# Is Safety Culture Good for Us-Bishop Barron's Daily Sermons

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 18 Jul 2026, 31 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72754564/is_safety_culture_good_for_us.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Matthew
[0:02] Speaker 1: Patruse six, Senior director of the Word on Fire Institute
[0:05] Speaker 1: and host of the Word on Fire Show.
[0:07] Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us. Is safety culture good for us?
[0:12] Speaker 1: The words stay safe became a popular way of saying
[0:15] Speaker 1: goodbye during the pandemic, understandably so. The pandemic, however, has
[0:21] Speaker 1: long come to an end. Yet the category of safety
[0:25] Speaker 1: still seems to dominate the culture, and not only in medicine.
[0:29] Speaker 1: Terms like safe spaces, trigger warnings, harm reduction, microaggression, emotional
[0:35] Speaker 1: well being, and fragility are dominating the governance of many institutions,
[0:41] Speaker 1: including K through twelve schools, higher education, corporate human resource
[0:45] Speaker 1: departments NGOs, and even governmental agencies. At the same time,
[0:51] Speaker 1: this hyper focus on safety does not seem to have
[0:54] Speaker 1: had any positive effect on most people's lives. In fact,
[0:59] Speaker 1: by some measurements, our society is more physically compromised and
[1:03] Speaker 1: mentally delicate than ever. The connection between promoting safety and
[1:08] Speaker 1: seeing actual improvements in mental and physical health, in other words,
[1:12] Speaker 1: seems more complex than it may initially appear. Today we
[1:16] Speaker 1: discuss the contemporary embrace of safety and how it does
[1:20] Speaker 1: and does not overlap with a Catholic understanding of the
[1:24] Speaker 1: individual and common good. Is Bishop Robert Baron.
[1:38] Speaker 2: Well, welcome back to the studio. Bishop.
[1:40] Speaker 1: Today we're going to be talking about the contemporary embrace
[1:43] Speaker 1: of safety culture, and I want you to let you
[1:46] Speaker 1: know this is a safe space.
[1:48] Speaker 3: I'm hope you feel a first.
[1:52] Speaker 2: But before we jump into the topic, what have you
[1:54] Speaker 2: been up to lately?
[1:55] Speaker 3: Well, a lot of things. It's a confirmation season so
[1:58] Speaker 3: for most, like most bishops around the com I'm running
[2:01] Speaker 3: around my diocese confirming kids, which I enjoy very much.
[2:04] Speaker 3: In California we did h just for intensely in two months,
[2:09] Speaker 3: all the confirmations in my region, so I would confirm
[2:12] Speaker 3: thousands thousands of kids. Probably fewer kids here, but you know,
[2:15] Speaker 3: maybe as many trips around. What I like a lot
[2:18] Speaker 3: of things about it. One is getting around my diocese,
[2:20] Speaker 3: you know, so I see all kinds of places and
[2:23] Speaker 3: I just find confirmations, you know, uplifting and try to
[2:26] Speaker 3: inspire these kids. So that's been my main preoccupation the
[2:29] Speaker 3: last couple of weeks.
[2:30] Speaker 1: That's beautiful, all right, So let's then move into is
[2:34] Speaker 1: safety culture good for us?
[2:36] Speaker 2: Now?
[2:36] Speaker 1: Some may hear the title of this show and think, well, obviously, yeah,
[2:41] Speaker 1: how who in the world, who in their right mind
[2:42] Speaker 1: would critique safety? But as our viewers know, so, much
[2:46] Speaker 1: depends upon the specific definition we're using. Yeah, So to
[2:49] Speaker 1: start off, let's let's let's get into that definitional level.
[2:52] Speaker 1: If you could inhabit the secular mind, what do you
[2:54] Speaker 1: think the secular mind conceives of it when it thinks
[2:57] Speaker 1: of safety?
[2:58] Speaker 3: Well, you know, I think maybe the dictionary definition something
[3:01] Speaker 3: like the state of being protected from suffering and from
[3:05] Speaker 3: danger and from risk. That's safety. And as you say,
[3:09] Speaker 3: obviously that's a good thing. Who's against safety? If you've
[3:12] Speaker 3: got a choice, you know, sure I'm going to opt
[3:14] Speaker 3: for the for safety over danger. You know, in a
[3:18] Speaker 3: purely abstract sense. The question, I think, Matt, is how
[3:21] Speaker 3: we prioritize things? So is it a value? Sure, it's
[3:25] Speaker 3: a value, but values are always arranged hierarchically. Now we
[3:30] Speaker 3: maybe we'll get into that later, but I think that's
[3:32] Speaker 3: something missing very much in our society, is a sense
[3:34] Speaker 3: of a hierarchy of value. Is safety the highest value?
[3:38] Speaker 3: Absolutely not. It seems to me it's of value, but
[3:42] Speaker 3: not like the supreme value. And upon that distinction, a
[3:46] Speaker 3: lot depends.
[3:47] Speaker 1: We'll move later in the show to looking at it
[3:49] Speaker 1: how Catholicism particular might conceive of safety and put it
[3:53] Speaker 1: within that hierarchy of values. But it seems even at
[3:56] Speaker 1: the outset that in order to get a good definition
[3:58] Speaker 1: of safety, we're going to have to sort of move
[4:00] Speaker 1: move into the anthropological level and ask what is the
[4:03] Speaker 1: human person?
