705: Robert Barron

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Duncan Trussell Family Hour – Ep. 705: Robert Barron

Date: August 15, 2025
Guests: Duncan Trussell (host), Bishop Robert Barron

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Overview

This episode of the Duncan Trussell Family Hour features Bishop Robert Barron, a prominent Catholic bishop, public intellectual, and host of the "Word on Fire" podcast. Known for his engaging approach to complex theological questions, Bishop Barron discusses the intersection of Christianity and modernity, spiritual challenges, the ongoing appeal and demands of Catholicism, and how the faith dialogues with traditions like Buddhism. The conversation addresses skepticism about religion, modern spiritual struggles, and even the role of technology in reshaping our spiritual lives—all with the conversational humor and candor signature to Trussell’s style.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Christianity on the DTFH: Representation & Openness

• Duncan reflects on how Christianity has been underrepresented on his podcast despite his deep personal interest—especially compared to traditions like Buddhism, shamanism, and even Satanism.
• [00:00] “Where are the Christians? Why don’t I have them on every once in a while?” – Duncan
• Bishop Barron is introduced as a spiritual bridge: “He has a way of communicating to get through that filter and he’s brilliant.” – Duncan

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2. Responding to Secular Critiques and the Problem of Evil

• Bishop Barron emphasizes Christianity’s tradition of engaging intellectual objections, noting the depth of critiques like the ‘problem of evil’.
  • [05:34] “The most powerful being the problem of evil, that’s always the biggest challenge to religion…” – Barron
  • References Thomas Aquinas’ approach: the existence of evil as an argument against God, and Aquinas’ response about greater goods emerging from permitted evil.

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3. Christian Persecution & Societal Resistance

• Duncan notes the empathy gap, asking why such a persecuted and generally hopeful religion is so persistently disliked or misunderstood.
  • [08:01] “The persecution of Christians in the modern world just doesn’t make sense to me.” – Duncan
• Barron attributes resistance partly to the radical demands of Christianity, especially God’s closeness to humanity and the challenge it poses:
  • [09:25] “God is always going to be a challenge to us, an affront to us… Christianity has always been persecuted.” – Barron

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4. Demonic Oppositional Forces: A Spiritual Reading

• The conversation tackles the spiritual immune response to Christianity, with Duncan suggesting it as indirect ‘proof of Satan’:
  • [11:21] “This is to me… this is a proof of Satan. Like, why would there be a spiritual immune response to something that is so implicitly sweet…?” – Duncan
• Barron agrees, recognizing resistance to the Christian message as potentially spiritual in origin and citing New Testament episodes of demons recognizing Jesus immediately.
  • [17:22] “In the New Testament the demons always know who he is… they react, you know, viscerally, vehemently. …There are unseen powers that are against the church…” – Barron

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5. Spiritual Demands, Guilt, and the Challenge of Mass

• Duncan confesses feeling “depraved” or “unworthy” attending Catholic Mass—a direct challege rather than comfort:
  • [22:04] “Anytime I go to the mass… I feel legitimately depraved, like I feel challenged.” – Duncan
• Barron reframes this:
  • [23:39] “The mass is designed to draw sinners into the font of grace… it had this kind of inclusivity.” – Barron
• They both agree the attraction to spiritual paths comes with real demands and discipline, not just comfort.

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6. Christianity and Buddhism: Similarities and Real Dissonances

• Extensive discussion compares points of connection and divergence between Buddhism and Christianity.
  • Both find commonality in discipline and the struggle with suffering and darkness.
  • [27:36] Barron: “Nirvana… opens you in deep meditation to this… interdependent co origination of all things… now, there I’d say is a major point of demarcation. Christianity would say the contingency of the world… requires a ground that you need… God.”
  • Christianity’s doctrine of a non-contingent God is contrasted with Buddhism’s focus on radical contingency without a fixed ground.

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7. God’s Choice of Underdogs

• Duncan expresses fascination with God’s consistent selection of “miscreants and underdogs”:
  • [31:38] “Why is it always the bad news bears…?” – Duncan
• Barron: It underscores the divinity of the mission and that its power must come from God, not earthly merit.

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8. The Mystery and Demands of the Eucharist

• The radical doctrine of the Eucharist is explored. Duncan recounts his realization that believers are not expressing a metaphor, but actually believe in “eating God flesh.”
  • [44:41] “Catholic theology is far more dramatic…unless you gnaw on my body and drink my blood, you have no life in you.” – Barron

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9. Physical Resurrection and Immortality

• Barron clarifies Christian doctrine on the resurrection—not the soul’s escape from the body, but the “transfiguration of the body.”
  • [47:04] “God became human, that humans might become God.” – Barron

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10. Personal Faith, the Problem of Suffering, and Pastoral Life

• Duncan questions Barron about his own road-to-Damascus moments and personal challenges.
  • Barron describes his gradual unfolding into faith, influenced by Aquinas and Merton, and the ongoing challenge of dealing with suffering, especially in pastoral roles.
  • [49:32] “There are certain moments in my life… times of great suffering. …I don't know any serious person of faith who doesn't have times like that.” – Barron

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11. Technology, AI, and Spiritual Threats

• Modern threats: AI’s disruptive and “demonic” qualities, misinformation, and their spiritual impacts.
  • [66:32] Duncan: “People are going nuts from interacting with this thing.”
  • Barron: AI can be deeply harmful, making people “stupid,” spreading misinformation, and creating real economic harm.
  • The Vatican is actively discussing how to approach AI as a spiritual and social issue.

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12. Purpose of Religion in an ‘Atheist’ World

• What would society lose without religion? Barron asserts the importance of religion for providing frameworks of meaning, and adventure:
  • [59:03] “…Imagine that world now where religion has disappeared. …What would that world be like? Now we're talking dull.” — Barron

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Perennial Challenge of Evil
  “The most powerful [argument] being the problem of evil, that’s always the biggest challenge to religion. …How do you explain that? That’s a darn good argument.” — Barron (05:34)

• On Christian Persecution
  “Talking about God is always a dangerous business because God is the supreme good… but we’re all sinners. And so God is always going to be a challenge to us.” — Barron (09:25)

• On the Demonic and Division
  “The devilish is what divides… whenever communities are divided, but also in here… my mind says this, but my will says that…” — Barron (20:00)

• On the Demands of Real Faith
  “If you really want to get into this path, you’re gonna have to change.” — Duncan (24:29)

• On the Eucharist and Real Presence
  “I’m not just coming up to kind of casually remember what Jesus did long ago. I’m eating his body and drinking his blood.” — Barron (45:41)

• On Personal Struggle and Pastoral Work
  “You're often dealing with people at really, really tough times. …You have to train these young guys… You can enter into someone's pain so deeply that you can't come out of it then.” — Barron (51:53)

