Bishop Barron Dumbs Down the Papacy

Tired tropes and crying 'confusion,' Barron struggles to 'fully' embrace the legacy of Pope Francis

Bob Roller - Credit: CNS photo/Bob Roller

Bishop Robert Barron of Word on Fire has made a career out of promoting the new evangelization and combating what he calls the “dumbing-down” of Catholicism. Yet, when it comes to Barron’s new First Things article about Pope Francis’ legacy, nobody dumbs down the teachings of the late pontiff quite like Bishop Barron.

Barron’s article, “Francis in Full,” is at best a lukewarm attempt to reconcile himself with Pope Francis' papacy, while signaling his misgivings about Francis’ teachings to his more conservative-minded readers in veiled jabs and subtle critiques. Following some compliments of the now deceased Pope, Barron admits that Francis was ultimately “controversial,” “confusing,” and “ambiguous,” a leader who undermined the unity of the church through his imprecise language and problematic behavior.

What a ringing endorsement!

While claiming to be a spiritual son of Francis, Barron can’t help but speak out of both sides of his mouth. He argues that he’s not like other critics who accuse Pope Francis of heresy, only to suggest Francis might be guilty of indifferentism - a heresy - a few paragraphs later.

Barron lauds Francis for holding the line against the “liberal” advances of gender ideology and women deacons, but criticizes Francis for failing to maintain unity in doctrine and morals - ya know, the Pope’s sole responsibility in the Church. 

Throughout the piece, Barron reflects on some of Francis’s writings but ultimately downplays their central message. When talking about the 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti, Barron makes no mention of the goal of human fraternity nor the quality and style of interreligious dialogue between Muslims and Christians that inspired the document. Barron also seems to reject certain propositions of the 2019 Abu Dhabi Document on Human Fraternity, the document Pope Francis claims is the very foundation of the encyclical.

Talking about Laudato Si, Barron can’t seem to muster the words “climate change,” nor highlight the human cause of the climate crisis, something Pope Francis says, “is no longer possible to doubt." Luckily, Barron takes the time to inform his readers that Pope Francis was in no way a “Marxist” or a “standard Euro-left environmentalist,” which, thank God, because that’s exactly what we were all thinking, right?

And while Barron so generously describes some aspects of the 2016 Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia as “beautiful” (and it honestly is, go read this thing), other parts were apparently… less than beautiful, leading to further ambiguity and what Barron calls “doctrinal anarchy.” Yikes, sounds scary.

This back-and-forth, two-faced approach to Francis’ papacy is Cafeteria Catholicism at its finest.

Throughout the last 12 years of Francis’ papacy, detractors often claimed Francis lacked clarity and caused confusion (as if confusion was some great sin in the first place). But these are little more than buzzwords, employed to avoid serious engagement with Pope Francis’ thought. Unfortunately, Barron does this throughout the article.

Alternatively, the Franciscan Doctor of the Church, St. Bonaventure, wisely reminds us in his Itinerarium that we should “seek the dark cloud, not clarity.” Yet clarity has become an idol of sorts for such critics of Pope Francis.

Since when has clarity been an especially Christian value, anyway? I don’t remember Jesus being praised for his clarity, even among his disciples. I wonder how Barron would react if Jesus responded to one of his questions with a parable - as Jesus often did in the gospels - which, as we all know, were famously clear as day. 

By invoking the ‘confusion’ Francis has allegedly wrought, critics can absolve themselves of at best ignoring the writings of Pope Francis, or at worst, outright rejecting his authority. It’s just all so confusing, says the acclaimed author, speaker, theologian, and bishop of the Church.

Please.

This is why it’s so sad to read Bishop Barron (on Pope Francis' funeral, no less) going down the same tired road of so many Catholic leaders before him who never gave Francis a chance, who never actually made an honest attempt to understand him.

I might respect Barron’s position if he gave Francis even a little credit. But what I find most insidious is the way Barron and others infantilize Francis, portraying him as a gifted parish priest or homilist, maybe, but never as a theologian in his own right, and certainly not an academic on the same footing as his predecessors. It’s just another way Barron can belittle the true content of Francis’ teaching and still claim the trappings of a full-blooded supporter.

Bishop Barron wants to have his cake and eat it too. He longs to convince his readers that he is a loyal son of Pope Francis without having to take his teaching too seriously. “Francis in Full” is too little, too late. Barron contributes nothing particularly innovative or authentic to the discussion of Pope Francis’ legacy, proving that the only version of Francis’ pontificate the bishop is willing to promote is a dumbed-down one.