[4:03] Speaker 2: What's the nature of the human good?
[4:05] Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, some may hear that kind of
[4:07] Speaker 1: language and roll their eyes thinking, you know, say, it's
[4:10] Speaker 1: so obvious what safety is. Why do we have to
[4:12] Speaker 1: go to that abstract level? But can we really avoid it?
[4:14] Speaker 3: No? And you're right in suggesting the good. So that's
[4:17] Speaker 3: I use the language of value. But good is the
[4:19] Speaker 3: same thing. Really what is the good for us? And
[4:22] Speaker 3: there are a whole there's a range of goods arranged
[4:26] Speaker 3: hierarchically under the ejus finally of the summum bonum, the
[4:30] Speaker 3: highest good, which is God. And so, as you suggest,
[4:34] Speaker 3: a healthy Christian anthropology has a sense of the human
[4:38] Speaker 3: being in freedom and intelligence, seeking goods and values ultimately
[4:42] Speaker 3: the highest good of God, and then arranging one's moral
[4:46] Speaker 3: life in terms of these goods to be sought. Now
[4:49] Speaker 3: to kind of cut to the chase. Sometimes pursuing certain
[4:52] Speaker 3: very high goods involves danger, involves risk. If I say, oh, safety,
[4:59] Speaker 3: that's my summum bonum, that's the highest good, well come on,
[5:02] Speaker 3: then I'm going to live a very dull life actually,
[5:05] Speaker 3: and a life that's not morally compelling.
[5:07] Speaker 1: It seems that the secular conception of safety, and one
[5:10] Speaker 1: way to put it might be sort of utilitarian, sort
[5:13] Speaker 1: of the highest good is to avoid suffering at all costs,
[5:15] Speaker 1: both mental suffering and physical suffering. And so whatever helps
[5:19] Speaker 1: us to avoid that suffering is good, and whatever doesn't
[5:22] Speaker 1: help us is bad. What do you think about that,
[5:24] Speaker 1: that sort of utilitarian assessment.
[5:26] Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it again gets the goods wrong. It gets
[5:29] Speaker 3: the goods in the wrong order. The highest goods recognized
[5:34] Speaker 3: by even the classical philosophers, you know, the virtues, these
[5:39] Speaker 3: things that habituate us toward the accomplishment of certain moral excellences.
[5:44] Speaker 3: That's the Those are the high goods. But then I
[5:47] Speaker 3: push it even further when you bring God into the picture.
[5:50] Speaker 3: There's a sumum bonum beyond even those, and the virtues
[5:53] Speaker 3: are meant to order us to those. We would speak
[5:55] Speaker 3: of the theological virtues, So we get the faith, hope,
[5:58] Speaker 3: and love which will order you to God, all right,
[6:00] Speaker 3: very directly, So all of that takes precedence over mirror,
[6:04] Speaker 3: let's say, physical, say, or even psychological safety. In the
[6:08] Speaker 3: service of those goods, some of our greatest people have
[6:12] Speaker 3: accepted very dangerous conditions. Right, look at the martyrs as
[6:16] Speaker 3: the limit case, I suppose. But when you put safety
[6:20] Speaker 3: at that top, everything will get skewed. The whole system
[6:23] Speaker 3: will begin to collapse.
[6:25] Speaker 1: Another way of getting at the distinction here is to ask,
[6:27] Speaker 1: is the difference that we're going to be looking at
[6:29] Speaker 1: with the Catholic conception one of degree or kind? So
[6:32] Speaker 1: is the critique of the secular conception of safety that
[6:36] Speaker 1: it's got the right idea, it just takes it too far?
[6:39] Speaker 1: Or is it actually have some wrong headed ideas about
[6:41] Speaker 1: what safety is?
[6:42] Speaker 3: Yeah? No, I think you're quite right in suggesting it's
[6:44] Speaker 3: grounded in a faulty anthropology. It's very reductive anthropology. Once
[6:49] Speaker 3: you accept the reality of the soul, you accept the
[6:53] Speaker 3: reality of an aspiration toward goods that transcend even this world.
[6:57] Speaker 3: I mean, pure moral goods, pure moral achievement, you're beyond.
[7:03] Speaker 3: I just want to keep myself safe, either physically or psychologically.
[7:06] Speaker 3: You've moved into a different space. Indeed, you're right, qualitatively
[7:10] Speaker 3: different moral space. And it's the collapse of that sense
[7:14] Speaker 3: of the objectivity of the moral in a way that's
[7:17] Speaker 3: led to all this because look, we can all agree,
[7:20] Speaker 3: I suppose anyone you know, from believer to atheists, everyone
[7:23] Speaker 3: in between that well, yeah, doing harm to your body,
[7:26] Speaker 3: that's a bad thing. But if that's all we can
[7:29] Speaker 3: agree on, then what we're left with is this regimen
[7:32] Speaker 3: of safety as a supreme value. But if this higher
[7:36] Speaker 3: moral world opens up, well then it relativizes those concerns.
[7:41] Speaker 3: So that's you're right, that's the issue. It's an anthropological issue.