• On the Via Negativa and Mystical Experience
  “There’s a very strong strain… that we can never grasp God entirely… you can’t control this reality.” — Barron (30:29)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:00–03:50 – Duncan’s introduction, context, and purpose for hosting a Catholic guest
• 05:34 – Problem of Evil and intellectual challenges to faith
• 08:01 – On persecution and misunderstanding of Christianity
• 17:22 – New Testament, demons and the reality of spiritual opposition
• 22:04 – Feeling challenged and unworthy at Mass
• 27:36–30:29 – Buddhism and Christianity: commonalities & critical differences
• 44:41–47:04 – The wildness and mystical “nuclear” power of the Mass and Eucharist
• 49:32 – Bishop Barron's most challenging moments of faith
• 66:32 – AI as a spiritual-cultural threat; misinformation
• 69:11 – The Vatican's and the Church's evolving approach to AI
• 70:12 – Bishop Barron shares how to find his work: Word on Fire

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Final Reflections

The episode bridges contemporary spiritual skepticism and the enduring challenges—and wild, demanding beauty—of the Catholic tradition. Bishop Barron emerges as a seasoned and compassionate figure, unafraid to address Christianity’s complexity, its mystical power, and its unique place in the spiritual landscape—while Duncan Trussell plays the honest, searching interlocutor, grounding the conversation in curiosity, humor, and vulnerability.

For further content:
Visit Word on Fire for Bishop Robert Barron's media, books, and online community.

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Transcript

[Duncan Trussell]

Welcome, friends, to the dtfh and what a special episode I have for you today. If you are a longtime fan of the dtfh, you probably know I've had people from so many different spiritual traditions on this podcast. Shamans practicing witches, practicing magicians. I've had rabbis, I've had Satanists, I've had people who practice bhakti yoga, people who worship Shiva. I've had so many different spiritual worldviews on this podcast. But you know what? I haven't had a lot of Catholics. In fact, I've had 0. 0. In the years that I've done podcasting, I have given Christianity almost no representation on this show at all. Which is kind of weird because I love Christianity, I love Jesus, and I love reading the New Testament. I'm not going to go on and on about how the experience I had Book of John, lsd, you've heard me say it a million times. But where are the Christians? Why? Why don't I have them on every once in a while? And so when someone told me that they could connect me with Bishop Robert Barron, I said yes right away. Because Robert Barron, and I hope Bishop Barron's okay with me saying this. He's like a modern day Thomas Merton. He's somebody who is so good at articulating Christianity in a way that maybe people who are somewhat unfamiliar with it, people who have misunderstandings about it, people who feel hesitant if not turned off by it. He has a way of communicating to get through that filter and he's brilliant. He kept saying over and over again in our conversation, he's not an expert on Buddhism. He's definitely an expert on Buddhism and he's an expert in a lot of things. But most importantly, he's really, really, really good at answering what I would consider to be some fairly difficult questions about Christianity. And he helped me unravel some knots that tying me up for a while regarding the place where Buddhism and Christianity meet and the places where they don't meet. So listen, if you're somebody out there who has an immediate knee jerk, I'm not going to listen to some Christian stuff. I would invite you to practice a little bit of flexibility here and at least tune in for the first 10, 20 minutes. I think you're going to enjoy it. We talk about demons, exorcists, and a lot of other incredible things that I think even if you are somebody who immediately is turned off by Christianity, you're still going to enjoy this conversation. And though I don't think I could say her name a Tremendous. Thank you for helping us make this connection. This was a wonderful conversation that really answered a lot of personal questions I've been having regarding my own faith and my own connection to Christianity. So get ready, friends, to meet a brilliant bishop, host of an awesome podcast called Word on Fire, author of countless books on Catholicism, Christianity, faith, and someone who has the courage, from time to time, jump onto Reddit and get into theological debates with atheists. And if that doesn't take incredible divine courage, I don't know it does. Everybody, welcome to the dtfh. Bishop Robert Barron. Bishop Barron, welcome to the dtfh. It's very nice to meet you.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Thank you. Great to be on with you. Thanks for having me today.

[Duncan Trussell]

I'm so excited. I have so many questions for you. I know we're not gonna be able to cover all of them. I've asked a lot of people, you know, if you could ask a bishop a question, what would it be? And the most common question I have is, is it inconvenient to only be able to move diagonally?

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Yeah, I've heard that question. I knew. I've now gotten used to it. I've now gotten used to it.

[Duncan Trussell]

I'm so sorry. So hacky. I'm so sorry. Forgive me.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

That's all right.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know, one of the things I really respect about you is you seem fearless when it comes to heading into the dark bowers of the Internet and bringing your faith to audiences that, you know, reject wholeheartedly reject Christianity, see it as some kind of antiquated primitive vestigial mythology that is somehow dragging society down, keeping us away from, I don't know what, some modern Star Trek future John Lennon. No, imagine there's no whatever God or anything, and then what? But have you ever found yourself in any of these conversations where you realize, like, oh, wow, I think they got me cornered here. The secularist argument against Christianity. Have you ever heard a good secularist argument against Christianity?

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Oh, I'm sure there are a lot of arguments against Christianity and some are quite good. And they're very ancient because, you know, we've been around for a long time. So we are a 2000 year tradition. We've been an intellectual tradition from the beginning. Think of St. Paul. So from the beginning we've been entertaining objections. Think of, go back to the Acts of the Apostles, Paul on the Areopagus in Athens. What's he doing but dealing with the philosophers of his time who were deeply skeptical when he talked about the resurrection. They laughed and walked away. So my point is, we're used to critics, and we've had this intellectual tradition for ages. And so we've dealt with, you know, these questions. It doesn't mean there aren't good objections. There are. The most powerful being the problem of evil, that's always the biggest challenge to religion. If God exists and God's all powerful and all good, why is there so much evil? You know, maybe some evil, but there's an enormous amount of dysfunction in the universe. How do you explain that? That's a darn good argument. Thomas Aquinas, you know, our great intellectual hero, always had objections to his own position, right? And then he would deal with those. So the question is, does God exist? And objection Aquinas entertains is okay, if one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be destroyed. If there were infinite heat, there'd be no cold, right? We call God infinite good. So if God exists, how could there be evil? Therefore, God doesn't exist. Well, may I say that's a darn good argument. And Aquinas brings it right up front, you know. Now his answer, famously is God permits and allows certain evils to bring about a greater good that we might, can't. We can't immediately see. Now, I bring it up just to say, yeah, that's a very good argument. And every generation of believers has to wrestle with it.

[Duncan Trussell]

Go back to look at the.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

In the Bible, the Book of Job is the best presentation of that problem.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, my gosh.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

And it's in the heart of the Bible, so it's not like some alien enemy had to remind us of this problem. At the heart of our Revelation is the Book of Job, which is like, what the heck, I'm a good man. Why is this being done to me? You know, so sure, there are good arguments. That's the best one. But, you know, we've had a whole tradition of dealing with them.

