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The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture
WOF 522: What's It Like to Be a Catholic Bishop?
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Matthew Petrusig, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show. Thank you for joining us. Saint Pope John Paul II memorably observed that the Catholic Church comes from the Eucharist and that the Eucharist in turn comes from priests. As Bishop Barron noted in a recent letter to his diocese, by an inescapable logic, therefore, no priests, no church. We should add, however, that priests come from bishops, which expands the ecclesial logic to no bishops, no priests, no priests, no Eucharist, no Eucharist, no church. In other words, bishops not only hold an important administrative position within the church, tracing their authority back to the apostles and ultimately to Jesus Christ himself, they constitute the very sacramental and liturgical foundation of Catholicism itself. That, to say the least, is a weighty responsibility. So what is it like to be a bishop? How does one come to hold this office? What specifically do bishops have authority over and what don't they have authority over? What kind of relationship do they have with each other and with the Holy Father, the Pope? What are their day to day obligations and activities and what are some challenges they face that both clergy and laity may not be aware of. Here to discuss what it means to be a bishop of the Catholic Church and to share his own experiences, overseeing the Diocese of Winona Rochester in Minnesota is Bishop Robert Barron. Bishop, welcome back to the studio.
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B
Thanks Matt. Always good to be with you.
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A
So today we're discussing a topic very close to home for you, what it's like to be a Catholic bishop. Ah, yes, but as usual, before we get into that, what have you been up to as a Catholic bishop?
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B
Well, this. Well, I guess it is a bit as a Catholic bishop because during the Thanksgiving holiday I drove to Chicago, my hometown, and I baptized my little grand nephew. So my brother's first grandson, he's got a couple granddaughters and that's always a Joy. We're at St Giles Church in Oak park, which is one of the, I think, great churches in Archdiocese of Chicago. Beautiful classical looking church and gathered there with the whole family and baptized this lovely little kid and had a great party afterwards. Now the day of the baptism was the day that got a foot of snow in Chicago. So I was gonna just drive home, but I, well, I'll spend an extra day here. But it was a great. And we had our Thanksgiving gathering at my sister's house, so it was nice.
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A
Yeah, well, the word on fire has put some of those pictures online.
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B
It's oh, yeah, right.
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A
Cute kid.
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B
Oh, yeah, he is a cute kid. His name is Baron, by the way.
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A
Baron.
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B
That's his first name. So he's Baron Warner. He's my niece's son.
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A
Baron.
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B
Yeah, Baron. It's a good name.
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A
Oh, welcome, Baron. Okay, well, let's now turn to our topic, what it's like to be a Catholic bishop. So a lot we could address here, and we'll certainly get to your own personal experiences.
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B
Yeah.
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A
But let's start at sort of ecclesial and structural level. So for those in our audience, perhaps those who are watching the show for the first time, who may really not know what are the origins of the office of the bishop.
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B
Well, really, it goes back to Jesus himself and the choice of the twelve apostles. He chooses apostles who represent the twelve tribes of Israel. They're his intimate followers, the first ones that he sends out. They're the core of the new Israel, which is the church. Among the 12. He chooses Peter, the rock upon which he'll build his church. So I'd say Peter as the head of this college. That's the beginning of bishops with the Pope as their supreme leader. So that goes right back to the Bible. You also can find in the Pauline letters, very early on, you'll find three terms popping up. One is diakonos, and we say deacon. It just means, really, servant or table servant. Presbuteros, which means elder, that evolves into priest, and then episkopos, that term, which means literally overseer. Scope means to look like a periscope or telescope. EPI means on. So to look out on is the overseer. So these three offices begin to emerge even in biblical times. Right. I'd say by the late first, certainly early second century, they've become more clearly recognizable as deacon, priest, bishop. So really, from the very earliest times, from Jesus himself and very early in the church, the episcopacy exists, as I would say, first, this apostolic band. We speak of a bishop today as a successor of the apostles. So as a bishop, I'm the very unworthy successor of that original 12. And they were seen as having this episcopal role, this overseeing role, that they're looking out over the totality of, let's say, a local church's life. And that remains true to this day. So those are the biblical roots, I'd say.
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A
Yeah. So moving from history into theology, give us a sense of sort of the briefly, in a nutshell, the theology of the bishop. What does it mean to be a bishop in relationship to the church's overall salvific work?
