Robert Barron | – “1917”, War, and Faith

The hit movie “1917” vividly depicts the horrors of World War I, including its great spiritual peril. In this episode, Bishop Barron reflects on the Great War, discussing its impact on twentieth-century theology and philosophy, the Pope, and the Catholic Church’s relationship to the world. A listener asks why Jesus chose to live a quiet, mostly obscure life.

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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 (48)

  1. Just to let people know, the Catholic Church supported Hitler in WW2 and after Germany´s defeat the Church helped hundreds of Nazi war Criminals escape. The Catholic Church has always carried the bible in one hand and the sword in the other.

  2. Bishop Barron. You have called on Bishops to censor Catholics on social media. Good idea start with all the heretic priests and bishops cardinals and Pope Francis. Father Jimmy Martin can go around promoting sodomy with total immunity. For Shame. And Francis telling those in mortal sin to receive Our Lord in communion! You worry about people posting their opinions in com boxes but ignore so called Catholic politicians promoting infanticide.

  3. When they laid poppies on Armistice day….thousands of women hear screamed and cried…sons men ,,husbands never returned home….it was mass slaughter….One of my grandfathers survived but died later from TB. It led to a loss of
    Nationalism and anti war protest throughout the later decades. Thousands of women never married or had kids
    as there was no young men left alive. Some of my teachers were such women. Wilfred Owen was the poet to read
    about this terrible time in Europe ..often overlooked by WW11……peace everyone..thanks for reading.

  4. This is so timely and greatly appreciated. As a daughter of a Frenchman who lived in Normandy (Rouen) during WWII as a young man (he came here on the Queen Mary at 21), I have spent my life watching him spend his life trying to make sense of it all… literally grew up watching "The World at War" and ironically just finished pushing the DVD series to an external storage drive for a friend of mine about to deploy overseas. The problem is not which wars we study at length… but yes, it is important to understand that WWII began with WWI… and I heard more than enough about both… the problem is this… we never take the time to study history and then form insights and implications as Christians on how, through the lens of faith, it could have been avoided by paying more close attention to early indicators. What else could have been tried? In Christian tradition, what great good could have been returned for great evil? Was there any other way via Christianity? The Pacific and European theaters are equally haunting, having spent time in Japan. Please pray for my Dad and all still living, affected by WWII. Joyfully, his home church's restoration, Saint Maclou, was completed in 1984… I am so grateful I can still celebrate Mass where he was baptized. I wish I had a way of sharing the image of the roof wide open, behind the suspended crucifix where a bomb went through but did not detonate. Thank you for being unafraid to dive headfirst into these atrocities, leading with our Eucharistic Life in Christ, to hopefully help us thwart repeating history. I for one look forward to that day nations no longer train for war… In His love, Mo

  5. The kind of loss of life that happened in WW I did not have any parallel in anyone's memory. You probably had to go back to the 14th century and Black Death (though it was not a war). The loss of entire generations in a few years brought Medieval Europe's civilization to its virtual end, preparing the way to the Protestant Reformation and the religious wars. WW I had, in my opinion, a similar effect.

  6. I had a lot more respect for Bishop Robert Barron before he advocated for control of Catholic media by the US bishops. How many McCaricks do we have to have before people realize that’s a horrible idea? I still respect his collar, and I am grateful for the work he does in evangelizing, but I can no longer take him seriously, despite his erudition, when it comes to opinion. The bishops need to get their own house in order before they attempt to stifle future EWTNs, like they failed to do about 35 years ago.

  7. All well said. We Christians have got our loyalties wrong. WW1 is not the only example but a huge one. I have stood looking over the battle fields and visited the tunnels of Vimy Ridge. Horrific. We celebrate Remembrance day for the lives sacrificed for our freedom. In that case it's nonsense. We should moreover remember that all we Christians allowed this to happen and utterly failed to be one with and before our God. The treaty of Versailles was where we allowed again secularism to reign. We must speak our truth and unite. I am not a Catholic but the Pope is our most significant voice.

  8. Bishop Barron, You are a very learned man. I would like to hear your take on how WWI and Fatima correspond to one another. The biggest deal for Catholics in 1917 is of course Fatima. Did you choose to omit the significance of the Miracle at Fatima on October 13, 1917? Thanks.

  9. Bishop Barron seems mystified as to how Christians could have gone and slaughtered each other in World War I. The answer is easy: Their religious leaders told them to. The U.S. Bishops of the time supported and endorsed the war, publicly. In April of 1917, Cardinal Gibbons wrote a letter to Woodrow Wilson, signed by all of the Archbishops of the United States: "…now that war has been declared, WE BOW IN OBEDIENCE to the summons to do our part…Inspired by the holiest sentiments of truest patriotic fervor and zeal, we stand ready, we and all the flock committed to our keeping, TO COOPERATE IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE WITH OUR PRESIDENT AND OUR NATIONAL GOVERNMENT…" In November of that year, he wrote to Wilson: "Guided as we are by the sublime teachings of Christianity we have no other course open to us but that of OBEDIENCE and devotion to our country….we wish for our people to see, and WE ARE STRIVING TO HELP THEM TO REALIZE, that they OWE UNSWERVING LOYALTY to the rulers whom they have elected to office, and that in doing so they are not acting in a slavish manner, for obedience is not an act of servility we pay to man but AN ACT OF HOMAGE WE PAY TO GOD…" I find it very hard to believe that Bishop Barron would not know this history and the complicity of the Catholic Church leadership in war. At least the American Bishops don't encourage Christians to go slaughter people in war anymore. Instead, they coyly condone the country's wars through 17 years of straight, complete and utter silence.