[Duncan Trussell]

To me, whenever I'm spending time thinking about Christianity, and I spend a lot of time thinking about Christianity because my kids are Catholic, my wife is Catholic, and to me, if I'm looking for some kind of proof of the veracity of Christianity or something that really sticks out that I don't understand, and maybe you could help me understand this. The persecution of Christians in the modern world just doesn't make sense to me. I go to mass with my wife sometimes. I was raised an Episcopalian. I'm around Christians all the time. Nothing in anything I've encountered personally in Christianity would in any way shape or form validate or justify the amount of persecution Christians are The most persecuted religion on the planet. And this is something I think Jesus said from the get go. If you decide to walk down this path, look what they're going to do to me. You think you're going to get it much easier. Why? Do you understand why this happens? What is going on there?

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Yeah, no, it's a very fair observation. First of all, we can empirically verify that there's no question Christianity is the most persecuted religion. And keep this in mind, Duncan. Go back, you know, 2,000 years. So from the early martyrs on, the church has undergone persecution. There are more martyrs, Christian martyrs, in the 20th century, than all the previous centuries combined. And it's continuing in the 21st century. We are clearly the most persecuted religion anywhere in the world. Well, a couple thoughts I have. One is simply, see, talking about God is always a dangerous business because God is the supreme good, God is wonderful, it's good news. But we're all sinners. And so God is always going to be a challenge to us, an affront to us. Wait a minute, I don't want to deal with that. It's a challenge. And so there's a resistance to that. But press it further because Christianity is not just talking about God. It's talking about God became one of us, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. God entered into our human condition. Well, that's great news. It's the heart of evangelization. But it's at the same time for sinners, very, very difficult news that God has come so close to us and he's making such a demand upon us. Do you know in the Gospels when it says that Jesus disciples are following him and it says they were amazed and they were afraid. And I've always loved that. So amazed I get, you know, the wonder worker and the great teacher, and they're intuiting he's even more than that. He's the Word made flesh. But they were also afraid of him and for good reason. And I think people that hear the Christian message at least implicitly get that. And that's one reason why Christianity has always been persecuted.

[Duncan Trussell]

But your description of why I agree with. But I think many of the people who have this sort of habitual, instinctual distaste for Christianity don't know anything about it. They don't know anything about it other than maybe they've turned on some televangelists on late night TV or something, and maybe not even that. I know there's some people who were raised in Christian homes that were abusive and Christianity's there. So some kind of psychological pairing has happened. But quite often when I'm like reading some post on Reddit or something that is railing against Christianity, it occurs to me that these people don't, I don't think they've ever even looked at the New Testament. They haven't looked at the depth of the thing. And this, you know, I know this. A lot of people listening. This is probably going to like turn you off, but this is to me, like, forget the proof of God, this is a proof of Satan. Like, why would there be a spiritual immune response to something that is so implicitly sweet, something that's so implicitly hopeful? I get being afraid. If I was nervous to interview you, if I was around Jesus, I'd freeze up. I probably wouldn't be able to say anything. But to me, no, I agree with you.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

That's a very fair point. And I wasn't willing to go there right away, but as long as you've opened that door. That's exactly right.

[Duncan Trussell]

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[Bishop Robert Barron]

Christmas look, in the New Testament the demons always know who he is. So when the ordinary people are kind of confused and some say Moses, some say you're Elijah. I don't know who you are, but the demons always knew who he was, right? You're the Holy One of God. We know who you are. Have you come to destroy us? Jesus of Nazareth. They know who he is and they react, you know, viscerally, vehemently. And so Paul said, St. Paul, we do battle against flesh and blood people that we can see, but we also battle against what he called powers and principalities. There are unseen powers that are against the church, and are they stirring up opposition precisely to this religion? Right. Which I mean, I say, look, as a Catholic, is the. Is the fullness of revelation. So that doesn't surprise me, given the fact that we're against dark powers, that they know who the enemy is.

[Duncan Trussell]

Right. And I guess if you're going to, I don't know, deconstruct the personality of God, maybe an easier way to start, because I think humans are a little more familiar with suffering than they are with redemption. They're a little more familiar with the darkness than the light. Sadly, you could sort of, by looking at the antithesis, understand the, you know, look at the antagonist. You could understand the protagonist, maybe. And in this case, it seems like what we're looking at, though certainly I've gone through my forgive me, please forgive me, or ask him to forgive me. I've gone through my satanic phases, Bishop. But my idea of Satan in those days was not what I think it actually is. Like foulness, rot, entropy, the personality of entropy, confusion, diffusion, and ultimately disintegration that leads to nothing beautiful. And so there is something, and maybe that's why people don't like Christians, is because if we're going to dive into Christianity at some point, you have to reckon with a scientifically unquantifiable biome consisting of something that is intentionally trying to ruin your life.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Right? Look, in the Scriptures, the two great characterizations of the devil would be the scatterer and the accuser. And those to me are very telling. So diabolos, and our word, like devil diablo comes from that. Right. But the Greek behind it is d', abalein, which means to throw apart. So the devilish is what divides now, that means among us. So whenever communities are divided, but also in here and all of us sinners, know what that feels like. When I'm divided, you know, my mind says this, but my will says that. And one. One passion goes this way, the other goes that way. My body goes here, my soul goes there. Well, that's the diabolic that I'm not an integrated whole, and that's Christian spirituality, is that I find integration around Christ the center. When I lose that, I fall apart. And then when I fall apart inside, I tend to sow dissolution around me.

[Duncan Trussell]

Right. To make it work.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

But the other name for the devil is hosatanas, right? And we get Satan from that, and that just means the accuser. You know, we hear in the Book of Revelation, the accuser of our brothers is cast out who night and day, accuse them before God. That's the satanic, the blaming instinct. And you see that all the time. In fact, many societies are predicated upon blaming. It's. We all come together because we all hate him or we all hate them. So that move to blame and then the scattering, those are the signs of the demonic at work. You don't need the head spinning around, you know, I mean, I can tell you stories from exorcists, I know that would curl your toes. But where you really see the demonic are in those two moves, the disintegration and the accusation. That's where the demonic is.

[Duncan Trussell]

Let me tell you one of my least favorite things about Catholicism, and it's to the point that you're making.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Yeah, go ahead.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know, there's a lot of. We live in capitalism. You want to. A lot of people want to, I think, with some kind of good heart, want to teach this path or that path, this way or that way. But sometimes the articulation of this path or that path, I've certainly seen in Buddhism, it gets warped to fit modernity. And basically, what, you know, you want to get. You want to sell tickets, man. And the way you're going to, you're not going to sell tickets starting off with. With the, like, actual substance itself, you're going to sell tickets, making a softer, sweeter version of this thing. Whereas in Catholicism, anytime I go to the mass, and I do not mean this in an accusatory way, I mean, I feel legitimately depraved, like I feel challenged. It feels like out of some kind of, like, miraculous synchronicity, something will come up that feels like it's talking directly to some secret part of me that I don't want anybody to know. And it doesn't feel good. It doesn't make me feel good. And maybe that's why people were afraid of Jesus, this sense of being polluted. You know, I really don't like it. And I'm curious.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Help me understand that bit. So you say when, like, you go to Mass.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

You feel that. What about yourself?