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B
Well, it's key because the bishop is operating, as we say, priest, prophet, and king. So one who sanctifies as priest, teaches as prophet, governs as king. So from the very beginning, Jesus chooses the 12 to have this role. And without them, the church loses its kind of focus, structure, meaning. So a church without bishops is not a church at all. We speak of the bishop having the fullness of the priesthood because the ordained priest also has those roles of priest, prophet, and king. But the bishop has it in the fullest sense. So I would say without bishops, there's no church. They're essential to the structure of the church.
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A
What is that remaining fullness from priest into bishop?
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B
I would just say the fullest expression of those three things. And indeed, we say every baptized person is priest, prophet, and king in his or her own way. So every father or family sanctifies his family through prayer, bringing them to Mass. Every mother is a teacher of the faith to their kids. Think of my mother teaching me the Our Father. I still remember to this day very vividly. Every father or mother in that sense is king. Someone who orders the charisms and governs their family. Or think of someone even in their job in the world, if they're a Christian, they're gonna try to organize that work according to the principles of the Gospel. So my point there is the baptized person is priest, prophet, and king. The ordained priest has those roles, but now in a more focused way, the bishop has them in the sort of fullest sense.
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A
So let's say you walk into a Mass. Mass is about to start. And again, we're speaking to an audience here who may know nothing about this. You see the priest walk in, or you see a bishop walk in. How would you know visually whether it's a priest or bishop? Say a little bit about the symbols of your office.
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B
Well, liturgically, the bishop has a distinctive profile, and that comes from the miter. So the miter is that distinctive hat that the bishop wears. You know, there are different ways of understanding where that came from. Historically, it really is meant to be a crown. Though the mitre is evocative of the bishop's kingly role, the bishop also has the crozier, which is the shepherd's staff. And that means a lot to me, I must say, as a bishop, when I walk in liturgically with the crozier, which, by the way, I'm permitted to use really only in my own diocese, because I'm the shepherd, well, I can do it with permission of another bishop. But normally you carry the crozier. When you're in your own diocese and you're the shepherd of that diocese. But that means a lot to me. Cause the crosier is the shepherd's staff that holds off threats to the flock. Think of a shepherd, you know, warding off the wolves and bears. But then the crook is meant now to hook a sheep that's gone away and bring them back. So that's the bishop's job. It's. It's a bit of an in your face symbol, actually. I'm warding off enemies and I'm bringing back those who have wandered. But it's symbol of governance, the ring. Now, of course, I wear the bishop's ring. Not just liturgically, but really all the time. This is a wedding ring. It means that I'm married to the people of this diocese. That's why it was important to me. When I got here, I had a ring from California that Archbishop Gomez gave me. But this one I had made right here in Otana, in my diocese, where Jostens Rings is headquartered. Jostens makes rings for people all over the world.
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A
I didn't know that.
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B
Yeah. And so I said, I'd like a ring with my coat of arms on it as bishop of Winona, Rochester. And when I put this on, I really think of it as it's my wedding ring, that I'm married to the people of this diocese. But liturgically, I'd say it's the miter, the crozier. And then, of course, you take the mitre off, and bishop wears a little zucchetto. And that's, again, a long history. But the bishop zucchetto is violet or purple. And that's evocative, ultimately, of the Roman Senate. So the idea of a purple color was the color associated with governance. And so that's why, like, a priest could wear a black zucchetto, but a bishop wears the violet zucchetto. Cardinal wears the red zucchetto. That's another symbol. But it's a sign of kind of senatorial dignity and governance, I'd say.
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A
What about your specific chair within the.
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B
Cathedral, which I love, it's called. And that's why that church is called a cathedral, because a cathedra means seat or chair. And it's the chair from which you govern, from which you preach. Not always time. But I say, typically when I'm in. I have two cathedrals here in this diocese. One in Winona, the original cathedral. Then we have what we call the CO cathedral up here in Rochester. And I have a nice cathedral on each of those. I tend to preach from that when I'm here and with mitre on and preaching from the chair because it's a symbol of my teaching authority in the ancient church and really the ancient world generally. You didn't teach so much from, like, a podium. We think of the hair doctor professor coming in and speaking from a podium. You'd speak from your chair, the seat of your authority. And I love that. Over each of the cathedrals, in my cathedrals, there's a. My coat of arms is there, too. So it's a way of just saying, okay, this is the man who's governing and teaching in our diocese. And even though the chair is there, if I'm not there for the Mass, other priests can't use it. It'd be inappropriate for them. There's another chair we put out if someone's presiding. But the cathedral is uniquely my church, and that chair is uniquely a chair of my teaching office.
