaker 1: We think of social justice.
[26:20] Speaker 2: We think of what's taking place out in the in
[26:22] Speaker 2: the public arena and the political and judicial arenas. How
[26:25] Speaker 2: do we more specifically connect those two the liturgy to
[26:29] Speaker 2: acts of justice and social justice.
[26:31] Speaker 3: Well, think of the liturgy as itself the great act
[26:34] Speaker 3: of justice, right of the re establishing of the right
[26:37] Speaker 3: relationship between God and human beings. So that happened on
[26:40] Speaker 3: the Cross, and the Mass is the representation of the Cross.
[26:46] Speaker 3: In the great sacrifice of the Mass, what you see
[26:49] Speaker 3: is the reconciliation of divinity and humanity, Jesus bringing sinful
[26:54] Speaker 3: humanity to the Father and then receiving the infinite mercy.
[26:57] Speaker 3: And thereby the human races say, if we say in
[27:00] Speaker 3: the cross, so it's the great act of justice. So
[27:03] Speaker 3: of course, when the priests or the bishop says, now
[27:06] Speaker 3: go the mass ended, go glorify Lord by your life,
[27:08] Speaker 3: go proclaim I'm with de Lubac that those are the
[27:13] Speaker 3: most sacred words of the Mass. After the words of consecration,
[27:15] Speaker 3: because now you've been crystified, you've been set right at least,
[27:20] Speaker 3: you know, sacramentally smoking. Go now, go set the world right,
[27:24] Speaker 3: you know. So of course when you leave Mass, you're
[27:27] Speaker 3: not in a way not exiting the liturgical space. You're
[27:31] Speaker 3: you're expanding the liturgical space. You're bringing it out now
[27:34] Speaker 3: into the world.
[27:35] Speaker 1: That's beautiful.
[27:37] Speaker 2: So two final questions on this, on this theme or
[27:39] Speaker 2: in relation to your article, how should we respond to
[27:42] Speaker 2: Atheists and skeptics would say, look, this sounds good, but
[27:46] Speaker 2: we can actually do all the work of social justice
[27:48] Speaker 2: and justice that we need without having any kind of
[27:50] Speaker 2: liturgical conversation whatsoever.
[27:53] Speaker 3: Well, I mean, you can do the work of social justice. Sure,
[27:55] Speaker 3: an atheist of goodwill could say, I really have a passion,
[27:58] Speaker 3: you know, for the poor and so on. That's great.
[28:01] Speaker 3: I'd rather you do that than not do that. But
[28:03] Speaker 3: I think there is a kind of built in trajectory
[28:06] Speaker 3: that moves from that kind of love to the love
[28:10] Speaker 3: of the transcendent. I think it's almost an act of
[28:14] Speaker 3: the will to bracket the transcendent. For all of human history,
[28:19] Speaker 3: except really for our time, human beings have seen that
[28:22] Speaker 3: relationship that it just sort of naturally opens you to it,
[28:26] Speaker 3: so you can be a person of justice, sure, apart
[28:29] Speaker 3: from belief in God, but I think it inevitably leads
[28:32] Speaker 3: you to that deeper perception of the ground of what
[28:37] Speaker 3: you're doing, the deeper rationale for what you're doing. I
[28:41] Speaker 3: do believe very strongly that it's evangelical that the more
[28:46] Speaker 3: we draw people into a life of love, the more
[28:48] Speaker 3: we are going to draw them to God. You know,
[28:51] Speaker 3: try as they might, they can't resist it.
[28:54] Speaker 2: And a question coming from within the church, how do
[28:56] Speaker 2: we even account for contemplative or cloistered orders that have
[28:59] Speaker 2: a very strict liturgical and beautiful liturgical life, but aren't
[29:02] Speaker 2: doing the work outside of the walls.
[29:05] Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's something to the fact that the church
[29:08] Speaker 3: is very gated in its expression, so people will specialize
[29:11] Speaker 3: in various things. At the same time, even the most cloistered,
[29:15] Speaker 3: secluded monk or think of a Carthusian, Well, they're praying
[29:20] Speaker 3: for the world, so their prayer is not just self absorbed.
[29:24] Speaker 3: It's not like Platinus, you know, who said my goal
[29:26] Speaker 3: is to be alone with the alone. So that's a
[29:29] Speaker 3: kind of high neoplatonic mysticism that's not the Bible. The
[29:32] Speaker 3: Bible is always mission oriented, so every monk is mission oriented.
[29:36] Speaker 3: They're praying for the world, and they're praying for those
[29:41] Speaker 3: who are doing that work. So think of the great
[29:44] Speaker 3: image from the Book of Exodus, right where the Moses
[29:46] Speaker 3: is holding up his arms and people are holding up Moses,
[29:49] Speaker 3: you know, and then the battle's going well as long
[29:51] Speaker 3: as well the monks are by their prayer supporting the
[29:55] Speaker 3: work of the Church, which in turn supports those who
[29:57] Speaker 3: are involved in the trenches, you know. So part of
[30:00] Speaker 3: that is just the variegated quality of ecclesial life.
[30:03] Speaker 2: So as a final question, how does this, this way
[30:07] Speaker 2: that you've described the relationship between the liturgy and justice
[30:10] Speaker 2: and social justice, how does this help us solve this
[30:12] Speaker 2: completely unnecessary rift between so called liberal Catholics and conservatives.