[Duncan Trussell]

Don't belong here, don't deserve it. This.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

You don't belong there.

[Duncan Trussell]

Okay. Not good enough. You know, there's no way that I should be here. This is.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

No, but that. I mean, I think that's completely getting it wrong. I mean, the mass is designed to draw sinners into the font of grace. I mean, that's the whole idea, is to include saints and sinners, the rich and the poor. I don't know if you know the name Dorothy Day. She was the founder of the Catholic Worker movement, this really kind of radical movement for social reform. And when she was, she was a young atheist, fiercely anti religious, and then kind of made her way slowly. And what she loved this is like back in the 1920s, a long time ago. But what she loved when she came in the Catholic Church was rich people kneeling right next to poor people and those who spoke great English next to those who spoke no English. And she loved that about it, that it had this kind of inclusivity.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, I do see that, Bishop. I'm talking about. There's a demand that I've sensed. That's the part it's like, listen, if you really want to get into this path, you're gonna have to change.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Yeah, but look, Buddhism, Buddhism has got that in spades. If you really want to walk the Eightfold path and you really want to take the Buddha seriously, there's a moment of all the great faiths of an invitation, come and see. But I think they all have that, don't they? They all have a very demanding spiritual itinerary.

[Duncan Trussell]

They do, you're right.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Yeah. And so that's okay. It seems to me that the more you're drawn into it, but it's like somebody, it's like a kid that really wants to learn baseball, that really wants to be a better golfer, that wants to play the guitar. And you give me discipline. I want it because I'm so attracted to it. That's the way it works. Like people are attracted to Jesus, but then what does he always say to them? Follow me, follow me. And where am I going? Invariably to the cross. I'm going to the point of complete self gift. Right?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yes.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

So that's the demand, that's the. What did Bonhoeffer call the cost of discipleship? I mean, it's always going to be a costly thing and it's beautiful.

[Duncan Trussell]

And I'm not saying this any way to denigrate it. I'm saying it to point towards its potency and this, you know, sort of. I've had the sense a few times and, you know, I think I've kind of given up trying to compare Buddhism to Christianity. I think I've given up. I tried for a bit to do some kind of interfaith. This is where the two connect. And obviously I think any lineage has some kind of connecting points, but, you know, suffer. I Went in there and he like kind of unleashed on Buddhism. But he was sort of making a fair point, which was that, you know, this is a. Christianity is different. You can't look at it. Don't try to, don't try to make everything, don't try to fit everything in the same cubbyhole.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Yeah, that's true. But like read. Have you read Thomas Merton?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yes sir, I have.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

I read Merton as a young man and Merton, you know, uber Catholic, he's a Trappist monk, but then spent a lot of his life studying Buddhism and especially, you know, Suzuki and Zen Buddhism.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yes.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

And found all kinds of points of contact. Now Merton himself knew full well it doesn't mean oh, they're just the same and you know, they're just climbing the sacred mountain by different routes. He would never have said that. But he did find, you know, important points of contact between the two.

[Duncan Trussell]

There's contact, but I think at least, I mean, maybe you could help me with this where the two for me sort of slam into each other in a non harmonic way.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

They do some, in some ways, yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

We'll get, you know, interdependency, in other words, like this idea of the sort of some sort of permanent nature to God runs directly against this conceptualization of interdependency. Awareness, the field of awareness, origination. Yes sir.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Right. And that's what again, I'm no expert on Buddhism, I've never claimed. But what I get from the reading I've done, you know, is that Nirvana, so the blowing out the candle of desire and of egotistic preoccupation opens you in deep meditation to this, what you just mentioned there, the interdependent co origination of all things, the Jewel Net of Indra. Right. That all things are connected and reflect each other. Or I heard it described by a more philosophically minded Buddhist as contingency without ground. So pure contingency, everything depended upon everything else. Now there I'd say is a major point of demarcation. Christianity would say the contingency of the world, which is absolute. Everything in the universe is contingent. So the Jewel Net of Indra, I get it, that's the way the universe is. Right. But contingency requires a ground that you need, a finely non contingent reality which grounds contingency. And then you get Exodus 3:14. God, what's your name? I am who I am.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, it's that the non contingent reality I think in Buddhism is there, but it's dependent on the contingent reality without a contingent reality. If there's Just non contingent reality, you don't have anything at all. You need something that differentiates one from the other. And because we know the contingent reality is subject to change, if the non contingent reality is in any way, shape or form dependent on that contingent reality, then it implies a, an impermanence that is, this is a sort of logical breakdown of the problem. That's where I sort of run into a real interesting spot because I do buy that. But then also I like to think I've experienced Jesus Christ and it just seems to fly in the face of that or it's sort of like a whatever, it doesn't matter. Sort of, you know, that experience, it doesn't matter anymore. That sort of thinking or that part of my mind, it sort of goes out the window in the presence of whatever that is. And then that's where I just like talk about the being divided inside. Woo. That's a real fun place to be where you have to try to like just deal with two seemingly separate experiences. And you love both of them, right?

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Well, yeah. Again I'm no expert. I never claim to be expert on Buddhism, but I've talked to a number of Buddhists over the years, I've been in some of these dialogues and it does come down to God. I mean as I talk to this series Buddhists, they'd say the main difference is we don't believe in God because it's interdependent co origination. You don't have a creator who's the ground of all reality and we do hold to God. That's a fundamental difference.

[Duncan Trussell]

Right.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Now having said that, something that some of the best Christians who do this dialogue find really intriguing is the darkness of Buddhism, by which I mean that sense of not being able to grasp and not being able to hold onto. Well, there's a very strong strain of that within Christianity, call it negative theology, you know, that we can never grasp God entirely. And even, you know, in the Bible when God says to Moses, I'm going to go buy you, but you, you can only look at me from behind. It's a way of saying you can't control this reality, you know. And so in the very darkness of the Buddhist sort of approach to ultimate reality, we would say there's something right in that because ultimate reality is very dark to our consciousness and we can't hang onto it and we have to let go. And all of those wonderful kind of spiritual motifs I hear that from in these Buddhist Catholic dialogues.

[Duncan Trussell]

I've been, well, I'm wasting time talking to a Bishop about Buddhism. So forgive me for that because I.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Have no right, I don't claim any expertise in it.

[Duncan Trussell]

I have some Christian related questions.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Yeah, go ahead.

[Duncan Trussell]

One of my favorite aspects of Christianity is that God, when choosing representatives, really seems to pick miscreants. You know, Noah, the drunk Moses, the stutter Jesus, carpenter's son in a manger. The list goes on and on and on. What's the explanation for that? Why is it always the bad news bears, why is it always the underdogs that God is choosing to carry these incredible burdens that are talked about every day around the planet?