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A
Say a little bit more about your coat of arms and what it represents for you and for the diocese and for the church. A whole.
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B
Yeah, it's always that, you know, kind of heraldry. It goes back, at least in the Middle Ages, a secular, you know, Lord might have the coat of arms. So the church adopted that. And it's just a way of stating symbolically who you are, what your values are. Mine has a number of symbols in it. The most prominently is. Is the motto. So I chose Aquinas's famous line to the Lord, you know, non nisi te domine. When he. He asked, what would you like as a reward? And he said, I'll have nothing except you. That's my motto. So that's featured prominently in the coat of arms. There's all symbols of the diocese. So my coat of arms here on the left side, as you look at it, there's a symbol of the diocese, which is the white rose. And then we've got other symbols associated more with my own background, including word on fire. So my coat of arms has a open Bible with flames behind it, and that's the word on fire. There's also the angel wings, which are evocative of my time in Los Angeles, the Diocese of the Angels. There's also a reference to Mundelein Seminary, where I spent a long part of my life. I'd have to probably have it right in front of me to see all the. Well, I could look at my ring if I had Superman vision magnifying glass, because it's a very tiny version of it here. But it's a cool. You know, I think bishops enjoy that, that it's just a way of expressing symbolically what their values are, you know.
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A
So you've traced the office of the bishop back to the apostles and to Jesus Christ, him. How now does one become a bishop? What's the process?
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B
Well, it's a kind of a long, involved process. I'll say this right off the bat that the one under consideration has no idea that any of this is going on in regard to him. So people are often surprised at that because other walks of life, you know, you're in your company or you're in the military, and they might say, all right, well, here you are on this job and, you know, enjoying it. But here's what I got in mind for you. And if you do X, Y and Z, your next promotion would take you here. There's none of that in the church, like, zero. None of it. It's never discussed with you. It's all done secretly. The process, basically, and part of it now as an ordinary, the bishops of a province get together from time to time, and we submit names of worthy candidates, priests that we think would make good bishops. And we're under obligation to do that. So on a regular basis to keep adding these names to a list. And then when a diocese comes open or a need for a bishop, the nuncio, the apostolic nuncio in Washington, it's now his responsibility. Drawing upon these lists, let's say he's looking at a diocese in a particular area. He might look at the lists that have been compiled in the surrounding dioceses. Perhaps he puts together with the help of other bishops, what they call a turna, which is a list of three names, which he recommends. Then to the Congregation for Bishops in Rome. They meet, I don't know if it's every month or every. Maybe it's every month.
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A
They meet that frequently?
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B
Yeah, they meet because they're choosing bishops for all over the world.
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A
Yeah, that's right. That's right.
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B
And so then these turnas arrive, and they'll say, okay, this diocese is open. Here are the three names the nuncio proposed. Then they discuss the three names, and they get information about all three. Then they in turn propose their own turna to the pope. It might be the same one. They might have maybe switched the recommendation. Maybe the nuncio said, here's my turna, my three names, but I prefer name number one. Well, the congregation might get that and say, well, okay, but we prefer name number three. Who knows? Or they might confirm it or they might say, we don't like any of those. We're gonna propose another three names. It finally goes to the Pope, who then makes the decision. So it's a bit of a long, lugubrious process, because another I think I've overlooked is when the names are on the list and the nuncio is now looking for someone, he'll send questionnaires out to all kinds of people, to priests that might know him, to lay people that might know him, and ask for feedback, like, what do you know about this person? And how would you assess him? And they ask for certain qualities, and do you think he exhibits these? So then those recommendations come back to the nuncio, and that shapes his formation of a turna. So it's a long process.
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A
The church never asks formally, any priests, are you interested in being a bishop?