[7:46] Speaker 1: So there's a well known social critic and journalist. Her
[7:49] Speaker 1: name is Abigail Schreier, and she recently published a book
[7:53] Speaker 1: called Bad Therapy, Why Kids Are Growing Up, And the
[7:57] Speaker 1: basic argument of the book is that we're actually doing
[8:00] Speaker 1: more harm than good to children by shielding them from
[8:03] Speaker 1: sort of the normal pains of mental and physical pains
[8:06] Speaker 1: of life. So let me read a sort of representative quote,
[8:09] Speaker 1: then get your.
[8:10] Speaker 3: Tip on it.
[8:11] Speaker 1: She's particularly critical of what she calls the mental health industry.
[8:14] Speaker 1: She uses the word industry, and she writes this is
[8:17] Speaker 1: a quote. By feeding normal kids with normal problems into
[8:21] Speaker 1: an unending pipeline, the mental health industry is minting patience
[8:27] Speaker 1: faster than it can cure them. The mental health experts
[8:30] Speaker 1: have trained kids to regard themselves as disordered. They talk
[8:34] Speaker 1: of wellness while presiding over the downward spiral of the
[8:38] Speaker 1: most unwell generation in history. So, Bisha, do you think
[8:42] Speaker 1: there's any merit to her critique of the industry, the
[8:45] Speaker 1: mental health care industry she calls it.
[8:47] Speaker 3: Yeah, I do think there's merit to it. It's a
[8:49] Speaker 3: strong critique, and I, you know, I don't know her
[8:51] Speaker 3: thought well enough to say I utterly subscribe to it.
[8:53] Speaker 3: But the instincts there I think are really right. The
[8:58] Speaker 3: danger is if we are trying to protect our kids
[9:01] Speaker 3: at all costs from suffering and from risk and from trial,
[9:05] Speaker 3: they will not grow up. That's true in a way.
[9:09] Speaker 3: Education in all this dimensions is a kind of steady
[9:12] Speaker 3: exposure to risk, right, not crazy, but I'm a steady
[9:17] Speaker 3: exposure to risk so that you can take the next step.
[9:20] Speaker 3: You know, think of that stuff from the ancient myths
[9:22] Speaker 3: about leaving the familiar and moving into the unfamiliar. That's
[9:25] Speaker 3: always risky, and that's true intellectually, psychologically, and physically. If
[9:30] Speaker 3: I'm going to grow up, I got to move out
[9:33] Speaker 3: of the safety of the space I'm in psychologically and
[9:35] Speaker 3: risk new ideas, new experiences. I think the course of
[9:40] Speaker 3: my lifetime, the riskiest moments have been the most kind
[9:43] Speaker 3: of interesting and intriguing. Whether as a little kid go
[9:46] Speaker 3: into my first baseball practice or my first day of school.
[9:49] Speaker 3: You're leaving something you're familiar with. It's very anxiety producing.
[9:53] Speaker 3: But because of that a whole world opened up, you know,
[9:56] Speaker 3: and my parents knew enough to say, well, yeah, you've
[9:58] Speaker 3: got to go through that door, and it's going to
[9:59] Speaker 3: be a little painful. Well, well, extrapolate from that to
[10:03] Speaker 3: wider and deeper issues that we're facing that all the time.
[10:07] Speaker 3: I would say too, as a Christian, you know, what's
[10:09] Speaker 3: the ultimate risk is death itself. At this door we
[10:12] Speaker 3: all have to go through, that's not to be avoided
[10:17] Speaker 3: at all costs, but rather seen as an invitation to
[10:20] Speaker 3: a higher and deeper life. So I do agree with
[10:23] Speaker 3: the instinct that says, you know, preventing kids from experiencing
[10:27] Speaker 3: risk and pain and suffering that's a really dangerous perspective.
[10:31] Speaker 3: You know, it's that corny I remember as a young
[10:33] Speaker 3: guy seeing this poster, But it's the instinct, is right.
[10:36] Speaker 3: You know that a ship is safe in a harbor,
[10:39] Speaker 3: but it's not meant for a harbor. The ship is
[10:41] Speaker 3: meant to sail out onder the dangerous seas. So yeah,
[10:45] Speaker 3: that ship will never be damaged as I keep it
[10:47] Speaker 3: in the harbor. Actually it will. I mean, that's that's
[10:49] Speaker 3: the thing. Actually it will be. You know, it's true
[10:53] Speaker 3: of automobiles, isn't it. As little as I know about automobiles,
[10:56] Speaker 3: but a car that's not driven is a car that
[10:58] Speaker 3: will will go bad very quickly. And I see the
[11:01] Speaker 3: driving of the car. You know, the same with our
[11:03] Speaker 3: with our bodies, the same with our psyches, you know,
[11:05] Speaker 3: psyches and bodies that are kept safe, it actually will deteriorate.
[11:10] Speaker 3: And it's the constant risk of something new and fresh
[11:12] Speaker 3: and a little bit dangerous that will call us into
[11:16] Speaker 3: a deeper life. So a risky approach to life, not
[11:21] Speaker 3: crazy risky, but a willingness to embrace the new, the different,
[11:26] Speaker 3: the dangerous, the fresh, the unusual. That's a keat of
[11:30] Speaker 3: flourishing isn't it.