    LETTER OF OUR ARCHBISHOP TO PRESIDENT WILSON
    http://www.bensalmon.org/uploads/8/2/5/7/82576010/archbishopsletter.pdf

    LETTER WRITTEN TO PRESIDENT WILSON BY CARDINAL GIBBONS
    https://books.google.com/books?id=OpMwAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA9-PA5&lpg=RA9-PA5&dq=archbishop+gibbons+letter+president+wilson&source=bl&ots=wIhsc8_PiY&sig=ACfU3U0ZEbXjJJrYNswiCDa3mCrvexgR6A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjH1-PvlK_nAhWPVs0KHbx5D5UQ6AEwD3oECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=archbishop%20gibbons%20letter%20president%20wilson&f=false

  10. Philip Jenkins’ book, Jesus Wars—to name just one reference—proves the lack of historical knowledge undergirding this latest piece by Bishop Barron.
    Is it an attempt to shore up Ratzinger’s claim that the 20th century is to blame for current cultural problems and the collapse of the Church ? It fails completely.

  11. In the USA, we were isolationist, but members of our country were in the war before we began being involved in WW1 because there were a lot of human rights violations. The rights violations were considered serious enough that many felt it our moral obligation to join the war and stop Germany.

  12. Given that my comment was deleted, I am guessing that listing those heinous violations was too much for YouTube. Please look up the German’s habit of taking “camp women,” if you want to know about them. The rights violations are a matter of historical record. And I would agree with any Catholic who argued back then that we had a moral imperative to join the war. That said, more people died from influenza than in WW1. So Hollywood has seriously Hollywood-Ed this up.

  13. War is hell on Earth. I just wanted to say to all the brave Christian and non-Christian soldiers, sailors and airmen, God bless you all and I prey he keeps you safe off and on the battlefield, no matter your belief or non-belief.

  14. 16:39 indeed 99,9 % were Christians…but just wanted to have a thought about my fathers' uncle who is a Muslim from Tunisia, who died at during WW1 and they never found his body between the trenches. He was enlisted with the French army. There were a small minorities who died too, coming from the British and French colonial empires(Hindus from India and Muslims from North Africa). My father told that his family never understood why he went to war and never knew the purpose of this war…

  15. Great topic for a podcast. The First World War was when Western culture lost confidence in itself. So much of understanding contemporary culture and post-modernism is understanding this watershed moment. I might also add that it demonstrates how the destructive effects of war extend far beyond the war itself.

  16. In May 1917 the blessed virgin Mary started appearing in Fátima. She promessed the end of the world war I if people would pray the rosary for peace and if the Pope would consecrate the world to her Imaculate Heart. Or else another war would explode.

  17. I'd advise many people on here including Bishop Barron to watch a tv series on netflix called Babylon Berlin. It's about the moral and social breakdown after WW1 leading to the weimar republic. What was so interesting about this is that when traditional moral values broke down in favor of experimental ones such as hedonism and nihilism then corruption and eventually despair began to fill this cesspit leaving a vaccum for something to fill it. There were two opposing philosophies that had captivated the attention of so many especially the youth due to how radical they were and how they invoked a fire inside people to change things. These were National Socialism and Communism. People in Germany mainly down to National pride sided with National Socialism, it managed to inspire millions especially after they were elected because they fixed so much of the economical and social problems that impoverished so many. For their radicalism to act in love of their philosophy the people united behind it as being the only answer to sustain a strong and proud Germany.

    I sometimes worry that in response to our own times and moral breakdown leading to so much problems if we Christians don't fill that void then perhaps something else will, something just as sinister as Nazism.

  18. Great questions raised by Vogt and insights by Bishop Barron… by the way, the aureole formed by the world map is a neat arrangement. Pope Leo's teaching on the modern world and the dangers by the new economic and political developments in Europe already foresaw much of the later troubles precipitated in the Great War, as well as Marxism and the Communist revolution in Russia. Loved the whole session and what it offered. The emergence of progressive, secular, materialistic ideology was clearly from the fall out of the Great War.

  19. The 'bishop' has some good points. There is a video series on Netflix (I think it's called Berlin, Berlin) Very interesting take on Berlin in the 20's. Germany was in the midst of massive inflation as they were broke from the war an France was demanding reparations for damage.

  20. Bishop, I agree with much of what you say, except that the war was pointless. Winston Churchill’s history of the war is essential reading. What we have forgotten is that the German Imperial Army pursued a policy of institutional terror. Their “science” had told them that if they executed one out of every 10 Belgians, the population would become docile. The German plan was to subjugate all of Western Europe. The defence against this aggression was not pointless – it was essential. When contemporaries spoke of a “pointless” war, they were speaking about the stalemate in the trenches and the slaughter that resulted. But German aggression and atrocities — informed as they were by a policies inspired by philosophers like Nietzche — should never be forgotten. That is what drove the harsh terms of Versailles.

  21. Very interesting..the American-Dutch reporter Pierre van Paassen related a very strange story regarding Pope Benedict-you can read it in his book "Days of Our Lives": the Pope visited the front lines in France-a truce was called, and Benedict met and prayed with French and German soldiers. I have never read any proof of this, but if true, it shows the Pope's horror at the war.

  22. Excellent remarks: to be a member of the mystical body of Christ is more important than anything! Bishop Barron's testimony is eternal in its scope. Thank you for having the courage to plainly tell us our evolving priorities. God bless you.

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