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B
No, no, no. When they finally call you, the way the phone call goes is not, hey, we're thinking about sending you somewhere. It's, the Holy Father has appointed you bishop of whatever. And now you can turn it down. The nuncio will say, well, now, do you accept this appointment? You know, and you can say no.
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A
Is the question in the same phone call you've been appointed, do you accept?
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B
Yeah.
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A
Wow.
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B
Yeah, you've been appointed. You know, and my. I've had two of those phone calls now. And I always think of Cardinal George, who was my mentor in so many things, is he had zero tolerance, unless you were dying. He had zero tolerance for priests that would ever say no. He thought, if you're being asked by the Church, you do it. And I always think of that. I thought of it the two times I had that phone call was, all right, the Church is asking this. The Pope indeed is asking, unless you've got a really, really, really compelling reason to say no, you should say yes.
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A
So bishops, typically are bishops of dioceses. What part of the church creates a diocese? How is that boundary formed?
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B
Well, the Holy See ultimately. So the Vatican, the Pope would be the ultimate. A decider of that. It comes up once in a while. You know, we'll be looking at dioceses here in our country, and should they merge together? Is a diocese, you know, struggling a bit? Should it be absorbed by another diocese? So we might raise that question after a lot of consultation and investigation, might make a recommendation to the Holy See, let's say, in terms of mission territories. Sure. The Vatican ultimately would say this should become a diocese. My own, for example, broke off from St. Paul Diocese in 1889.
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A
Wow.
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B
So St. Paul was this massive diocese covering a lot of territories, then one by one. So think of, like, New Ulm and St. Cloud and Duluth, and the other ones broke off from that mine. It might have been the first one to break off from St. Paul in 1889 as the diocese of Winona. It's never changed its boundaries. We've been around for 130, what, you know, seven years, and. And we've never changed our boundaries. So it's up to the Holy See.
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A
Ultimately, when people hear the office of bishop and they hear the office of archbishop, what is the relationship between those two designations?
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B
Just means that you're a bishop of an archdiocese, which just means a bigger diocese. So in our country, is it, what, 25, maybe they're archdioceses usually associated with a bigger city. And then the archbishop is the metropolitan. We call him of the suffragan bishops or suffragan dioceses around him. So, for example, Archbishop Hebda of Minneapolis, St. Paul is the metropolitan of our region. And then the other sees clustered around him are called suffragan sees. So we meet in that capacity frequently with him. And he doesn't really have juridical authority over the suffragan dioceses. So the bishop in his diocese does have kind of a complete authority. I don't have to go to Archbishop Hebda and say, may I do X, Y, and Z. Really. When you're a diocesan bishop, your one superior on earth is the pope. Now, when I was an auxiliary bishop in la, and then indeed, I had a superior, namely Archbishop Gomez, I was providing auxilium help to him. But now I'm bishop of my own diocese. I have one superior on earth, which is the pope. Now, the pope has a representative here, his nuncio. Rarely is the pope, you know, gonna be asking a direct question to me or anything. So he has a local representative, the nunc, but the pope is my only authority on earth.
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A
What are the pillars of that authority that you have?
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B
Well, you could put it in terms of executive, juridical, and legislative. The bishop can make law in his diocese, not in contradiction to the universal law. The church can make particular law in his diocese. He's a judge, so judge in the canonical sense. And he has executive authority. So it's up to me to make these decisions about how the diocese is governed. Now, I do so through lots of consultation after lots of consultation. It would be a foolish bishop who would just start making arbitrary decisions, you know, or dictatorial mandates. You're in dialogue with all kinds of different people, but finally, the buck stops with you. That's true. And you do have that kind of executive authority in your own diocese. There's no other bishop that can tell me what to do in my diocese. No cardinal can come sweeping in and say, no, you know, I'm unhappy with the decision you made about this parish or something. It's none of his business. The bishop has that juridical executive and legislative authority in his own diocese.
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A
People hear of the word chancery, and they hear that, oh, Bishop Barron has an office in the chancery. What is the chancery, and how does that relate to your. Your governance of the diocese?