[11:31] Speaker 1: Yeah, And there's there's very strong empirical research now, yeah,
[11:34] Speaker 1: that shows everything that you're saying, in fact, that our
[11:37] Speaker 1: brain isn't even capable of learning in a long term
[11:40] Speaker 1: sense without some kind of risk and danger involved.
[11:43] Speaker 3: Right, And uh so if we're again we're putting a
[11:47] Speaker 3: you know, bubble wrap around everybody all the time. You know,
[11:51] Speaker 3: it's funny, man, I think it's changed in the course
[11:53] Speaker 3: of my lifetime. When I was a little kid, my
[11:55] Speaker 3: dear mother, you know, she put a T shirt and
[11:58] Speaker 3: shorts on us and gym shoes and off we went.
[12:01] Speaker 3: I mean, we didn't want to and I vaguely remember
[12:03] Speaker 3: maybe coming home for lunch and then dinner. But believe me,
[12:07] Speaker 3: my parents that generation, they were not helicopter parents at all.
[12:11] Speaker 3: They kind of let us. And you know, of course
[12:12] Speaker 3: you fall off your bike, and of course you get
[12:14] Speaker 3: in fights, and of course you face these things you
[12:16] Speaker 3: hadn't thought about before, and that's how you grow up,
[12:19] Speaker 3: you know. So I do worry about that if we're
[12:22] Speaker 3: coddling kids too.
[12:22] Speaker 2: It's so different now.
[12:24] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[12:24] Speaker 1: So Shreer also strong critiques what she says using emotion
[12:29] Speaker 1: emotion as a guide to both to how to raise
[12:32] Speaker 1: your children and then teaching your children how they should act.
[12:34] Speaker 2: So here's another key quote.
[12:37] Speaker 1: She says, very often kids should be skeptical that their
[12:40] Speaker 1: feelings reflect an accurate picture of the world, and even
[12:44] Speaker 1: ignore their feelings entirely. And she says a healthy emotional
[12:48] Speaker 1: life involves a certain amount of daily repression. Now the
[12:52] Speaker 1: secular mind, here's the word repress your your repress your emotions,
[12:56] Speaker 1: and that itself sounds dangerous.
[12:57] Speaker 2: But is she onto something here?
[12:59] Speaker 3: Yeah, you know it's a complicated thing you're raising there,
[13:01] Speaker 3: But think of like classical virtue like courage. Courage is
[13:05] Speaker 3: the virtue that holds off fear so that you can
[13:09] Speaker 3: accomplish justice. So if you say justice is roughly speaking,
[13:13] Speaker 3: doing the right thing, what's those called for the right thing? Well,
[13:16] Speaker 3: sometimes that means you're going to put yourself in some
[13:18] Speaker 3: danger and you're going to feel the very strong emotion
[13:20] Speaker 3: of fear. Right, courage is a virtue that says, I'm
[13:24] Speaker 3: not denying that fear, but I am setting it aside.
[13:27] Speaker 3: I'm moving past it to achieve this high good. If
[13:31] Speaker 3: I'm reading my life entirely in terms of my emotions,
[13:35] Speaker 3: I won't be able to accomplish those goods. There's a
[13:38] Speaker 3: kind of there's a kind of purification or refinement that
[13:40] Speaker 3: happens as we distanciate ourselves from our immediate emotions. Then
[13:44] Speaker 3: we're living at the level of a child. Right, You're
[13:47] Speaker 3: just governed by your immediate emotional reaction. There has to
[13:51] Speaker 3: be a certain destantiation from that. So yeah, I would
[13:55] Speaker 3: worry about that. But you're touching on a deeper point,
[13:57] Speaker 3: which to me is very interesting, is the valorousation of
[14:00] Speaker 3: emotion and feeling and this implication any sort of setting aside,
[14:07] Speaker 3: whether it's you know, is repression or suppression or whatever,
[14:10] Speaker 3: any setting aside of emotion is dangerous, you know, see,
[14:13] Speaker 3: don't do it. Well, No, the great tradition is said,
[14:15] Speaker 3: just the contrary, It doesn't despise the emotions. Look at
[14:18] Speaker 3: a Quintus on the passions. I mean, Quitas talked a
[14:20] Speaker 3: lot about the passions. It doesn't despise them. So you
[14:23] Speaker 3: might say, there's a legitimate Freudian you know, insight is well, no,
[14:27] Speaker 3: you don't suppress and despise your passions, but you order
[14:30] Speaker 3: them according to reason. And that's as old as Plato. Right,
[14:33] Speaker 3: that's the charioteer of reason that's governing these wild kind
[14:37] Speaker 3: of horses of the different passions. But if the charioteer
[14:41] Speaker 3: is kicked out, the passions run amook. If the charioteer
[14:46] Speaker 3: is in place right reason, well then there's a lot
[14:48] Speaker 3: of energy. And see there, let your passions indeed contribute
[14:53] Speaker 3: to your accomplishment of the good. Here, I think about
[14:55] Speaker 3: Dietrich von Hildebrant, who I think quite legitimately said, maybe
[14:59] Speaker 3: our tradition got too rationalistic, and we we kind of
[15:02] Speaker 3: despised what he called the heart right, the seat of emotions.
[15:06] Speaker 3: But I think he would have certainly said, under the
[15:09] Speaker 3: guidance and governance of reason, But then your passions can
[15:12] Speaker 3: give you all kinds of energy. But if we're governed
[15:15] Speaker 3: by them, the horse has gotten into the chariot.