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Paul said it so people know the power is coming not from me, but from God, you know, so God chooses what's weak in the eyes of the world to manifest his strength. Now it is true, though it's not exclusively the case, that he chooses only so he chose, you know, King David and King Solomon and so on. So there are exceptions. But there is something really right in what you're saying, and I think God does it to manifest his own power, that he's not reliant upon our capacities, but is showing forth his own power in working with the powerless. And Paul's a good example there. He was aware of his own weakness. Admits, you know, when I'm among you, I'm very unimpressive.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yes, right.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Even like the Blessed Mother, we'd say at Lourdes, appearing at a garbage dump. And so when the kids came back and said, hey, we saw the Blessed Mother at this, at Massabiel, they said, massabiel, it's a trash heap.

[Duncan Trussell]

Right.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Why would the Mother of God appear there? Well, you're right in suggesting, well, why wouldn't she appear there?

[Duncan Trussell]

Right. It's just quite beautiful. I mean, I think it's. I do feel like you can get these sort of, I don't know, glimmers from some. You can get some sense of a personality here. Like it's not, it does not lack personality. There is a sense of humor to some degree. There is a wildness to it. And this since you're mentioning Paul, I mean, of course we're gonna mention Paul in a discussion of Christianity. This is another thing I think I'm confused about regarding Christianity. Saul of Tarsus, he is persecuting Christians as was basically like a sport back then, and has this encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus and becomes like the great teacher but never met Jesus and the epistles, which, please correct me if I'm wrong, it seems to be like a lot of the modern Christian church are based on these are questions about how do we do this or that or admonishments or suggestions or congratulations. They are all coming from someone who wasn't around Jesus in the flesh. And so I've heard that. I don't know if you'd call it a critique of modern Christianity as being actually something called Paulian theology. This episode of the DTFH has been supported by Quints the winds of autumn are beginning to blow upon us, friends, and it's time for you to head over to Quint's. Why drop a fortune on basics when you don't have to? Quint's has the good stuff. High quality fabrics, classic fits and lightweight layers for warm weather. All at prices that make sense. Everything I've ordered from Quint's has been nothing but solid and Quintz gets the Aaron Trussell Double Golden Seal of Approval. I told her they were interested in supporting the podcast. She said yes, do it now. Ask for samples. She loves them. Quince has closet staples you want to reach for over and over, like cozy cashmere and cotton sweaters from just 50 bucks. Breathable flow knit polos and comfortable lightweight pants somehow work for both weekend hangs and dressed up dinners that I don't go to anymore because I'm married with a bunch of kids and that's never going to happen for years. I'll never go to a dressed up dinner, but if I did, I'd wear quints. The best part? Everything with quints is half the cost of similar brands. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middleman, Quint gives you luxury pieces without the markup. And Quint only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices in premium fabrics and finishes. I got a pair of Quint sweatpants. My wife got all the other Quint stuff that they offered. I'm happy with that. These are great sweatpants and I don't like sweatpants, but I wear these. Yeah, I'm an evernude. I will sleep in jeans. Go ahead, stop listening. But I wear my Quint sweatpants and it might be winning me over to the sweatpants game. Go to quints.comduncan for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N C E.comduncan to get free shipping in 365 day returns. Quince.comduncan.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

No, no, no, no, no. I don't buy that. See, Look. Paul claims that he had an encounter with Jesus and remember in the account in the Acts of the Apostles he Said, who are you, sir? So, yes, he never met Jesus in the flesh, the historical Jesus. So when he appears to him, who are you? And then he says, I'm Jesus, whom you are persecuting. So that's where he met him. But also, Paul had the great instinct to go back to Jerusalem, as he put it, to meet the pillars. He wanted to meet the apostles and he wanted to meet James, the brother of the Lord. He wanted to meet people that did know Jesus in the flesh to make sure that his message was on point. No, no, I think he had this immensely powerful experience of Jesus which he then ratified and verified through those that knew him directly in the faith.

[Duncan Trussell]

I didn't know he went back to meet them. Thank you for fixing that. That's why that was the apostles.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

It's a wonderful account, really, because all they knew, they knew this guy that had been viciously persecuting the church was now supporting us. And they thought, well, he must be a spy or something. They were very wary of Paul in the beginning.

[Duncan Trussell]

I didn't know that either. Wow.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

But also, the cool thing about St. Paul is he took a long time. He saw the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. He didn't start preaching in a serious way for 14 years.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, I mean, he probably thought he was going nuts.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Well, I think what he was, maybe that was. But I think he was trying to fit this experience in the context of his Jewish background. And what we call Christian theology is born with Paul. And that means this attempt to think Jesus in light of the Jewish revelation that's called Christian theology. In many ways, the experience.

[Duncan Trussell]

Whatever happened out there, must have been incredible. You get that sense reading it. But I feel like that road to Damascus experience is something hopefully all of us have to contend with. And to me, if I had been throwing rocks at Christians and some puffed up, pompous, violent, sociopathic weirdo, and then suddenly I have some divine vision that is going to wreck me. That's going to wreck me like I am. What do you do now? And I'm curious only because I've never had a conversation with a bishop. When did it happen to you? Or have you always had a connection with the divine? And if you did have some moment or series of moments, did you find yourself wondering if maybe you were losing it a little bit or how do I live like I've been living anymore or what do I do now?

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Yeah, well, it's a complex question you're raising. And, you know, I'd say in my case, probably it's like most people, came of age as a Catholic. So I have Catholic parents who taught me prayers and taught me the basics of the faith when I was a little kid and then brought me to Mass. So when you're brought to Mass on a regular basis, so you're going to church, you're seeing priests in the vestments, you're seeing this unfolding of a ritual. When I first started many, many, many years ago as a little kid, there was still a bit of the Mass in Latin. And so you're a little kid and they're speaking English and suddenly this weird language. What is that? What is he even saying? What got my attention, I must say. When I was a little kid, then I go to Catholic school, so I had my regular classes, but also religion class. So I would have been introduced to the Bible and its, you know, stories and all that. So you kind of. You come of age with it, and it becomes sort of second nature to you.

[Duncan Trussell]

I see.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Now, what happened to me when I was in high school is I came across St. Thomas Aquinas. And Thomas Aquinas is a very rational thinker, and he offered arguments for God's existence. And it was a very kind of intellectually disciplined approach. And I loved that because I didn't really get that as a kid. I got, you know, the basic instruction and the basic biblical framework. But then I got Aquinas, who opened my mind up in a big way, you know. And then after that, soon after that, I read the guy I mentioned to you a few minutes ago, Thomas Merton. And I read Merton's great book called the Seven Story Mountain, which is all about his conversion to the faith. And I read that when I was, like, 16. And I can still. If a song comes on the radio or something that was playing when I was reading that book, it triggers this enormously powerful memory because Merton's book is all about this guy kind of gradually falling in love with God. And that book had a big impact on me. And then my life unfolds, and I, you know, I go through school and there were. There were moments in my. In my education when, you know, I had a lot of questions, a lot of doubts. I was studying philosophy. You can't study philosophy without having all kinds of questions. Right, sure. So, yeah, I had that. But I would say it's more. Not so much Damascus Road experience. It was more the gradual unfolding of my Catholicism or gradual entry into the full world of Catholicism. And we would say, you know, like, at the Mass, you don't have maybe lights flashing and all that and voices. But the Mass is a mystical experience. I said Mass this morning in my chancery office a few hours ago, you know, and that's always kind of a Damascus road in a way, because you're having a personal confrontation with the Lord.