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B
It just means the executive where the offices of the diocese are housed. So it's called the pastoral center. Sometimes in dioceses, when we built a new one, you know, when I got here, we were headquartered still in Winona. And it's long story behind that, but I ratified the decision to move to Rochester, where we are right now. And then through the help of these wonderful donors, we built a new chancery. And I just said, I think that's a better name than pastoral center. My fear there is that I think every parish is a pastoral center. You know, I think what that building is, it houses the offices of those who have a kind of governing authority in the diocese. So that's where I would go, not every single day, but, you know, I'd go frequently for part of a day during the week and do my kind of official governance from that building.
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A
So governing a diocese, of course, has many, many tasks associated with it. What would you say are your most essential tasks as bishop?
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B
Well, I put in terms of priest, prophet, king. That, to me, is the most helpful. So as priest, I'm the chief liturgist of the diocese. I'd be the one who leads this diocese in prayer. And a lot of my job, when I think about it, if you go through a typical year as bishop, a lot of my job is presiding at Mass at the Eucharist, presiding at prayer services, presiding at confirmations. I'm the chief sacramental officer of the diocese. My job is to administer the sacraments. Now, I do it through the priests who are my auxiliaries in that sense, right, the priests who are helping me in my ministry. But it's my job here to be the leader of prayer, the chief liturgist, the chief sacramental officer. And that is a lot of my time. When I go to a place, you know, in my diocese, a parish, or I go to a hospital, I go to a school, very typically I say Mass. Not all the time, but very typically, I'd say Mass. Think of a confirmation and That's a Mass, you know, So a lot of my job is leading people in prayer. So priest, secondly, prophet. I've said this, you know, when they asked the LS bishops, well, what are you looking for in a bishop candidate? A lot of things. But I say, is he a good preacher? Because everywhere I go, almost without exception, when I go somewhere, I'm gonna be speaking, I'm gonna be teaching or preaching.
- [22:41]
A
That's what people expect.
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B
Yeah, yeah. And so in the Mass, obviously. So whenever I'm there, I'm gonna be the preacher at the Mass. But anywhere I go, I'm gonna be in a teaching role. Let's say I'm visiting a school, which I love to do. I love to go to our schools, and I'll go into the classrooms and. But I almost always spend some time teaching. I'll say, let's have a Q and A with the students or, you know, what's on your mind. And anywhere I go, I'm gonna preach the faith. I'm also, therefore, in charge of the teaching and preaching ministry in our diocese. So our grade schools, our high schools, wherever the faith is taught, I've got a supervisory role, Episcopal episcope. And I'm looking out over that to make sure it's being done in accord with the church and being done properly. But so personally, I do it, and then I'm presiding over the teaching that goes on in our diocese. Like yesterday, we had loved it a Mass with the school administrators. So they came from all over the diocese. And we had Mass together. And I gave them kind of a long homily where I laid out a vision for the coming year, what I think they should really be focused on. And then we had lunch together, and I made sure. Spent a lot of time with them because I think it's very important that I'm the chief teacher of the diocese. I want to make sure that they're teaching in union with me and therefore. See, that's the way it works, man. It's interesting is I'm a successor of the apostles.
- [24:06]
A
Right?
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B
In some ways, that I think is the clearest title for a bishop. A bishop is a successor of the apostles. Jesus chose these 12 people whom he personally formed. They watched him at close quarters. They listened to him. They were shaped by him and then by the laying on of hands. They chose their successors who chose their successors, Their successors. My task, in a way as bishop is to link this local church of Winona, Rochester, to the apostles to make sure the apostolic faith is being taught, preached, exemplified, presented liturgically, etc. Right, so I'm priest, prophet. And then lastly, here's where the chancery comes in. I'm king, which means it's good to be king. It means, is it? It really is. It's not that good. It's a hard job. It means you're the one that orders the charisms of the diocese toward the upbuilding of the kingdom of God. To put it more theological language. But it means I'm the governor of the diocese, so I'm going to try to govern and rule the diocese so as to move toward the kingdom of God. This will take myriad forms. I'll just give a couple examples. People ask, what does the bishop do all day? I've talked about the liturgical and the teaching. But you know, I have my presbyteral council that meets on a regular basis. That's two to three hour meeting where I meet with representatives of the priests of our diocese and they report to me on what's on the mind of the priest. What are they concerned about? I try to convey what I'm interested in. So we talk for several hours about that. We have a dean's meeting. So deans now that represent the deaneries of my diocese, they'll give me a sense of, okay, what's going on, who's sick, who's got a problem, who's worried about what. I also meet with my finance counsel. I'm not a finance guy by I'm a theologian. But look, I'm the king of the diocese, which means I'm the chief financial officer. I'm responsible ultimately. Now I have a cfo, thank God, who's really good at the nuts and bolts of money, but I gotta be at those meetings. How are we doing financially? Are we in the black? Are we making money? You know, so I have those meetings. We have a seminary in our diocese, ihm, which I'm very proud of. Well, IHM is a finance council meeting that I have to attend, so