A partial list of things Robert Barron has NOT called "vile" or "repugnant"

Ah shit ah goddammit here we go again

On June 2nd, Gunnar B. Gundersen published a piece in Black Catholic Messenger that honestly kicks ass, titled “Don’t Sleep, Bishop Barron”, critiquing former G.O.T.H.S. subject, auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, aspiring media mogul, and guy who looks like a ham that got surprised Robert Barron for his recent crusade against “wokeism” and “Critical Race Theory”, things that Barron has spent the past few months vaguely defining, grossly misrepresenting, and loudly denouncing. Barron - who I assume has a full-time job that does not involve posting stupid shit - took it upon himself to comment directly on the piece on Facebook, denounce the author, and keep throwing around the terms “vile” - as he did in an earlier interview this year with the Babylon Bee - and “repugnant” to describe the idea of someone trying to be anti-racist in 2021. I’m not going to get into Barron’s arguments because they’re stupid, because the BCM piece does a great job dismantling those arguments (so does this piece or this piece from NCR), and because Barron is so extremely online that I’m worried he’ll read this, get mad, try to storm out of his house in Santa Barbara, and crash through a glass patio door because he’s dumber than a half-asleep bird.

However, the words “vile” and “repugnant” are choices, and they’re choices Barron could have made differently. For example, we can take a look at other words he’s used to describe other things that might be easier for us to view as “vile” or “repugnant” and see where he landed:

THE OVERWHELMING AND WIDESPREAD SEXUAL ABUSE DETAILED IN THE 2018 PENNSYLVANIA GRAND JURY REPORT

Barron chose the word “ingenious” to describe the church’s new-and-improved sexual abuse crisis three years ago, although I suppose I should explain the context: see, he wasn’t saying “ingenious work on the abuse, guys, congrats on fucking all those kids”, he was saying “wow, the scandal is so widespread, I guess you really should blame Satan more than any of the men who actually committed any crimes or the men who had the power to stop it and instead chose to let it keep happening?” From his 2018 book Letter to a Suffering Church:

“The storm of wickedness that has compromised the work of the Church in every way and that has left countless lives in ruins is just too ingenious to have been the result of impersonal forces alone or merely human contrivance. It seems so thoroughly thought through, so comprehensively intentional."

Barron is correct that the scandal was thought through and intentional: it happened because men intended to commit sex crimes and followed through on that intent, and then the men charged with doing something about it intended to keep it quiet and also followed through on that intent. Whatever role Satan thinks Barron played in the scandal, his words do come across as a desperate attempt to evade responsibility on the part of the institutional church that can’t seem to ever get this right. It feels like “vile” or “repugnant” would be fitting words to describe the actions of bishops like Thomas Tobin or Alfred Schlert (who are still active as bishops today), but to Barron, it’s not nearly as vile as suggesting that racism might still be a problem.

ATTORNEY GENERAL BILL BARR AFTER HE HAD RESTARTED FEDERAL EXECUTIONS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN NEARLY TWENTY YEARS, FORMALLY COOPERATING WITH AN INTRINSIC EVIL ACCORDING TO CURRENT CHURCH TEACHING

Barron appears to be a big fan of AG Barr, since he spoke at a 2020 National Catholic Prayer Breakfast event honoring Barr and presenting him with the “Christifideles Laici” award. Barron didn’t have to speak at this event at all, and in fact multiple Catholic organizations and other bishops called on the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast to withdraw the award specifically because of Barr’s position on capital punishment. But he figured giving Barr a shout-out would be a fun thing to do, and come on, is jamming potassium chloride into an inmate’s arm really more offensive than writing “With respect to Bishop Barron, the issue is not whether the Church will embrace ‘wokeism.’ Our Pope has already voiced support for BLM protests, Catholic clergy are marching, and BIPOC Catholics as well as their allies are also taking active roles in demanding racial justice”? I mean, writing something like that is clearly more vile than killing someone, right?

THE MURDER OF GEORGE FLOYD AND ENSUING PROTESTS, LAYING BARE THE BRUTAL REALITIES OF AMERICAN POLICING AND THE CONTINUED INEQUALITY THAT WORKS AS A DE FACTO DEATH SENTENCE FOR COUNTLESS PEOPLE OF COLOR IN THIS COUNTRY

Although the different diocese and bishops in the USCCB put out 77 different statements in response to George Floyd’s death and the national protests that ensued, Robert Barron does not appear to have his name attached to any of them, nor is there a statement collectively from the bishops of Los Angeles. Maybe Barron was busy hanging out with Ben Shapiro or Dennis Prager or Jordan Peterson or any of the other shitheads he likes doing podcasts with. I mean, he found time this past week to yell at a person of color online for daring to criticize him, but the country being on fire during a nationwide moral debate did not merit him getting out the ol’ archdiocesan letterhead.

CONSPIRACY THEORIST TAYLOR MARSHALL, WHO GOT INTO A PUBLIC TWITTER FEUD WITH BARRON LAST YEAR THAT GOT SO HEATED THAT MARSHALL’S FANS KEPT HARASSING BARRON TO THE EXTENT THAT, AS BARRON CLAIMS, THREE FULL-TIME WORD ON FIRE STAFFERS HAD TO WORK OVERTIME TO DELETE HATEFUL TWITTER REPLIES TO BARRON, WHICH YOU WOULD THINK WOULD CAUSE BARRON SO MUCH PERSONAL STRESS THAT HE WOULD USE STRONG WORDING TO DENOUNCE MARSHALL, BUT ALAS,

The literal words he used were “cut it out”. Like it’s goddamn Full House over here. The attacks Barron was receiving (from an audience he used to actively court) were “mean-spirited” and “unjust”, but they probably don’t cross the line into “vile” because at least Barron’s attackers hadn’t suggested that white people had ever done anything wrong.

EPILOGUE

The thing about being the self-proclaimed “bishop of the Internet” is that you run the risk of soaking up all of the poison that’s out there. Barron, who does not and has never appeared to possess the capacity to distinguish between “moral value” and “a high number of views on YouTube”, continues to soak up this poison with all of the right-wing outlets on which he spends his time, and it shows in the choices he makes in what to prioritize, what to denounce, and what to ignore. And because he’s a bishop, he’s showing us all what the church has chosen to prioritize, denounce, or ignore, and it’s probably not surprising to you at this point that it seems to have nothing to do with what lay Catholics actually care about, and everything to do with whatever Robert Barron saw on his favorite alt-right YouTube channel this week.

But the other thing about being the self-proclaimed “bishop of the Internet” is all the shit you wrote is still out there, Barron, and whenever you pretend you have any kind of moral authority, we can just fucking look it up.

Grift of the Holy Spirit is a series by Tony Ginocchio detailing stories of the weirdest, dumbest, and saddest members of the Catholic church. You can subscribe via Substack to get notified of future installments.