Bishop Barron In ‘Frank Disagreement’ with Synod on Development of Sexual Teaching

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CV NEWS FEED // Bishop Robert Barron just spoke out on his experience at the October Synod on Synodality in Rome, sharing several concerns about the synod’s interpretation of love and truth, the Catholic Church’s mission, and sexuality.

“We must welcome everyone, but . . . at the same time must summon those we include to conversion, to live according to the truth,” Barron wrote in an article published on the Word on Fire website.

Barron, who leads the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, is an author, speaker, and theologian known for his online presence through Word on Fire.

Barron based his reflection on the Instrumentum Laboris (“Working Document”) and the final summary report that synod members approved at the end of the October listening phase of the Synod on Synodality.

He criticized the final document for implying that scientific development “will require a rethinking of our sexual teaching, whose categories are, apparently, inadequate to describe the complexities of human sexuality.”

“A first problem I have with this language is that it is so condescending to the richly articulate tradition of moral reflection in Catholicism, a prime example of which is the theology of the body developed by Pope St. John Paul II,” Barron wrote. “To say that this multilayered, philosophically informed, theologically dense system is incapable of handling the subtleties of human sexuality is just absurd.”

He also observed a “deeper problem” underlying the document’s argument.

“This manner of argumentation is based upon a category error—namely, that advances in the sciences, as such, require an evolution in moral teaching,” Barron wrote:

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