[Duncan Trussell]

Confrontation is the right word for it. You know, I can't remember. My friend took me to church. Communion was happening, and I can remember looking at the person handing the Communion wafer and realizing this person is not symbolically giving me a piece of bread. This person thinks they're giving me the flesh of God right now. It was a very powerful moment because I don't think up until that point I'd ever made the connection with the reality of what's happening at Mass versus a sort of intellectualizing of what's happening at Mass, a kind of formal, I don't know, meditation, a sort of. I don't know. No one really is believing this. But then when you realize, every year Catholics are putting themselves through a pretty brutal cycle, man, Black Friday, the mourning, the grief. And it's. When you see people, they're really grieving every year for real. This is not an easy religion. This is not an easy path.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Were you raised a Catholic or like, you were brought to Catholic Mass by a friend or. I don't.

[Duncan Trussell]

My wife is Catholic.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Your wife's Catholic.

[Duncan Trussell]

And I was raised Episcopalian, but, you know, I was a kid, and so I.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

High liturgical tradition, though.

[Duncan Trussell]

High liturgical tradition, but just didn't. I was a chubby kid. My belt was too tight. I wanted out. There was no sense of anything at that point. But.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

May I say, your instinct is really good. See, on that point, that if we're just trading in, a casual symbol like this spread is symbolic of what Jesus did long ago. Well, all right. But the Catholic theology is far more dramatic than that. And stranger, how strange is the word. It's grounded. It's in John, chapter six. You know, when Jesus said, I'm going to give you my flesh to eat. And the people say, what is this guy talking about his flesh to eat? Is he crazy? And so he's given every opportunity to say, oh, no, listen, I'm talking metaphorically here. But he doesn't. He said, unless you gnaw on my body. And that's the Greek term there. It doesn't mean eat. It means, unless you gnaw on my body and drink my blood, you have no life in you. And then everyone left. I find it very interesting in John, chapter six, everyone left. If he's just trading in Metaphors and symbols. Well, heck, why would they all have left? They get that. I mean, Jesus taught metaphorically all the time, but they all left. And then he turns to the apostles, the apostles themselves. Are you going to leave me? And Peter says, lord, where are we going to go? You've got the words of everlasting life. So from that moment, this question of the real presence in the Eucharist is really pivotal to Catholicism. And it does have that kind of strange mystical realism where I'm not just coming up to kind of casually remember what Jesus did long ago. I'm eating his body and drinking his blood.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's missing. I'm sorry to cut you off, Bishop. Please, God, forgive me. That's. To me, when people are conceptualizing Christianity, minus any attempt to go to a mass, see what it's like, they're missing that element to it. And to me, that's the hook in my mouth that gets you. And I don't think people understand. What you're looking at here is, though, not some domesticated, well, pruned bush or something. You're. It's wild. It is a. It's like a nuclear reactor in there or something. And I. I don't think people. That's why I love chatting with people like you and I talk about on my podcast is because what a wild thing to exist in the world. What? Oh, that's happening every Sunday. People are eating God flesh every Sunday.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

And thereby becoming immortalized. And so the early church fathers said God became human, that humans might become God, and that's the way they summed up Christianity. So the Word becomes flesh, and that's very important, the Word becomes flesh, that our flesh might become divinized. So, you know, talking about heaven is not like a Platonic idea of the soul escaping from the body. It's the whole transfiguration of the body, the elevation. So we say in the creed, we look forward to the resurrection of the body. We don't look forward to the escape of the soul to heaven. Most even Christians, I say, would be casual Platonists. You know, so for Plato, that's the whole point, was let's get out of the body and get up into the pure realm of the forms and all that. Well, that's Plato, but it's not Christianity at all. Christianity is about bodies and about the body being resurrected. And so that's tied to the Eucharist because that's the way we become immortalized.

[Duncan Trussell]

But let's hope it's a younger body, right? You get to choose which Age you resurrect at or how does that work?

[Bishop Robert Barron]

There's an answer in the tradition. We're not obligated to believe this, but Thomas Aquinas thought we were resurrected at the age of 33, of Jesus age, because he thought, 33, pretty good. You're at full maturity, but you're not old. You're kind of at the peak of your powers. So he imagined it. Now, whatever. See, the glorified body is, I don't think we know. We just. We look with anticipation toward it.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

So I wouldn't want to get overly specific there. I don't. I don't really know. I understand, but Aquinas followed your instinct, though, and said, no, I think you will be 33 when we have our resurrected body.

[Duncan Trussell]

I think I started small, smoking in my 20s. I'd like to do 18, maybe. Bishop, I have a question for you that comes from one of the many people who love you in Catholicism, and I didn't ask if I could mention her name, so I'm not going to. She. First of all, when I told her I was getting a chance to chat with you, she was just so excited. You've changed her life. You should know that she owes her. She attributes a lot of her growth in Christianity to your work. But her question was, when has your faith most been challenged?

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Well, a couple things I'd say. One is when I was a young man and I was studying philosophy, and I was, you know, reading everybody from Sartre to Nietzsche to Freud and to, you know, all the great critics of religion, religion. And, you know, I took those books seriously and entertained those arguments. And there was a time when I was in college where I thought, well, I don't know, this whole religion thing, you know, makes any sense. And so, yeah, it was challenged there. And then I would say, there are certain moments in my life I won't go into all the details, but times of great suffering. And that's why that argument from evil is such a powerful one, where you say, I mean, how could God permit or allow or preside over such suffering? So, yeah, I've had those experiences. I don't know any serious person of faith who doesn't have times like that, you know, moments when there's a hesitation or there's a doubt or there's a fear, you know, I don't know anybody. I remember once I was a young priest in the parish, so you're out there dealing with people all the time. And there was a policeman in my parish who inexplicably One night, got up and shot his son to death and then shot himself to death. Right. And he was in my parish. So I go to. I'm 27 years old, maybe 28, and I go to the funeral parlor to visit, you know, with the family. And there's two coffins there and the mother and the wife. I come in with the Roma cholera on as a representative of the church. And I remember she just went like this. Like what? What? Like, explain this to me. And all I could muster, which I think really was kind of the grace of God, is I went like that too. Like, look, I don't know. I can't explain this, but sure, I see people sometimes don't get this. When you're involved in pastoral ministry, you're dealing all the time with people at their worst moments, their best moments too. You know, your wedding and all those great things. But you're often dealing with people at really, really tough times. And you go as a representative of the church and of faith at a time when they're in really deep darkness and something we have to actually train. I taught in the seminary for a long time. You have to train these young guys entering the priesthood. You can't go so far down that you get stuck, you know, because you can enter into someone's pain so deeply that you can't come out of it then. So there are certain techniques, I think, for being as pastorally sensitive as you should without being completely overwhelmed by the darkness you're dealing with.

