← The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture
The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture
WOF 530: Catholic Ministry & Social Media (pt. 2)
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- [00:01]
Matthew Petrusyk
Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Matthew Petrusyk, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show. Thank you for joining us. In our last episode, evangelization and culture podcast host Todd Warner began a conversation with Word on Fire founders about social media in which they explored the art and means of communication. In this next segment, we'll continue that conversation. Now examining Catholic ministry and social media. What, if anything, does social media have have to do with Saint Pope John Paul ii? How does it fit into Word on Fire's own principles? How would one even define social media? Here to discuss these topics with Todd Warner and Father Steve Grunow is Bishop Robert Barron.
- [00:52]
Todd Warner
In 1983, a 1983 speech in Port au Prince, St. John Paul II encouraged everyone to, quote, look to the future with commitment to a new evangelization, one that is new in its ardor, new in its methods, and new in its expression. Close quote. So, Bishop and Father, to be sure, social media is still relatively new in the life of Catholic evangelization when you look at the millennia of the church. But let's begin with this fundamental question. What exactly is social media? When we say the word social media, what does that mean?
- [01:20]
Father Steve Grunow
Social media is a website, an app, or an application of technology which enables and assists people to create content and to share that content to build digital based relationships. So that would be my definition of social media.
- [01:40]
Todd Warner
Bishop, would you add?
- [01:41]
Bishop Robert Barron
I'll stay with that. The speech you cite there by John Paul II in Port au Prince, I think was very prophetic in a way, because people during his time, he talked a lot about the new evangelism. What does that mean? And here are different theories. He lays it out there that new in method, new in art, or new in expression. And you know, 1983, we're nowhere near the social media. But I think it was prophetic of it. Like he kind of intuited there was something new coming. Ardor. Now that's every generation stir up ardor for the faith. But the new in method and new in expression. In 1983, it was still, you know, newspapers and radio and TV, I suppose, but I think the Holy Spirit was prompting him to anticipate there's something really new that was coming. And when I started my work, I had that speech very much in mind that those three things that you wanted, ardor for the faith. Yes. But now we've got these new means and new ways of expressing the faith through the social media. That's the beauty of it. Now, there's a negative side, and I've talked about it a lot, but that's the positive side. And I think he prophesied it in a way in that famous speech.
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Todd Warner
Yeah, Bishop, you started some of your broader evangelization on WGN radio, if I'm not mistaken. I think it was at 5:30 in the morning.
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Bishop Robert Barron
5:15.
- [03:00]
Todd Warner
5:15 in the morning on Sundays. Then your first splash into modern social media was through YouTube videos. Reviewing various films, like, I think Martin Scorsese's the Departed was one of your earliest. How did you familiarize yourself with YouTube? It's like, what is YouTube? How did you think people. How did you anticipate people would react to your message?
- [03:19]
Bishop Robert Barron
I didn't know, and I barely knew it. I mean, it was invented in 2006. We got our first video up on YouTube in 2007. So it was right on the ground floor. I kind of knew about it vaguely. I think people around me were saying, hey, there's this new thing, you know, YouTube, and you can put up whatever you want on it. And it just struck me as well, all right, it's worth experimenting. But I didn't know that world at all at the time. And it was a complete experiment in the beginning, as I've often said. I was delighted when I saw there were like 200 people watch the video. I thought that was great. So, no, I didn't know. And in a way, I was kind of an odd figure. I'm one of the pioneers of this, maybe in God's grace. It was the fact that I was really shaped academically with my degrees and my years of teaching and my years of writing, that I was kind of ready to say something. But I didn't really know that world. I kind of not really stumbled into it, but heard about it and thought, all right, I think it's worth experimenting. But it was the combination, I think, of a long preparation, and then this new medium came along, and then the two of them met, because there was nobody in the Catholic space doing that at the time. But as I see it, as I try to read it as an expression of grace, the Lord gave me a long preparation. So that when the time came, when the propitious moment arrived, I was ready to say something. Father.