[15:18] Speaker 1: Right, And from a Catholic perspective, can we say that
[15:20] Speaker 1: the emotions are they're not, they're not necessarily fixed, that
[15:23] Speaker 1: there's the possibility they're corrigible.
[15:25] Speaker 2: There's the possibility of not.
[15:26] Speaker 1: Only guiding them, but maybe even creating new emotions to
[15:30] Speaker 1: put them more in line with what's what's good.
[15:33] Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's I think the platonic image as well,
[15:35] Speaker 3: and they should serve the good. See that that's always
[15:39] Speaker 3: the principle. They're not the criterion. They should serve the
[15:43] Speaker 3: good if they contribute to my understanding of the good.
[15:47] Speaker 3: Now there, I go back to someone like Martha and
[15:49] Speaker 3: Usbaum at your old school, and I think she's right
[15:52] Speaker 3: about this. She's like William James that there there is
[15:55] Speaker 3: a cognitive value to emotion. Sometimes our emotions can tell
[15:59] Speaker 3: us true that our minds don't quite get. I think
[16:01] Speaker 3: that's right. So not despising emotions, but all of it
[16:06] Speaker 3: should be in service of the good and my pursuit
[16:08] Speaker 3: and attainment of the good. If the emotions start running
[16:12] Speaker 3: the chariot and deviating me from the good, now I
[16:15] Speaker 3: got a problem.
[16:16] Speaker 1: So people who are skeptical of the of the Catholic
[16:19] Speaker 1: view of reality and maybe listening to the conversation up
[16:22] Speaker 1: to this point and say, okay, I can see that
[16:24] Speaker 1: maybe we've taken it too far. Safety with regards to
[16:27] Speaker 1: psychological emotion well being, but physical safety that's categorically different.
[16:31] Speaker 1: And it still makes sense to pedestal physical safety as
[16:33] Speaker 1: our higher good.
[16:34] Speaker 2: What's a response to that?
[16:36] Speaker 3: Again, it's a good, but it can't be the highest good. So,
[16:39] Speaker 3: you know, a quietness in the great natural law tradition
[16:41] Speaker 3: would talk about you know, self preservation. Life is a good,
[16:45] Speaker 3: physical life is a good. Protecting it obviously is a good,
[16:49] Speaker 3: and so sure in that sense, it's something to be pursued.
[16:53] Speaker 3: But it's in a it's arranged hierarchically because if my
[16:57] Speaker 3: physical safety with the supreme value, I'd never talk talk
[17:00] Speaker 3: about martyrs, and we honor and reverence are martyrs. We
[17:04] Speaker 3: never talk about saints who put their lives at risk
[17:07] Speaker 3: to achieve certain goods. I never valorize even a soldier.
[17:10] Speaker 3: The courage of a soldier in a battlefield, Why would
[17:13] Speaker 3: he be honored? I said, that guy's an idiot. Why
[17:15] Speaker 3: why is he exposing himself to that much danger? So
[17:18] Speaker 3: it can't be the summum bonum. Gee, I think, Matt,
[17:21] Speaker 3: that's a very important thing for everyone to think about
[17:24] Speaker 3: that first of all, to name what is the summum
[17:27] Speaker 3: bonum in your life? Because I think the Bible again
[17:30] Speaker 3: and again and again is testing us. It's asking that question.
[17:36] Speaker 3: You know, hey, lord, I'll follow you, but first, you know,
[17:39] Speaker 3: let me bury my father. I mean, look, I'm a
[17:42] Speaker 3: family man, and here's this very family oriented society ancient Israel,
[17:46] Speaker 3: Jesus let the dead bury they're dead now? Is he
[17:49] Speaker 3: being cruel and unkind? No, it's a typical Biblical move
[17:53] Speaker 3: to say, yes, the family is great, but it's not
[17:57] Speaker 3: the summum bonum. I'm the sumum bonum Jesus saying, Abraham
[18:03] Speaker 3: and Isaac. You know, you know Abraham, Isaac, your son
[18:07] Speaker 3: whom you love, your beloved, you know Isaac. Well, I'd
[18:09] Speaker 3: like you to sacrifice him to me. What was always
[18:12] Speaker 3: being emotionally manipulative. No, it's a typical Biblical it's a
[18:16] Speaker 3: it's a test. What's your summum bonum? So that's a
[18:20] Speaker 3: really good exercise. Or you know, I use the example
[18:24] Speaker 3: of my hero Thomas a quiteas when the Lord says,
[18:26] Speaker 3: what do you want? I'll give you any reward you want.
[18:29] Speaker 3: What do you want? That's a test, a summum bonum test. Right,
[18:32] Speaker 3: So if Thomas said, I want to be the most
[18:33] Speaker 3: famous theologian in the world, I want to be the
[18:35] Speaker 3: richest man in the world, get me out of this
[18:37] Speaker 3: louzy Dominican friary and into a castle, Well then you know, okay,
[18:41] Speaker 3: that's his sumumbonum. But when Thomas said, non neeasy tay domine,
[18:45] Speaker 3: I'll have nothing except you. Okay, now I got it.