I go to Winona for that one. We have a pastoral council that I meet with on a regular basis. We have my cabinet. So about once a month I meet with some of the top figures in the diocese who are like a board of advisors to me, right? And I try to get a feel from them of what's going on in the diocese. Whenever I'm in the chancery, I have a wonderful assistant and I'll say, okay, let's do a little work. And for me that means she's going to bring in piles of mail, email, other forms of Communication from all over the place. And this touches on my word on fire thing. Because of my word on fire, I've got people writing from all over the country and all over the world. But she'll bring all this in and then we go over it. So I read every letter, every email that comes through. She might help me with organizing some of that. But then I will give her instruction of how best to respond or whether to respond and so on. And then she'll bring in documents I have to sign. Another meeting I have as king would be the consultor's meeting. This one is for a financial investment in a parish. Above a certain amount, it has to get the approval of the bishop. So I have a college of consultors who advise me on that. And we get reams of papers about a roofing project or about a paving project, or we want to buy a new building for the parish and people come in and they report on that. We look at all the material and you have to approve that finally. But see, the board of consultors, their job is to help me with that. So at the end of that meeting, I don't vote because I'm receiving the consultation, but they vote and say, we approve or we don't approve this. And then I take all of that and make a decision and say, okay, we're going ahead with this project. So that's a meeting that might take three hours to go through. All those requests. There are priests that want to see me, right? So things that will never appear on a public calendar at all. But priests, they want to see me about something, they're struggling or there's a difficulty, or there's a concern, and they make an appointment to see me. So that's what I'll do. Often when I'm at the chancery, typically when I'm at the chancery, I'll begin. We have mass at 8:30 and I'll say that Mass. And I like doing that just to, you know, the bishop's connected to his team there. And then I'll kind of make my way through the administrative day. But a lot of my days too, it's getting places, you know, to get to, let's say a parish where there's going to be a confirmation, there's going to be a liturgy that might be half hour, hour, hour and 20 minute drive. Maybe I don't have a driver in this diocese, so I drive myself around hour and 20 minutes, the event and then usually a meal or something afterwards and then the drive home. That could be much of the Day just getting to something like that. So priest, prophet, king would sort of COVID all the different things I do.
- [29:37]
A
As a bishop at a more sort of personalized level. So you've given us the theology of the bishop, the history of the bishop. What's your. If we could even use maybe a secular word. What's your management style? How do you approach all of this kaleidoscope of different questions and problems you have to address in such a way where you feel like you're addressing it as it should be addressed?
- [29:59]
B
Yeah, well, you delegate a lot. And there are a number of people I've mentioned now, obliquely anyway, that I would delegate things to. I also have a vicar general. So every bishop has a vicar general, which is a priest who's second in command, basically, and has, indeed, canonically a fair amount of the bishop's authority. I've got a great figure general, and, you know, we meet on a regular basis. And I might say to him, like, could you take care of, you know, X, Y and Z for me? And he's at most of these meetings that I've been describing. So he and I might talk afterwards. Like, okay, what's the best way for us to address this? I go back to Cardinal George, you know, who's again, my mentor. And he died before I was made a bishop. So he never. I never knew him as a bishop, but he used to say to bishops, pay attention to your councils. So the presbyteral council, the pastoral council, the review board, you know, pay attention to them. You are the king. Yes, we're not a democracy. Right. But pay attention to the people that are around you that can help you govern, you know, And I've tried to take that into consideration. It's a balancing act. Years ago, the nuncio says something I think is really right. He goes, it's a bad bishop who's spending nine to five, five days a week in his chancery. I think that's true. I don't know what other bishops are doing. I would have maybe a couple of days a week. I would be like the whole day in the chancery, maybe the part of a day sometimes. But my job is not to be 9 to 5 behind my desk in the chancery. My job is to. I'm shepherd of the diocese. So being out among the people and the priests is super important. And the ministry of presence. See, the bishop has this administrative role and practical role, but a lot of it's symbolic that when you show up, let's say I'm in a parish three hours from here and now it's wintertime. I can't go out there in the west in the really bad weather. But the summer is out there a lot. Like three hours from here. And I show up and I got mitre and crozier and vestments. That's an important moment. It's saying, okay, this parish way out in western Minnesota, near the South Dakota border, is linked through me to the apostles. And that links them to Christ, who chose the apostles. And that's not any kind of self aggrandizing statement on my part. It's a symbolic reality. So physically getting out to a lot of parishes and places is important. Like you go to a parish and you say Mass and you preach and all that. And then there's always the, you know, in the church basement there's gonna be a reception of some kind. Well, it's very important for me to go to those and to just be there. And you will indeed hear some people say, hey, Bishop, I wanna talk to you about something. But typically, no, typically it's just people. They're happy to see you, and you're there to give encouragement and to remind them of their link to the wider church. So that's a big part of the job. It's ministry of presence.