- [04:51]
Father Steve Grunow
I intuited early on that that technology was going to surpass the existing forms of communication technology. So that kind of explains our initial attentiveness and investment in it. And also, you know, Bishop has people around him to handle the technological side of things and things like that. So he proclaims the gospel, he teaches the faith. I think we were willing to just go all in at the beginning. And there was hesitation by other people who were in the communication field in the church, but also they. I don't know that they could have adapted to it. So there was a kind of. As things began to Advance in the 2000s, there was a kind of great sorting of Catholic communicators and communication platforms, publishers and things. Things started to fall away because you had to have kind of a suppleness and adaptability in order to kind of navigate the new forms of media. And since that was our startup thing and led by new and method, new in order, new in expression. So, okay, here it is. Here it is. Let's do it. And so that kind of explains our initial foray into it. It was like, intuitively, yeah, this is the way things are heading and learning's gonna become screen based on so many different levels. If we're not there, somebody else is gonna be there. Was the expression. Is it from Cardinal George, if we don't tell our story.
- [06:32]
Bishop Robert Barron
Yeah, somebody else will.
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Father Steve Grunow
Somebody else will. Or no one will. Or worse, somebody else will. So it's like, let's get in there and start telling the story.
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Todd Warner
What I'm curious about, when you both talk about this background, there's a saying that says faith means believing in advance, but only makes sense in reverse. And I'm curious, when you look back, do you feel there was God was preparing you in ways that you didn't? You couldn't connect the dots until you look back and you can see the
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Bishop Robert Barron
full picture in hindsight. Right. And it always works that way in the moment.
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Father Steve Grunow
Oh, let's.
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Bishop Robert Barron
Okay, let's try this. Or, I don't know, let's see if this might work. But then when you look back, you do see a pattern emerging. And I say, in my case, it was, I think, this long preparation. If you had asked me when I was finishing my doctoral work, you know, what do you see as the trajectory of your life? Believe me, I would not have seen either bishop of a diocese or Word on fire. Absolutely not. I would have seen, you know, teaching in the seminary, then probably becoming a university professor and having a chair of theology somewhere. Yeah, that's what I would have seen as the trajectory of my life. And I started along that, you know, I'm teaching and I'm writing and I'm publishing and I'm giving lectures. I'm doing the usual academic thing. And then there was an insertion of grace and Cardinal George had a lot to do with it, because, negatively, Cardinal George told me no. When I was offered some appointments in the academic world, he said, I don't want you to do that. And. And he said, I just have an intuition that you're destined for something else. Right. So he kind of blocked that. And then this comes along, this world of social media, which, let's say in 1995, I never imagined possible. It comes along and I thought, all right, let's try it. But I didn't see how it would unfold. I didn't see it becoming some grand thing. It was an experiment in the beginning. And then I learned over the course of my life, as you look for the signs of grace, what's growing? What is the Lord blessing? And I just found him blessing this work over many years as it continued to grow. And I took that as a sign that we should continue along those lines. But as you say correctly, I think now, looking back, you begin to see a pattern in how I was being moved and placed in certain ways. And that's, you know, praise God.
- [08:49]
Father Steve Grunow
Father Steve, I think the Christian life is largely an expression of your willingness to throw yourself into Divine providence's hands. And, like, you think you know what you're doing and you know what you know, but then you really don't, and it's more that you're uncovering or God is revealing his will and purposes because you've made this fundamental act of faith. So what did I know at the beginning? Yeah, I knew some things. And then. Can I say I see patterns now? Sure. I also see things that I still don't understand. So again, I would just be more. It's the fundamental disposition. Are you going to place your life in. In God's hands, or are you going to keep it in your own hands and make a decision about that? I think that. I can't speak for the bishop, but I think it's true for myself. It's like, well, let's place ourselves in God's hands and then see what he does with us.
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Bishop Robert Barron
Yeah.
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Todd Warner
One of the eight principles of Word on Fire is special commitment to new media. You've kind of explained this. Why, next to other principles which include unwavering Christocentrism, being grounded in the Eucharist, and rootedness in the mystical body, among others, why does this special commitment to new media have such a prize of place? Was it just that you said, this is the horse of history, we're going to jump on it? I mean, did you have a sense that this is where it's going to go, and this is going to be the weight. We know how to evangelize and we're going to figure it out. Is that why that figures so centrally to the eight, the canon of eight
- [10:30]
Bishop Robert Barron
tenets of the faith of whatever makes us distinctive? So a lot of the other ones, you know, Christocentrism, a Jesuit might say, well, sure, we're Christocentric Eucharist and so on. It's part of what makes us distinctive that we're going to take all the other elements but now express them through the new media. And it's a willingness to embrace it is to say, okay, there's this new technology, this new tool, and we want people who are trained in it that know how to use it effectively. So it's part of what I think makes us distinctive. That's why that's important.