[18:48] Speaker 3: And see then you're clear. Then you're right. If God
[18:52] Speaker 3: is the summum bonum, then the various worldly goods will
[18:56] Speaker 3: arrange themselves in proper relation to the summum bonum, and
[18:59] Speaker 3: the worldly themselves will fall into a right hierarchical arrangement.
[19:03] Speaker 3: But see, I think that has been lost. That's one
[19:06] Speaker 3: of our big problems today is people don't have a
[19:09] Speaker 3: sense of a of a moral structure. And so of
[19:12] Speaker 3: course I'll cling to my safety or what I want.
[19:15] Speaker 3: My will becomes the summum bonum. Man is the Bible.
[19:18] Speaker 3: Know about that, by the way, all the time, you know,
[19:21] Speaker 3: that's called grasping of the tree of the knowledge of
[19:23] Speaker 3: good and evil? Is that I become the criterion of
[19:25] Speaker 3: good and evil. I'm the sumum bonum around here, you know.
[19:29] Speaker 3: And then Nietzsche, well, you've got your sumum bonum. I
[19:32] Speaker 3: got my boneum. In fact, it's my heroic will against
[19:35] Speaker 3: your heroic will. What are you left with but this
[19:38] Speaker 3: warfare beyond good and evil? When when Hobbes, as you know,
[19:44] Speaker 3: explicitly says there is no such thing as this highest
[19:48] Speaker 3: good that the ancient philosophers talk about, what are you
[19:50] Speaker 3: left with the war of all against all that can
[19:53] Speaker 3: only be be tempered by, you know, a totalitarian state.
[19:58] Speaker 3: So this is not an abstract problem. This is not
[20:01] Speaker 3: some little idle thing for philosophers to speculate about. This
[20:04] Speaker 3: is a really serious matter of knowing what the sumum
[20:07] Speaker 3: bonum is and how to arrange the goods around it.
[20:09] Speaker 1: And is it is it accurate to say both that
[20:12] Speaker 1: there can there must be a sum bonum in every
[20:15] Speaker 1: human being's life and there can only be one.
[20:18] Speaker 3: Yes, And that's I find a very intriguing part of
[20:21] Speaker 3: Acquaintance Assuma that he has the famous five arguments for God.
[20:24] Speaker 3: But there's an implicit argument in the beginning of the
[20:26] Speaker 3: Premu sygud Day when he asked just that question. And
[20:29] Speaker 3: he's dead right about this is any act of the will.
[20:32] Speaker 3: So even our sitting here right now talking, if you
[20:35] Speaker 3: do a little analysis of like, okay, why are we
[20:37] Speaker 3: doing this while we're doing because it's part of my
[20:39] Speaker 3: Word on Fire ministry, Well why is that important? Well,
[20:42] Speaker 3: because war on fire is meant to announce the Gospel? Well,
[20:44] Speaker 3: why is that important? With any act. You just keep
[20:47] Speaker 3: going out until you find Oh, yah, I'm doing it
[20:50] Speaker 3: because it's Good's that's the good. And if you can't
[20:55] Speaker 3: end it that way, you've got the infinite regress problem.
[20:58] Speaker 3: And then there is no explanation. We're here bazooing for
[21:02] Speaker 3: no apparent reason. So it has to be grounded finally,
[21:05] Speaker 3: in a prime mover of the will of a final cause.
[21:10] Speaker 3: That's luring the will. And everyone's got that. So kinds
[21:13] Speaker 3: would say everyone is in fact being motivated by God.
[21:16] Speaker 3: But they might have mistaken ideas about you know, who
[21:19] Speaker 3: God is, if they think it's wealth or power or something.
[21:22] Speaker 3: But that's a very important spiritual move everyone's got. Politilic
[21:26] Speaker 3: called it the ultimate concern or what concerns you? Ultimately,
[21:30] Speaker 3: that's God for you. The point is trying to get
[21:35] Speaker 3: the true God in that place of ultimate concern.
[21:37] Speaker 1: Well, we'll move with our remaining minutes here more deeply
[21:40] Speaker 1: into the Catholic tradition, the theological tradition. But before we do,
[21:44] Speaker 1: how do we assess this claim, coming primarily from the
[21:47] Speaker 1: secular world, that speech itself can make us unsafe because
[21:51] Speaker 1: speech is a form of violence.
[21:53] Speaker 3: Well, you know, I mean, no one doubts that speech
[21:55] Speaker 3: can be can be violent. I mean, if I'm attacking
[21:59] Speaker 3: someone I'm going after there can speech be wounding to people? Sure?
[22:03] Speaker 3: And I've been wounded by people's speech, So that's I
[22:06] Speaker 3: think true. It's a kind of a commonplace to say
[22:08] Speaker 3: that the danger is when you press that thing the
[22:12] Speaker 3: way it's being pressed today, something like rational conversation is obviated.
[22:19] Speaker 3: So if I'm saying something that you find disagreeable, and
[22:23] Speaker 3: therefore I can't say it it's offensive to me or
[22:26] Speaker 3: it's off putting to me, well, then rational conversation breaks down.