[Duncan Trussell]

Right.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

You know, so sure. I think anyone involved in pastoral work faces that stuff.

[Duncan Trussell]

Is it part is that this episode of the DTFH has been brought to you by my dear friends at Squarespace. Yeah, it's a square space. By that I think they're referring to actually more of a rectangular space in the sense that your computer is kind of a rectangle. But I suppose that if someone had a square shaped phone, then your website would show up as a square. But regardless of the shape, triangle, circle, whatever shape your website might be, if you made it with Squarespace, it's gonna look good and even better, it's gonna be something you made yourself. You didn't have to go down to the docs and find a web designer. You didn't have to pleasure some miscreant web designer in some dark, pungent alley so that he would build a website for you. That's what you used to do in the old days. I can't tell you how many drooling web designers I pleasured. Satisfied? I had to do what they wanted just to get my website made. And I don't mean paying money. Folks, I'm not going to go further because it's a commercial. But sometimes it was fun. A lot of the times it was scary and every time it was embarrassing. Those were the dark days. Now you can just jump on Squarespace. You could make a beautiful website and you could do it quick mentioned it before I was going on the road and I needed to do morning tv. I wanted to raise awareness to tying helium balloons to your children. How dangerous that is. I'm not going to insert my foundation into a Squarespace ad, but Sheraton's flight is a website about the story of what happened when I tied too many helium balloons to my child. Sheraton drifted away and they were able to show that on morning TV and raise awareness. Please guys, don't tie too many helium balloons to your kids. They do drift away. And I made that on three vodka sodas at 2am Maybe more vodka sodas to be honest. And it looks great. And it was easy to make. And that's the glory of Squarespace. They've got all the other stuff. Paywalls. If you want to have content for your members. I know what your members want. I know what you guys want from me. They also allow you to send out great mass mails so that people don't feel like they're being scammed, that you're gonna lift their identity. They're gonna get stuck snat in their computer. They've got everything you need. They've got AI that'll help you build the website. My God, it's next level tech. It's an ever evolving Swiss army knife that's making the Internet beaut. Thank you for that Squarespace. And fine, you don't have to believe my yapping ass. You can go to squarespace.com duncan and try it out for free. I'll expect an apology if you didn't believe my pitch here. And then when you're ready to launch, which you will be, use offer Code Duncan to get 10% off your first order of a website or a domain. That's squarespace.com dunkin offer code duncan to get 10% off your first order of a website or a domain. Thank you Squarespace. God bless you for all that you've done for the Internet. Is it part of the path? Are those moments sort of like the pull up bars of Christianity? Is it kind of built in? Is that in the design?

[Bishop Robert Barron]

I would say yes. Because see, at the heart of Christianity is the cross. Right. We hold up Christ crucified. Paul says, I know one thing, Christ in him crucified. So the crucifixion is naming something. It's showing something of central importance in Christianity. And it's something like this pattern of dying and rising, Right. That somehow dying and rising is the great pattern. You know, we use the word Logos. Christ is the word become flesh. The Logos. Well, Logos can be word in Greek, but it also means pattern. He's the pattern that's become flesh.

[Duncan Trussell]

Wow.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

So what's the pattern? The gestalt, you know, as the Germans say, that governs reality. And we would say it's the pattern of this paschal mystery, of the dying and the rising of Jesus, so that we go through suffering and things are stripped away from us and we have to go. Like Merton said, you have to go all the way down before you can come up. That's Dante as well, right? Dante goes all the way down to hell and only then can he make the way up.

[Duncan Trussell]

Right.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

That's the rhythm. And so to your point, yes, in pastoral work, you see it all the time. You walk with people on that downward trajectory, but you walk with them knowing the great paschal mystery.

[Duncan Trussell]

Wow, what a job. What a. Not to like, reduce it to a job, but, whoa, no, that's the right.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Instinct, you know, and people that say, oh, you know, priesthood, it's just kind of nice, you know, domesticated, dull sort of thing. Not. On the contrary, it's a pretty dramatic life.

[Duncan Trussell]

I've never thought it was a nice thing. I've never thought that. I've always felt pretty bad for y'.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

All.

[Duncan Trussell]

It just seems brutal.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

No, but I don't want to overstate where it's not really. I've been priest for almost 40 years and it's not brutal in that way. It's demanding the way any, you know, any path worth walking is. Has got a brutality to it. But it's this wonderful, liberating path and this life giving path and, you know, all that we need you.

[Duncan Trussell]

I mean, this is in. I don't know where I read this. It was actually referring to Buddha. It was. You know, Buddhism is full of these reminders. And one of the reminders is, remember there was a time when there was no Buddha. There was a time when there was no Eightfold Bat. There was a time when this didn't exist. And there was a time when, when there was no Jesus. There was a time when there was no bishops. And you know, the reason. And the reason I said, I feel bad for you guys, is not just because of the difficulty of what you do, but you must know we need you. What happens if you're all gone? What happens if the rapture happens and God's just like, I'm taking the bishops.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

No, and that's a very important point because like the new atheists go back 25 years when the new atheists were, you know, once again, there's nothing really new about it. People have been saying this forever, you know, let's get rid of God, let's get rid of religion. And religion poisons everything. You know, Hitchens and his religion, bad, bad, bad. But you're dead right. Imagine that world now where religion has disappeared. There's no anchor, there's no frame of reference for deep meaning. There's no one to articulate the Paschal mystery, to talk about the cross and resurrection. What would that world be like? Now we're talking dull. Now we're talking a boring, well lit but dull space. That's where we'd be living if you get rid of religion. So all this blithe talk about, you know, let's get rid of it and it poisons everything. No, no, no, no. And I think what younger people who are rediscovering religion today, they're understanding that, that the new atheists bequeath to them this dismal, bleak world and a dull world, you know, a world without adventure. It's just I'm turned in on myself in this self regarding, it's my choice and my freedom and my life. But I mean, bore me to death with that. What makes life rich is when you're called up out of yourself in a great act of sacrificial love. That's what makes life worth living.

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[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, and. And also, you know, anytime I've been in, like, a phase where I'm drinking too much, but I have friends in aa, it's kind of nice because, you know, they're there. Like, if it gets too bad, they're there. And I think that's kind of the. One of the roles you. You feel for us. It's like when we are in the downward part of this cycle, there's always a sense of, like, you know, there's that place. You can go to that place and people are going to help you. And that's. I don't think a lot of people, even maybe people who think of themselves as an atheist, I wonder if they could honestly ask themselves, do you take comfort in at least knowing this place that you've characterized in all these dark ways is there for you, regardless of your pov?

