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Yesterday it was reported that Bishop Barron had a private meeting with various Catholic media providers to discuss the growing influence of “radical traditionalists” in the online Catholic world.
It should be concerning to the Catholic hierarchy.
It is easy to dismiss the online Catholic world as a silly past time for computer nerds of a pious temperament, but this is to overlook the huge global reach of the internet. To get an idea of the impact of conservative Catholic communicators you can check their YouTube views. Church Militant has 187,000 subscribers. Taylor Marshall has 223,000 subscribers. Taylor’s most popular video boasts 1.3 million views, and whenever he posts a new video it immediately garners upwards of 60,000 views and more. At LifeSite News John Henry Westen has 125,000 subscribers and his videos can grab up to over 100,000 views. An example is a video about a coronavirus plot for one world government. Curiously, this is posted alongside a similar video by Protestant fundamentalist pastor John Hagee also warning about a conspiracy for a one world government linked with the coronavirus. Pastor Hagee’s video has 2 million views.
There is clearly a voracious appetite for conspiracy theories, muckraking, and mud slinging in fully fledged, wide eyed tabloid style journalism. The uncertainty of our times, the unrest in the church and society and the poor catechesis of many Catholics and non-Catholic Christians all lend themselves to this phenomenon. A priest friend of mine said recently “We’re in a sixteenth century situation.” In that era the church was burdened with corruption and immorality in the top ranks, complacency, ignorance, immorality and foolishness at the lower levels. The Protestant revolutionaries came along with their fiery message of reform, and they used the new technology of the day–the printing press–to spread their incendiary message. Like today’s media masters, Martin Luther’s message was sensationalist, sometimes coarse, populist, rabid and uncompromising. Then as now, the church hierarchy were as powerless to stop the conflagration as they were to clean out their own Augean stables.
It’s worth putting the whole fuss in the widest perspective possible. From the Old Testament onward God has provided the church with both the priestly and the prophetic ministry. The priests were the establishment guys. They were the bread and butter, often dull fellows who kept the show on the road. They kept the doors open and the lamps lit and they turned up. Too often they drifted into complacency, corruption and immorality. Their secure jobs and insider connections meant they were tempted by wealth, privilege and all the comforts that come with being the establishment. The prophets, on the other hands, were outsiders. Usually laymen, they attacked the bad shepherds, inveighed against the immorality of the day, poked the feathered nests of the priestly set and stirred the pot. They were filled with fire and often got fired….sometimes literally like Savonarola.
In a way, this conflict is simply the age old clash between the priestly and the prophetic ministries. We need both. The friction produces light even if it also produces heat.
Bishop Barron is right to be concerned about the wildfire of the online Catholic world. Like the reformers in every age of the church, the online radical traditionalists are often unpleasant in their style, unsubtle in their approach, mistaken in their opinions and intentionally provocative. Their writings are too often pure propaganda full of half truths, ignorant generalizations, guilty of detraction and indulging in vile gossip.
Continued below.
Bishop Barron Takes On the Rad Trads
It should be concerning to the Catholic hierarchy.
It is easy to dismiss the online Catholic world as a silly past time for computer nerds of a pious temperament, but this is to overlook the huge global reach of the internet. To get an idea of the impact of conservative Catholic communicators you can check their YouTube views. Church Militant has 187,000 subscribers. Taylor Marshall has 223,000 subscribers. Taylor’s most popular video boasts 1.3 million views, and whenever he posts a new video it immediately garners upwards of 60,000 views and more. At LifeSite News John Henry Westen has 125,000 subscribers and his videos can grab up to over 100,000 views. An example is a video about a coronavirus plot for one world government. Curiously, this is posted alongside a similar video by Protestant fundamentalist pastor John Hagee also warning about a conspiracy for a one world government linked with the coronavirus. Pastor Hagee’s video has 2 million views.
There is clearly a voracious appetite for conspiracy theories, muckraking, and mud slinging in fully fledged, wide eyed tabloid style journalism. The uncertainty of our times, the unrest in the church and society and the poor catechesis of many Catholics and non-Catholic Christians all lend themselves to this phenomenon. A priest friend of mine said recently “We’re in a sixteenth century situation.” In that era the church was burdened with corruption and immorality in the top ranks, complacency, ignorance, immorality and foolishness at the lower levels. The Protestant revolutionaries came along with their fiery message of reform, and they used the new technology of the day–the printing press–to spread their incendiary message. Like today’s media masters, Martin Luther’s message was sensationalist, sometimes coarse, populist, rabid and uncompromising. Then as now, the church hierarchy were as powerless to stop the conflagration as they were to clean out their own Augean stables.
It’s worth putting the whole fuss in the widest perspective possible. From the Old Testament onward God has provided the church with both the priestly and the prophetic ministry. The priests were the establishment guys. They were the bread and butter, often dull fellows who kept the show on the road. They kept the doors open and the lamps lit and they turned up. Too often they drifted into complacency, corruption and immorality. Their secure jobs and insider connections meant they were tempted by wealth, privilege and all the comforts that come with being the establishment. The prophets, on the other hands, were outsiders. Usually laymen, they attacked the bad shepherds, inveighed against the immorality of the day, poked the feathered nests of the priestly set and stirred the pot. They were filled with fire and often got fired….sometimes literally like Savonarola.
In a way, this conflict is simply the age old clash between the priestly and the prophetic ministries. We need both. The friction produces light even if it also produces heat.
Bishop Barron is right to be concerned about the wildfire of the online Catholic world. Like the reformers in every age of the church, the online radical traditionalists are often unpleasant in their style, unsubtle in their approach, mistaken in their opinions and intentionally provocative. Their writings are too often pure propaganda full of half truths, ignorant generalizations, guilty of detraction and indulging in vile gossip.
Continued below.
Bishop Barron Takes On the Rad Trads