[22:30] Speaker 3: When rational conversation breaks down, what are we left with
[22:34] Speaker 3: the Nietzschean or Hobbesian world of all against all? We
[22:37] Speaker 3: have just competing wills, And so it's very dangerous. If
[22:41] Speaker 3: you're concerned about violence, you should be very concerned about
[22:44] Speaker 3: the integrity of speech. When you start saying, oh, speech
[22:47] Speaker 3: itself is violent, that's the invitation to real violence, it
[22:51] Speaker 3: seems to me, you know, so the breakdown of conversation.
[22:55] Speaker 3: And again I've used the quitness Thomas who in his
[23:00] Speaker 3: literary text that we have dialogues with a whole range
[23:04] Speaker 3: of people. Right, ancient philosophers and scientists medieval, his medieval contemporaries,
[23:09] Speaker 3: Islamic scholars, Jewish scholars. Great. Great, he's having a conversation
[23:14] Speaker 3: with them, disciplined, not like, hey, don't we all agree
[23:17] Speaker 3: deep down? No, No, he's sharp disagreement, but he's willing
[23:21] Speaker 3: to talk, and that's very important for our civilization.
[23:26] Speaker 1: Is it justified to make it distinction recognizing that speech
[23:29] Speaker 1: certainly can be violent and its intention can be violent,
[23:32] Speaker 1: is it still justified to make a distinction between speech
[23:35] Speaker 1: and physical violence in this sense that when we hear speech,
[23:37] Speaker 1: it's always going to go through some psychological filter, and
[23:40] Speaker 1: that filter may determine how we perceive the violence of
[23:43] Speaker 1: the speech, whereas with bodily violence, there's no psychological filter,
[23:46] Speaker 1: and sort of it's clear whether it's violent or not objectively.
[23:49] Speaker 3: So right, And I do think it is dangerous to
[23:52] Speaker 3: go down this path that many are going down today
[23:54] Speaker 3: to see speech as because it just precludes what we
[23:59] Speaker 3: need to have a civilized, civilized society. So yeah, that
[24:02] Speaker 3: concerns me a lot.
[24:04] Speaker 1: Let's let's turn directly to some some very biblical themes here.
[24:08] Speaker 1: So two of the spiritual works of mercy, which you know,
[24:11] Speaker 1: which all Catholics are called to practice maybe could potentially
[24:15] Speaker 1: be interpreted as trying to care for the psychological or
[24:18] Speaker 1: emotional wellbeing of ourselves and our neighbors. And that's counseling
[24:22] Speaker 1: the doubtful and comforting the afflicted. Yeah, sure, how do
[24:25] Speaker 1: we how do we shield that from a kind of
[24:27] Speaker 1: shrier critique that says, no, that's that's coddling, that's bad,
[24:30] Speaker 1: We don't want to do that.
[24:30] Speaker 3: Well, I suppose it's the extreme becomes that, but no,
[24:33] Speaker 3: it is shelf loic. We're on to care for each other,
[24:35] Speaker 3: and that's what those works of mercy are about. And
[24:37] Speaker 3: if you can relieve someone suffering, yeah, do it by
[24:40] Speaker 3: all means. But when we press these things the way
[24:42] Speaker 3: they're being pressed, they become irrational and counterproductive morally speaking.
[24:47] Speaker 3: But no, I have no quarrel with that that we
[24:48] Speaker 3: of course, if someone's suffering, they're in pain, do what
[24:51] Speaker 3: you can to alleviate it, but don't eliminate the pain
[24:55] Speaker 3: that will allow them actually to grow. That's not what's
[24:58] Speaker 3: being addressed by those, you know, works of murci. See
[25:01] Speaker 3: it's like when you talk to someone who's going through
[25:03] Speaker 3: real doubts psychologically or theologically great, that's a kind of
[25:08] Speaker 3: pain that might lead them, and counseling the dolpha might
[25:10] Speaker 3: be using that as an opportunity to help them grow.
[25:15] Speaker 3: So I just make that distinction, I suppose.
[25:17] Speaker 1: And as you also know, the cardinal virtues are justice, prudence, temperance,
[25:22] Speaker 1: and fortitude, and this context we might also add the
[25:24] Speaker 1: theological virtue of love. Where would you locate safety within
[25:29] Speaker 1: those frameworks if at all?
[25:31] Speaker 3: Yeah, I see, I would put it further down, and
[25:34] Speaker 3: I prefer to start there. The way I look at
[25:36] Speaker 3: those is just as you might say, is the central one.
[25:38] Speaker 3: Because justice is doing the right thing, right, rendering to
[25:42] Speaker 3: each's do So what's called for morally in the moment now?
[25:47] Speaker 3: To hold off external threats to that? I need courage,
[25:51] Speaker 3: because there might be external threats to say no, don't
[25:53] Speaker 3: do the just thing. To hold off internal threats to it,
[25:57] Speaker 3: I need temperance. So I might have something in my
[26:00] Speaker 3: interior life that's keeping me from doing the right thing,
[26:03] Speaker 3: my own lusts or my own disordered passions, So I
[26:06] Speaker 3: need temperance to hold those off. Then I finally need
[26:09] Speaker 3: prudence to tell me, okay, concretely, how do I do
[26:13] Speaker 3: the right thing in this situation when I wear to
[26:16] Speaker 3: safety fit in there. I don't know if it's in
[26:19] Speaker 3: that mix that much, because if I'm prioritizing safety, I
[26:24] Speaker 3: think that whole process gets interrupted. Right, I won't do
[26:28] Speaker 3: the right thing because it's too threatening to me. Courage, Well, heck,
[26:33] Speaker 3: I protect me, you know right away, I'm not going
[26:36] Speaker 3: to call forth courage. So put it in the in
[26:40] Speaker 3: the hierarchy of values, but much lower than those for example.