[Bishop Robert Barron]

You know, AA is a great thing, and I've often preached on this, that AA in the 20th century was a way into the spiritual life for a lot of people, and it's deeply grounded in spiritual principles. Read Dante and aa, and there's a lot of similarities Dante has to Dante, go back now, the 13th century, is this kind of cocky figure, and he's a leader in the society, and he's a famous poet and writer and all that. And then he hits bottom. And the poem the Divine Comedy opens with a guy at the bottom because he says, midway in the journey of life. And that's often true a lot of people that go through addiction stuff, it's often at midlife, midway in the journey of life, I awoke to find myself alone and lost in a dark wood, having wandered from the straight path. Well, that's everybody at some point, you know. And then it's the story of how, having admitted his powerlessness, he has to be led by higher powers. So the saints send. It's a long story, but Virgil comes and guides him through hell and then up Purgatory, and then other saints and angels come and guide him through heaven. Well, that's the spiritual journey, you know, and it works that way for a lot of people. That's the AA journey is. You have to admit, I'm powerless. I can't handle this addiction. I can't solve the problem. What do I do? I turn my life over to a higher power. And under the aegis of that power, I'm now going to make this steady climb. And it's a tough climb, and it demands a lot of me. But I Need to have a sponsor. Think of Virgil who has to accompany Dante all the way down and all the way up. And. And without Virgil, he would have gotten lost. And Virgil keeps pressing him like, no, no, you gotta do this. And they come to Satan, which is a great moment in the poem, because that's the deep center of your dysfunction. So any addict knows about that. You have to climb all the way down to find where's this coming from? What's the need or the hunger or the wound or something in me that's producing it. Well, then Dante and Virgil, they jump onto Satan, and then they climb down. He has these hairy haunches and they climb down. And the point there is, it's a beautiful thing is once you discover where the pain is coming from, you also realize it's powerless against you. If you open your eyes wide and look at it and you have the courage to climb right on its side, it can't stop you. And then that's the way they start the march up. Purgatory.

[Duncan Trussell]

Right.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

So that poem is all about these dynamics, and AA got that, at least implicitly. And that's why so many people. It's a door that opens to religion.

[Duncan Trussell]

I have so many things I'd like to ask you about that. Specifically. We only have 10 more minutes, and I've got to ask.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know, Hunter S. Thompson, I think you, in criticizing the president, said it looks like he's using the Book of Revelations as the guidebook for the presidency, but having some familiarity with the Book of Revelations and looking at all the things happening in the world right now, specifically, AI Went through a love affair with it. It's so cool. But I'm starting to get legitimately uncomfortable. Not with the tech so much as the effect. You know, judge a tree by its fruit is the effect it seems to be having on people. And anytime. One of the thrills I had with AI is I'd show people some AI Stuff, and they'd be like, their first response would be, that's demonic. Like, whatever that is, is evil. And there's something fun about that until you really start looking at. I'm sure you've heard about this. People are going nuts from interacting with this thing. What are your thoughts on AI and have you gotten the sense that there seems to be lines in the Book of Revelations that allude to this technology coming in the final days?

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Yeah, I wouldn't go that direction so much, because the Book of Revelation, I don't think, is just about predicting the moment when the world ends, because it has to have to every generation that reads it.

[Duncan Trussell]

Okay.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

What it's about is the breakdown of the old world and the emergence of a new one, which happens through the dying and rising of Jesus. So they appreciated that in the Paschal mystery, the old world has broken apart. So all this stuff about, you know, earthquakes and fires and things breaking apart, that's the old world crumbling, and then a new world is being born, see? And it's happening through Jesus. And I would say, and through the Church and the Holy Spirit is this new world is being born. So that means that every generation can read it and say, oh, yeah, I know what that's all about. Having said that, though, I'm totally with you.

[Duncan Trussell]

Okay.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Just before I sat down here with you, we were talking about this phenomenon. I do a lot of videos, right, that are up on YouTube and stuff. Well, now, all these weird AI generated videos of me saying all kinds of strange things. People have created these. And some of them, gosh, I mean, they're clever in a way. One of them had me and the Pope in some titanic struggle. And the Pope has called me to the Vatican to correct me. And that I'm meeting. This great story is unfolding. It has nothing to do with reality at all. I met the Pope precisely once, you know, but these AI generated things are out there and. And sadly, a lot of people in my audience, they believe them and they're right.

[Duncan Trussell]

I watched one getting ready for this interview. I watched an AI version of you give. It wasn't the worst. It was actually good. It was good. But I realized this isn't him.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Yeah. I don't know. Some of them are just crazy and people are expressing sympathy with me, like, oh, I'm sorry about you and the Pope having this disagreement.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, man.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

So anyway, all that I hate. The other thing I hate is it's making people stupid. You know, this whole chat. GPT. And that you can just generate your own. You know, I can generate a screenplay you can put a handful of characters in and maybe one plot device, and suddenly this credible screenplay emerges. So I think all that stuff is really dangerous. And then I hate how it's taking jobs away from people. That's a real economic concern that I have. But, you know, heck, I remember as a kid watching 2001, and you've got the beginnings of. He saw it. I mean, Kubrick intuited this was coming.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, yeah. What a challenging time to be a bishop. How are you going to deal with it? Like, what is that? What is the plan there? How does The Catholic. Does the Catholic Church have a plan on how to contend with this emergent?

[Bishop Robert Barron]

We're working on it. In fact, Vatican's had several conferences already on it. The Pope, I don't know if you heard that they asked him, why did you choose the name Leo? And he said, well, Leo XIII was talking about the new things happening, the end of the 19th century, industrialization and economic change. And he said, now we have all kinds of new things, especially AI. So he chose the name because he wanted to address this problem.

[Duncan Trussell]

Wow.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

So we are thinking about it and especially I think in America where it's, you know, that's the cutting edge, but it is a worry. I agree with that.

[Duncan Trussell]

Bishop Barron, for what it's worth, I might regret saying this. My wife's definitely going to watch this. I think you got. I'm going to start going to mass with the family after this conversation. You are amazing. Thank you for your time. I know you must be so busy. Thank you for your work. Likewise. Thank you. And I'm sure many people are going to want to find some of your content out there. There's tons of it. Do you mind directing people where they can find you?

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Yeah, just go to wordonfire.org or whatever it is. But Word on Fire is the name of my media ministry and just put that in and all this stuff will come up and you can get books and videos and films and all kinds of stuff.

[Duncan Trussell]

Beautiful. Thank you so much. I hope you have a wonderful day. Thank you for your time, sir.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

God bless you, Duncan.

[Duncan Trussell]

God bless you. Thank you. That was Bishop Robert Barron. Thank you so much, Bishop Barron, for taking the time to be on the show.

[Bishop Robert Barron]

Thank you.

[Duncan Trussell]

Check out Bishop Barron's YouTube show, Word on Fire. Read his books, connect with the church if you feel called to do so. And thank you all so much for watching or listening. I love you. I'll see you next week.

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