- [11:01]
Father Steve Grunow
It's also, you take the other principles and it's like without that principle of the new media, that's the going out principle. So a lot of those are kind of more inner, the inner dimension of living out the gospel. But we're a missionary organization, we're an apostolic organization. And so you have to take those energies of the other principles and then you have to direct them outward. How are we going to direct them outward? Well, primarily through media, and then we'll take it from there. So I think it's the outer directedness of the principles happening. So that's why that principle's there.
- [11:41]
Todd Warner
Do you think the Catholic Church has embraced, I mean, Word on Fire has embraced this, and you as a bishop and as a priest have embraced this? Do you think that the Catholic Church as a whole has recognized this is perhaps one of the greatest missionary fields we can operate on? Or do you feel like there are there still resistant pockets and corners that are like, no, that's not the way to go? Do you have a sense about that?
- [12:05]
Bishop Robert Barron
Yeah, it's kind of all the above, in a way. I think of the two rounds of the synod, it was very much on the minds of people at the synod. It came up a lot, social media, the importance of it. I addressed it a couple times at the synod, but it was a steady theme. Second observation is I think a lot of people in leadership in the church are older and they're not as attuned to it. So there's a disconnect there. I remember the first synod I was a delegate to was on young people, and there was a lot of talk about parish programs and how to get people to come Back to church. And I finally got up to say, yeah, I know, but they're not coming readily back to church. They're not coming to our programs. We have to go get them. And the way to get them is the social media. So there's an obstacle there. Sometimes people are concerned that it's superficial. How do you do the faith in a serious way? Another concern people always raise is, well, all right, you announce the faith, you propagate it. But then what about the Mass? What about the Eucharist? What about the parish? What about bringing them into the Christian community? You know, you can't do that. My answer to that is like, well, I'm sorry, I can't do everything. You know, I mean, we're trying to do part of it. But now parishes should be aware of that and find ways to make those connections. So I hear a lot of, you know, talk about it pro and con. I think increasingly the church is getting it. They know the importance of it.
- [13:30]
Father Steve Grunow
Father Steve, I think, at least in the Catholic Church, we still suffer from a utilitarian understanding of media. So how is this going to solve a particular problem? We have. We need to do this. This. So let's throw media at it rather than. No, our purposes are always evangelical. So how does whatever the church is doing extend to people? The invitation to know Jesus Christ. And to know Jesus Christ, you're gonna have to tell people who Jesus Christ is. You're gonna have to explain what your relationship is about. That's the importance of communication technology to the church. It isn't like, well, we want to increase our mass attendance by 25%. So we're going to do a social media campaign. Okay, that's kind of like marketing. That's the use of the technology for marketing purposes. You know, if you have success in that, wonderful. But you run the risk of just making simply a utilitarian move rather than an evangelical move. It's just like, our goal is to introduce more people in our community to a life in Christ. And then once you've got that, then the technology can kind of fill things in. But, you know, a point that Bishop made early on when, you know, because in the United States, a lot of institutional Catholicism is in decline, and there's a lot of reasons for that. But there was a great concern, I think, in the 90s and the early 2000s, like, how do we fill up these buildings? How do we fill up these buildings? And it was like, well, you're going to have to go to where people are. You can't just Stay in your building and shout for people to come in. You're going to have to go out and invite people in, and you can do that interpersonally, and the church should do that locally. You can have people go out and have them talk about Jesus and talk about what it is to be in the Catholic Church. But the media offers an expansion and an elevation of that messaging, that impetus of going out. You can invite people to know Jesus Christ through technological means. So, again, that's recognizing social media for its evangelical importance, not just for its utilitarian kind of importance.