[26:44] Speaker 1: And finally, Biship, what does Christ crucified Christ on the
[26:48] Speaker 1: cross teach us about safety?
[26:51] Speaker 3: I use that line. I was in Lisbon last summer
[26:55] Speaker 3: for World Youth Day and I gave a talk to
[26:56] Speaker 3: the kids. They're like fifteen thousand kids in this big field,
[26:59] Speaker 3: and it kind of came to me as inspiration. At
[27:01] Speaker 3: the end of the talk, right, they said, I know,
[27:03] Speaker 3: you guys hear a lot about safety. You know, to
[27:05] Speaker 3: safe space and be safe. And there was a crucifix
[27:08] Speaker 3: you up there in the sanctuary, and I said, take
[27:11] Speaker 3: a look at this. This religion is not one that's
[27:14] Speaker 3: putting a huge premium on safety. When we're putting before
[27:18] Speaker 3: your eyes a man nailed to a cross, dying to
[27:23] Speaker 3: do the right thing. If I can put in that
[27:25] Speaker 3: kind of you know, simple virtual language. That's not a
[27:29] Speaker 3: religion that's saying the summum bonum is safety. What it's
[27:32] Speaker 3: saying is the summum bonum is a love that risks
[27:36] Speaker 3: itself even to the point of death. Okay, that's the
[27:39] Speaker 3: sumum bonum. Now does that mean every single moment of
[27:43] Speaker 3: your life you must be doing that. No, that's the
[27:45] Speaker 3: summum bonum. That's who God is. And if I want
[27:48] Speaker 3: to live my life according to the highest good, I
[27:51] Speaker 3: got to be ordered to that. So safety, okay, but
[27:55] Speaker 3: it's not it's not the highest good that runs the
[27:58] Speaker 3: whole operation.
[28:03] Speaker 1: Well, Bishop, it's now time for our listener question. Today
[28:07] Speaker 1: we have Daniel from Florida asking about the conditions for
[28:12] Speaker 1: absolution in the sacond of confession.
[28:15] Speaker 3: Hi, Bishop, my name is Daniel from Florida, and my
[28:18] Speaker 3: question is can a priest ever deny someone absolution during confession?
[28:23] Speaker 3: Thank you so much for you time. Yeah, okay, And
[28:26] Speaker 3: the answer, the short answer is yes. The priest is
[28:29] Speaker 3: in the confessional, you know, as a bearer of Christ,
[28:32] Speaker 3: mercy and all that. He's also there as judge. So
[28:36] Speaker 3: you're judging a couple of things. What are the sins
[28:40] Speaker 3: being confessed. Here are they mortal sins of the venial sins?
[28:44] Speaker 3: Secondly is the person demonstrating sufficient contrition for those sins?
[28:50] Speaker 3: And then thirdly a firm purpose of amendment, So you know,
[28:54] Speaker 3: when you pray the act of contrition, that's not just decorative.
[28:58] Speaker 3: That's essential to the sacramental moment because the priest has
[29:04] Speaker 3: to determine, Okay, this person really knows it has been
[29:08] Speaker 3: crushed by this. That's what contrizio means in Latin. You've
[29:12] Speaker 3: been crushed by the weight of the sin. You know
[29:15] Speaker 3: it's serious, and then you're saying, you know, and I
[29:19] Speaker 3: resolve to avoid this sin in the future. If those
[29:23] Speaker 3: two things aren't there, the priest can judge, well, you're
[29:27] Speaker 3: not ready to receive absolution, so it can happen. I
[29:31] Speaker 3: would suggest it's very rare, you know, and that the
[29:33] Speaker 3: assumption is always in favor of expressing christ mercy. But yeah,
[29:38] Speaker 3: you can, in certain circumstances refuse absolution.
[29:42] Speaker 2: Well, thanks so much Daniel for reaching out to us.
[29:45] Speaker 1: If you'd like to ask Bishop Baron a question for
[29:48] Speaker 1: a future Word on Fire Show, please visit Askbishop Baron
[29:52] Speaker 1: dot com.
[29:53] Speaker 2: That's ask Bishop.
[29:54] Speaker 1: Baron dot com and submit your question there. Bishop, that's
[29:58] Speaker 1: all the time we have for today. Thanks for joining
[30:00] Speaker 1: us again in studio, and I look forward to next.
[30:02] Speaker 3: Time, always joined to be with you. Thanks man that does.
[30:05] Speaker 1: It for us today. Thanks for joining us on the
[30:07] Speaker 1: Word on Fire Show. If you're interested in learning more
[30:10] Speaker 1: about how Word on Fire can help you grow closer
[30:12] Speaker 1: to Christ, become a better evangelist with and for others,
[30:17] Speaker 1: and work for the common good, consider joining the Word
[30:19] Speaker 1: on Fire Institute. Check us out at Institute dot Wordonfire
[30:24] Speaker 1: dot org. That's institute dot Wordonfire dot org.
[30:28] Speaker 2: We'll see you next time.

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