Robert Barron | – The Ad Extra Strategy


Why do I focus so heavily on “ad extra” evangelization—the type of ministry aimed at the peripheries of the culture? That’s the focus of this episode. I also respond to some of the criticisms I’ve received for my appearances at Facebook, Google, and Amazon, along with my interviews with Dave Rubin, Ben Shapiro, and Jordan Peterson.

A listener asks why Jesus often tells people not to tell anyone about his healing miracles.

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About The Author

Bishop Robert Barron These are brief and insightful commentaries on faith and culture by Catholic theologian and author Bishop Robert Barron. The videos complement his weekly sermons posted and podcasted at WordOnFire.org.

Comment (46)

  1. If you hadn't appeared on Rubin & Shaprio, I would not know you. I have been agnostic my whole adulthood, but began attending Mass this year (RCIA this fall). Your videos have helped break through to my lapsed Catholic spouse. Until listening to you, he was dismissive of his rearing in Catholicism; you have reminded him of the benefits he gleaned. Your work among us is VITAL! Don't be like the club that only sends its newsletters to members. How do you reach the outer world if you don't engage with it!?

  2. Brandon, can we please address the elephant in the room and ask Bishop Barron to respond to the Voris criticisms and, in general, how to balance calling out the bad actors in our church by name vs. enabling by silence. I've heard Bishop Barron talk positively about Cardinal Vigano in the past but so much has transpired in the last year on that front but it seems Bishop Barron is intentionally staying away from these subjects. One can understand that speaking forcefully about this stuff might endanger his mission "to the culture" which is so enamored with free form sexual identity. Thanks for everything you do.

  3. Please explain to me how Jordan Peterson is "massively controversial" which Brandon stated, and seemed to be in a pejorative sense. Is it controversial to be told to get your act together, clean up your room, make it beautiful, take on personal responsibility and own it? Or is it controversial that he won't back down from his tyrannical detractors? Brandon seemed to have a completely different demeanor towards him in the "Thoughts on the Jordan Peterson Interview" Word on Fire episode. What am I missing here?

  4. Hi,
    i also think we need to address that most american catholics process information the way pop culture does, not the way catholic tradition does, and for that I would say that you going to these places is the best way to reach even practicing catholics, just maybe not the people who are already thomists or who only consume catholic media

  5. Fr Barron I feel blessed beyond measure each podcast I get an opportunity to watch.
    One very serious issue which I pray the church addresses. My husband is not Catholic and he and many other evangelicals feel that our church must be an apostate church because we have not publicly excommunicated those politicians who openly profess to be Catholics and support abortion! Please address this! Our Protestant brothers and sisters are watching the Catholic Church. Thank you for your response.

  6. Thank you for your public discussions with Rubin, Shapiro, Peterson, Google, etc., for modelling the Catholic “Yes and…” way of staying firm on Catholic teaching while engaging those who are not necessarily Catholics. As a Catholic, I have listened to those outside my ‘tribe’ in order to understand the paths others take and why. Sadly, sometimes more charity can be found in these newfound associations, outside the Catholic ‘tribe‘ than within it . The notion that those who live outside our belief system have little in common with us is limiting. On the contrary, as long as people seek the truth, there are many patches of common ground we can share without watering down our Faith. As with family, when connections cease, there is no discussion. Thank you for exemplifying Catholic connection, for evangelizing in a true spirit of charity in obedience to God’s will.

  7. Bishop Barron, I hear you when you say that Vatican II was not meant to settle internal issues within the Church, but given all the internal division since (and about) the council, I must disagree that the Church "did not have a lot of inner things" or "doctrinal issues" to resolve… It seems to me that the evidence shows that the Church was (and still is) deeply divided over the proper place of developments of secular modern and postmodern thought/culture in the Church's moral teaching.

    I also sympathize with the notion that it would be wonderful for the Church to be able to go "ad extra" into the culture instead of turning inward with "accusing and dividing." But it seems like much of the division within the Church is precisely about the proper relationship of the Church with the culture – which should conform to the other? The answer to that question will largely determine what "ad extra" should look like, so I am just not convinced that significant "ad intra" attention isn't necessary at the moment. Peter and Paul wouldn't have been as effective in their respective realms if they were preaching utterly different things and did not take the time to resolve their differences.

    All that said, I am a huge supporter of yours, Word on Fire, and your injection of Catholic thought into the mainstream culture (not that my opinion is that important). I just think that, in the present moment, the Petrine and the Pauline approaches can't and shouldn't be separated.

  8. The Holy hour is the key…
    Proverbs 21:30
    There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the LORD.

    The Jesus prayer, to me that's key…
    Revelations 21: 4-7
    4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’[b] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
    5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
    6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.

    But I think my own prayer Brandon is the key…
    Proverbs 22:04
    By humility and the fear of the LORD are riches, and honour, and life.

    If by Par for the course BB you mean 'For Love Of God', I agree that no matter how well one plays, if your goal is for the holy then it matters not how good a golfer one is.

    Concider your prayers of the hear BB

  9. This is such a logical fallacy that if one appears on stage with a person that it must indicate that one is in absolute agreement with the other person. That would mean that Bishop Barron agreed with the Orthodox Judaism of Ben Shapiro. In terms of reviewing films, it is appropriate to point out what in the film offers some pearls. My pastor said "Look around the world and where you see GOOD, replace the word with God." Boom.