- [16:08]
Todd Warner
I wanted to ask you many times, I'm sure you're not fully aware of what your numbers are, but I went and did a check even this morning. So at last count, your social media.
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Father Steve Grunow
I'm glad you updated them. Yes, because I was ready to say those numbers are wrong.
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Bishop Robert Barron
No, no.
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Todd Warner
An hour ago. At last count, your social media followership is massive. Over 3.1 million followers on Facebook, 3 million subscribers on YouTube with hundreds of millions of views, and to be precise, for Father Steve, 642,000 followers. There might be 21 more than that on Instagram and 417,000 followers on X, formerly Twitter.
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Bishop Robert Barron
I didn't know that.
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Father Steve Grunow
Yeah. So a lot.
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Todd Warner
And so outside of the grace of God, what is it that you're doing that helps to explain? Or Word on Fire is doing your mammoth reach?
- [16:56]
Bishop Robert Barron
Yeah, you know, I might not be the best person to ask that question, and maybe I lack the objectivity required for it, but I always go back to truth and beauty on the side of truth. From the beginning, I decided to present the faith in a way that was intellectually rich. I didn't dumb it down. I didn't do it in a superficial way. Lots of people told me to do that. Lots of people told me, it will never work. You can't do Thomas Aquinas on social media, you know, And I never listen to those voices. And so in my preaching, in the podcasts, in other modes of expression, I've tried to be smart and substantive in the presentation of the faith. Years ago, I read somewhere that what makes someone in any area compelling, the two things are he knows a lot about what he's talking about, and secondly, he's really excited about it. Those two things, if those two things are present, I don't care whether you're selling a lawnmower or you're announcing Jesus Christ, boy, that guy knows a lot about it. Like, there's something substantive here. And he's dedicated his life, obviously, to understanding it. Right. And then secondly, he's passionate about it. He thinks it's really important. Those two things not being hip and not being relevant and not, you know, as an example of. I was urged indeed to come in on a skateboard early on. None of that matters. What matters is you know a lot about the subject and you're enthusiastic about it. So there's the truth side. The second side is the beauty that we've kind of led with beauty. We've emphasized the beautiful and that's in our films and our longer form things. But even like, you know, I look at the wonderful journal that you edit and is beautiful, beautiful to hold, beautiful to look at. That I think has made our material compelling for people. So those two things. But don't dumb it down. If there's one lesson I think that Word on Fire communicates is you can get those big numbers without infantilizing people. My generation got a very infantilized version of Catholicism, and it's proven to be a pastoral disaster, as I've often said. So look, I take hope, I think other Catholics should too, from the success of Word on Fire, that we have numbers like that and we've done it in a serious and beautiful way.
- [19:27]
Father Steve Grunow
Father Steve, I'm going to go back to the beginning, and I've told this story before, but, you know, when he received this kind of mission from Cardinal George to evangelize the culture, and bishop asked me, how are we going to do this? And then we went and asked ourselves the question, who was the greatest evangelists of the 20th century, around our time that we know, it was Billy Graham. So we went and learned about him. And one of the things that I learned from that is there is a charism of evangelization. People are given by the grace of God, a charism to evangelize. It's not just something you learn how to do, it's something that God gives to you. So it's just like what Cardinal George did was acting as a successor of the apostles, in a way. He imparted the Spirit on Bishop Barron to evangelize. So there's a charism there. So what you see in some of these numbers is the activity of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is attracting, attracting through proclamation, through teaching, through the person of Bishop Barron and understanding that there's a charisma, evangelization, and there's always a particularity to falls upon a particular person to be an evangelist. I think where the church got a little bit off the rails in terms of evangelization at the beginning was they saw evangelization kind of as a procedure or a process or an edict or a set of rules or documents. Like, what we apply are these things. But it's like, well, where's the activity of the Holy Spirit? Evangelization is because the Holy Spirit calls forth people to evangelize, and then the church discerns and recognizes the efficacy or the authenticity of that call. So when I look at those numbers, they're significant. But my bottom line is, well, that's the Holy Spirit. That's how the Holy Spirit works. God working through secondary causes. God works through all sorts of secondary causes, but in terms of evangelization, he works through evangelists.
- [21:47]
Matthew Petrusyk
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 we'll see you next time.