[30:16] Speaker 3: Yes, I've been saying that for years because it's bothered
[30:18] Speaker 3: me in my lifetime. Certainly that's obtained this split, and
[30:23] Speaker 3: it happened after the Council, not because of the Council,
[30:26] Speaker 3: mind you, because the Council is very good on that,
[30:28] Speaker 3: very clear read for example, lumin Gensium, sacras concilium and
[30:32] Speaker 3: goud euman speeds together.
[30:34] Speaker 1: Right.
[30:34] Speaker 3: So the document on the Church, document, the Allurgy, Document
[30:37] Speaker 3: on the Church of the modern World, and everything we've
[30:39] Speaker 3: been talking about it. It's all there, So don't blame
[30:42] Speaker 3: the council. But after the council, there was a tendency
[30:45] Speaker 3: to split my years in the seminary. You're a social
[30:48] Speaker 3: justice guy, you're a liberal, you're a liturgical guy, you're
[30:51] Speaker 3: a conservative. And today that still, you know, holds to
[30:55] Speaker 3: some degree. I hate that. I hate that distinction and
[30:59] Speaker 3: I want to bring that back together. That's one reason
[31:01] Speaker 3: I keep invoking someone like Dorothy Day. That's that I
[31:03] Speaker 3: agree with every single thing she said, but she embodied
[31:06] Speaker 3: the coming together of the two things. There was no
[31:09] Speaker 3: one more devoted to social justice in the twentieth century
[31:11] Speaker 3: than Dorothy Day, and no one more devoted to the
[31:15] Speaker 3: liturgy than Dorothy Day Merton, you know, who's a Trappist monk,
[31:20] Speaker 3: his whole life about the liturgy and is also this
[31:22] Speaker 3: great advocate of social justice. Fulton Sheen read Genes from
[31:26] Speaker 3: the thirties. His book on the Church has a very
[31:30] Speaker 3: strong sense of Catholic action. You know, that's the generation
[31:34] Speaker 3: I really like. Those people kept it together. They gave
[31:37] Speaker 3: rise to Vatican two. But then it did split apart
[31:41] Speaker 3: unhelpfully after the council.
[31:46] Speaker 2: Oh, Bishop, it's now time for our listener question. Today
[31:49] Speaker 2: we have Ralph from southern California who has a question
[31:53] Speaker 2: about the necessity of believing in the literal resurrection of Christ.
[32:00] Speaker 4: Love, Bishop Baron, my name is Ralph from southern California.
[32:03] Speaker 4: I'm not a Christian, but have been learning about Christianity
[32:06] Speaker 4: for some time now. I've been preoccupied with the miracle
[32:09] Speaker 4: of the resurrection. Recently, I was told by a Catholic
[32:12] Speaker 4: friend that you can be Catholic without believing that the
[32:14] Speaker 4: resurrection actually happened, that you can view it as a
[32:17] Speaker 4: literary symbol. According to my friend, you can be Christian
[32:20] Speaker 4: merely by accepting and living in accordance with the values
[32:23] Speaker 4: of the faith. Is my friend correct?
[32:26] Speaker 3: No, And I don't want to be you know, kind
[32:29] Speaker 3: of flip and saying it that way. But you know,
[32:32] Speaker 3: Saint Paul, so if Christ has not been raised, our
[32:34] Speaker 3: faith is vain and we're the most pitiable of people.
[32:38] Speaker 3: So no, the resurrection is the cornerstone of Christian faith.
[32:43] Speaker 3: Now there is a distinction between you know, as simple
[32:46] Speaker 3: as a resuscitation, think of Lazarus someone coming back from
[32:50] Speaker 3: the dead only to die again. Well, Jesus, that's not
[32:53] Speaker 3: what we're talking about. We're talking about a transfiguration. We're
[32:57] Speaker 3: talking about an elevation to a higher pitch of existence.
[33:01] Speaker 3: But that Jesus rose bodily from the dead, yes, is
[33:05] Speaker 3: a cornerstone of Catholic faith. If you see it simply
[33:08] Speaker 3: as a literary device or a symbol, No, you can't
[33:11] Speaker 3: be a Christian. You're not a Christian. I don't want
[33:14] Speaker 3: to put it in like legalistic terms. You're not a Christian.
[33:17] Speaker 3: So I would say, keep going, keep pressing on that issue.
[33:20] Speaker 3: Read nt Writ's great book called The Resurrection of the
[33:24] Speaker 3: Son of God. To me, it's the most thorough going
[33:27] Speaker 3: biblical analysis of what we mean by the resurrection. Nt Right,
[33:32] Speaker 3: take a look at him.
[33:33] Speaker 1: Well, thanks so much Ralph for your question.
[33:35] Speaker 2: If you would like to ask Bishop Baron a question
[33:38] Speaker 2: on a future Word on Fire show, please visit Askbishop
[33:41] Speaker 2: Baron dot com. That's ask Bishop Baron dot com and
[33:45] Speaker 2: you can submit your question there. Well, Bishop, another wonderful conversation. No,
[33:51] Speaker 2: look forward to the next one. All right, that does
[33:53] Speaker 2: it for us today. Thanks for joining us on the
[33:55] Speaker 2: Word on Fire Show. If you're interested in learning more
[33:57] Speaker 2: about how Word on Fire can help you grow closer
[34:00] Speaker 2: to Christ, become a better evangelist with and for others,
[34:03] Speaker 2: and work for the common good, consider joining the Word
[34:06] Speaker 2: on Fire Institute. Check us out at Institute dot.
[34:09] Speaker 1: Word on fire dot org.
[34:10] Speaker 2: That's institute dot word on fire dot org.
[34:14] Speaker 1: We'll see you next time.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.