- [33:02]
A
I'm sure we'll get this question. So it's important for us to address it. The language of the Conference of Bishops. And of course, you're part of the usccb, the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops. What is a Conference of Bishops and what authority do these conferences have, especially in relationship to the German Conference of Bishops, which has been circulating in relatively recent years?
- [33:25]
B
Yeah, I mean, to be blunt, a conference doesn't have that much authority. The bishop in his diocese has the authority, and it's under the Pope. If the president of the USCCB called me up and said, I want you to do something in your diocese, I can tell him no, he has no authority over me that way. Now, I'm not badmouthing the conference. The conference is a good thing that we come together on a regular basis. I just got back a few weeks ago from the usccp and it's good we see each other. That's the best part of it. We see each other. We talk both formally and informally. We have the, you know, the meetings and we cover, you know, different topics that we think will be of general interest to people. The whole purpose of the conference and its bureaucratic apparatus is to help individual bishops do their job better. Okay, so I've been chair of two committees, Evangelization I just finished as chair of Laity Marriage, Youth and Family Life. The whole purpose, and I think our committees did it pretty well, is to provide resources, material information that help the individual bishops in their diocese to be better evangelizers or to serve young people and family life better. And that's what we did. So when we produced documents or, you know, I got up on a number of occasions at the meetings to give presentations about evangelization, or like in my second chairmanship, we're doing a document on persons with disabilities, a document on mental illness, and we had a session with the whole floor. So what's on your mind about this? And we had a wide range of discussion. We sponsored roundtables and so on. The point is, I don't have the authority to tell another bishop, you gotta do this. I'm trying to provide help to him. And I think the conference does that, you know. But the main value of it is we get together, we get to know each other many times. I've been a bishop for 10 years now, ordinary for a little over three. I'll go to an older bishop and say, what do you do about this? I'm facing this issue in my diocese, and what do I do? And how did you handle that? And that's very useful exercise, you know. So that's the value of the conference. But it doesn't really have authority. Something I resisted. It happened at the synod, actually, in Rome is there was a push, and I think the Germans were behind it, to give the conferences around the world a sort of quasi doctrinal authority. And a lot of us spoke up and said, this is a disaster, because you could have easily, the Polish conference saying, let's say gay marriage is a moral sin. And then the German conference say, hey, gay marriage is okay. I mean, we can't have that. You can't have conferences of bishops making sweeping doctrinal determinations. So I think it's a good thing. I'm glad we have the conference. But you can overstate it. It doesn't have real juridical authority.
- [36:20]
A
What's the function of the voting that takes place at the meetings?
- [36:23]
B
Well, we vote for different things. We vote for our own officers. So that happens. We vote for committee chair. So that's okay. That's kind of life within the conference. What else? We vote on, like a document, let's say, has been prepared and we might vote, we approve that document. Okay? It's the conference's way of saying, yeah, we think this is a good thing. We approve of it. And now we urge individual bishops to use it. You know, now, again, an individual bishop, it happens. The conference might come out with a statement on, you know, young people, and an individual bishop might say, I don't like it. I voted against it. I'm never going to implement that in my diocese. That's his prerogative. That's his prerogative. But, you know, I think typically bishops say, okay, good, that's helpful. And I read the document. I think it'll help my people who do youth ministry. Good, good. But it doesn't usurp in any way the particular authority of a local bishop.