  10. Bishop Barron, I was a lapsed Catholic for 50 years. About a year and half ago I discovered Relevant Radio and through the Patrick Madrid show (apologetics as you might know) . Father Simon Says and St. Joseph's Workshop I have become a Catholic revert back in January. I've been reading Aquinas, Augustine, Pope Benedict, C.S. Lewis, Chesterton etc. I discovered YOU about a month ago and have been binge watching your videos. Some of them are absolutely brilliant! I love to have my intellect engaged, because I tend to be a bliss ninny otherwise. 😉 . I have a tendency to get lost in the love for Jesus and that, therefore tends to be my primary presentation to the world as a Catholic. However, I recognize that it is necessary to have at my disposal intellectual argumentation skills, in the truest sense in order to fully engage with people who are fundamentally of that nature. As I said I tend to be a devotional type of person, moved to tears during Holy Communion or when singing hymns at mass and such; yet I also love a delicious intellectual encounter which is why I keep watching videos such as yours or Father Spitzer. Rather than throwing vegetables at you, I wish to throw roses. Thank you so much. Your video on Beauty as an evangelization tool was wonderful btw!!

  11. I have a different way of looking at the ad intra and ad extra dimensions of the the church’s mission.
    I am of the opinion that the church shines from within to the outside world. The church cannot be a credible witness to the message of the gospel if she is not seen to be true, just, loving, and peaceful.
    While ministering ad extra, the church must keep in the mind that the most powerful and effective means of evangelisation is witness of life.

  12. Yeah, it's just so much easier for us to examine ourselves and our problems and clean out our institutions and confront corruption and embedded power and sin and hypocrisy than to go out and talk to famous people and the media. That's why people are concerned about doctrinal issues and the Church's apparent desire to conform to the world and the corruption and coverups and scandals. It's because those are so easy to confront.

    You know what's tough? Not confronting them, but just blasting through and putting feathers in our hair and deciding how we're going to incorporate pagan Earth-Mother worship and animism into our liturgy, going out and evangelizing to Amazonian peoples, converting exactly 0 of them in 50 years of missionary activity but learning how we need to actually be converted to their idolatry. That's the hard thing to do.

    The right thing? Oh, that's so much easier. I suppose that's why less powerful people like the laity and hierarchs from places like Kazakhstan and Africa are taking the lead on that, while more important people like Card. Cupich do the really hard work of accusing people concerned with sexual abuse of being racist against the "Latino" pope and telling us we just need to stop judging people, man, like Our Lord said before those rigid KKK traditionalists hate-crimed him: "Never ever judge anyone morally ever for any reason because sin is their personal business and we're all individuals and libertarianism is correct and dude weed lmao who am I to judge lol." Then the World will magically instantly convert to our new religion of just everything they already believe plus '70s tambourine music.

    And you know the most difficult and brave thing of all? Responding to this with predictable and tired accusations of "hate," "uncharitableness," etc., accusing me of having some kind of personal problem for actually being angry about all the child rape and scandal and cowardice and persecution of whistleblowers and of people who want to practice their faith in traditional ways and live according to the moral teachings of Christ in peace instead of doing the upright thing that morally respectable people do, which is to pretend that's not happening.

  13. I have a Catholic Mommy YouTube Channel and this was such a great video for me to continue to Evangelize, I wish I could have Bishop Barron as a spiritual director, God knows I need guidance. Thank you for all the work you all do:)

  14. A chairs nature is to be sat on. Water's nature is to give life, nourish, and remain at the lowest point. Ect. Ect. Does this search for nature of things take in count the condition of that something? For example if an ancient bowl has cuts chips holes dents in it does philosophy smooth out those variables to generalize the purpose of the bowl?

  15. I went to a high mass a few weeks ago. It was sublime. The words confused me, but the simple harmonics from people singing. I'm not a Catholic, but maybe I should be.

  16. Dear Bishop, I want to first say thank you for all the work you've done and are doing. You've helped me and many others as is obvious by reading the comments here on YT. I would appreciate it if in answering your critics, you could give some further explanations. Brandon asked you questions about you speaking to various people, but in following you online and hearing criticisms, I don't think those are the major questions. Most of the criticisms come from some elements of what is being said (or omitted) to the people you engage with. I'd like you to give a more in depth reply to those. For example, as I'm sure you know, quite a storm blew (not just among the usual suspects) for speaking of Catholicism as a "preferential way" to Ben Shapiro. It seems critics found a lack of a sense of urgency and necessity of conversion which was so emphasized by missionaries across history. They contrast this point with WLC's interview he gave to Shapiro. What would you say to that?

    Please understand Bishop, not only do I mean everything I say here with respect to you personally, but my request isn't coming from a bad place or an accusatory place. Rather, I've often found myself defending your positions from critics but I feel like on some points I could use more of your own explanations on some of your positions as backup.

    God bless you Bishop! And again, thank you for putting yourself out in the open like this. Our Lady and St Joseph protect you always!

  17. Bishop, could you please do a show or two going over this video https://youtu.be/gs_gY1K1AMU i think it would be very helpful. I feel like there is a strategy in this approach, painting the God we believe in with all the attributes that we use to refute the atheism, the paint it as full of contradictions and confusion; the propose a comic book god, which then makes the atheists arguments work.

  18. I'm curious what arguments against "religion" Bp. Barron has actually found tempting. Speaking of distinctions, though, it's important that we distinguish the Catholic Church from "religion." Most religions, the vast majority, are human inventions and therefore deeply flawed. Even the church, in her human element, is susceptible to corruption, but she harbours the only religious truth given to us by God in Christ Jesus.

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