- [37:19]
A
Well, it's just about time for our listener question, but before we turn to that bishop, you do a lot of work online, and I'm sure you encounter all sorts of false stereotypes about bishops and the work that you do. What are some, just briefly, some myths that you just want to dispel right now about the bishops in their office?
- [37:39]
B
Well, let's see. What's a myth I want to dispel? Maybe, like, bishop is tyrant or something, because the bishop is the king of the diocese. He's tyrant. I mean, it's a ministry of service. Ultimately, again, Cardinal George used to say, clericalism is the overlooking of the link between holy orders and baptism, by which he meant holy orders exist to serve the baptized. Period. That's why it exists. So if I say, well, I belong to this sort of special class, this privileged class that's hovering above the laity, well, then you've totally missed. The point of your clerical life is to serve the laity, and that's the bishop. The bishop is the chief servant of the church in his diocese. So maybe that's a myth. I wanted to spell.
- [38:24]
A
How about bishops living lives of luxury and material comfort and leisure and ease?
- [38:31]
B
Leisure and ease. I mean, certainly not. I mean, any priest could live any way he wants, I suppose, if he doesn't have a good spiritual director, and he could, you know. But no, the bishop's life, maybe. I hope I've given that impression. It's a pretty busy life, and it's a pretty demanding life. So, no, I wouldn't say leisure and comfort, you know, I mean, diocesan priests don't take vows of poverty. And so, you know, we're not bound by that the way a religious might be. And priests or bishops have money from their family or whatever, and that's up to them and their spiritual director to determine that. But, no, I don't see bishops living like medieval princes or something. I think we're generally Speaking a pretty hardworking group of people. You know, one thing that's true, probably wasn't true 75 years ago. Bishops come in for a lot of criticism, and people feel very free to criticize the leadership of the church. And, you know, God knows we deserve some of it. And after the scandals, I get it, you know, but it's a tough job that way, too. You know, one thing I've certainly heard this from our president Nuncio and others is, you know, there are a number of people that they're appointed bishop, and they say, I don't want it. I don't want it. And again, I kind of get it. As you look at the life, I can see someone saying, look, I don't want all that aggravation. I don't want all that pressure, okay? And that's their prerogative. Someone can turn it down. But I don't think you're saying, oh, boy, I got a life of ease and luxury now I'm a bishop. I think, on the contrary.
- [40:10]
A
It is now time for our listener question. Bishop, today we have David from Madrid asking you about your own journey to becoming a priest.
- [40:18]
B
Okay.
- [40:20]
A
Hello, my name is David Madrid, Spain.
- [40:24]
B
And.
- [40:26]
A
What made you become a priest?
- [40:30]
B
Sounds in it for the money. No, I'm teasing. I. You know, it's a great question, and it's one that every priest answers in a way before the Lord, I felt called, and I felt called through St. Thomas Aquinas. And I've told that story. I won't tell it again. But as a high school kid, through Aquinas, I became deeply interested in religious matters and issues, and it was an interest of the mind. But then through people like Thomas Merton, whom I read as a young man, it became much more a matter of the heart. And then I was kind of led by steady steps from that into the idea of, well, I should really give my whole life to God. So I'd say it started when I was about. I don't know how old David is, but when I was about 14 is when I started the journey, and with some stops and starts along the way, but kept that journey all the way till this moment.
- [41:20]
A
Well, thank you, David, for reaching out to us. If you would like to ask Bishop Barron a question for a future Word on Fire episode, please visit askbishopbarron.com Again, that's askbishopbarron.com we always love to hear from you. Well, thank you, Bishop. I learned a lot from this conversation. So thanks for all your insights. Look forward to the next one.
- [41:39]
B
Appreciate that. Thanks, man.
- [41:41]
A
That does it for us today. Thanks for joining us on the Word on Fire Show. If you're interested in learning more about how Word on Fire can help you grow closer to Christ, become a better evangelist with and for others, and work for the common good, consider joining the Word on Fire Institute. Check us out at institute.WordPress.org that's institute.WordPress.org and we'll see you next time.