Conversation with Bishop Robert Barron on political philosophy

I'm just eager to talk to you about a lot of things, but especially your new book, Communion, which is terrific and a great followup to Hillbilly Elegy. There's so many themes, you know, political, religious, personal, otherwise makes a very rich uh read, but you know, I want to start with the fact that uh your confirmation name when you were fully received into the Catholic Church is Augustine. Sure. And of course, you can't help but notice an Augustinian arc to this book. Augustine's a guy from the backwoods. You know, when he came to Milan and Rome and he spoke Latin, he's a great master of Latin, but they made fun of his accent, his African accent from the backwoods. his ambition drives him to the top of what he wanted. He gets there and then realizes the emptiness of it. Um, obviously you found resonance with that Augustinian story. Tell me just a bit about that, the Augustinian arc of the book.

You know, to me, it's interesting because I'm focusing there on the on the confessions narrative, but the city of God, the principal theme of which I would say is right worship. His argument there is Rome went bad because of bad worship. Worship gods who themselves were jealous and and resentful and violent. And the Christian God, the God of love and forgiveness and so on, is the right one to worship. Correct. And that all of our political arrangement should follow from right praise. Yes. That to me, it's an ancient idea, but a very relevant idea and lively in the conversation today. Don't you think?

You know, Paul Tillik, the Protestant theologian, who was a great devil tape Augustine, said that. He [clears throat] said, "All you need to know about a person or a society, you can derive from the question, what do you worship?" Interesting. What's of highest value to you? Yeah. I found that in spiritual direction with people, what are you worshiping? What are you after? And then everything else will fall in place around that central question. Yeah. Um, at one stage of your life, you were worshiping uh success. So you talk about it very frankly that you were after, you know, um, rising in the world and getting to the top of the, you know, Yale law school and then the legal world and all that stuff. Um, and and what you saw, it seems to me, is that was bad worship.

What I, you know, gathered from your book very strongly and it's a standard bit of the spiritual tradition is that makes you a complete slave of the opinion of others. What you were going for was not really something in itself. You were going for admiration. Correct. A Christ would call that the lust for honor. Yes. Right. The the big four he says we seek in place of God are wealth, pleasure, power, and honor. Well, honor is that. Yes. But see, honor makes you a complete slave because Exactly. I could be doing the greatest things, but the people, they don't recognize it. Or, hey, I got this big degree and I got this big job and it's big because people admire it. Yeah. But that is an empty spiritual space to be and makes you a slave of other people.

Tell me more about Gerard. You know, I had the chance to meet him toward the end of his career. He came to Mundeline Seminary to give a series of lectures. Okay. Marvelous person, great personality and remarkable looking person too. Um, you discover him through Peter Teal and you call Teal one of the smartest people you ever met. Yes, I've met him a couple times and he is indeed a a very bright man. Uh, I found with Girar once you get it, you can't unget it. Once you see what he saw, it's like, oh my, that's everywhere. Exactly. He's one of these I think he'll be seen as kind of a father of the church in 500 years because the the spiritual perception is so deep. Um and the mimemetic thing is I mean all the advertising based upon it. Why do I want that product? Well, because someone else wants it, you know, right? But then mimedic desire leads to mimedic rivalry. Correct. Now we're in conflict with each other which also is everywhere in our society. Correct. Mimetic uh conflict leads to the scapegoating mechanism. Sure. You say it there and I boy have I sensed it. You know, you want to go to a Gerardian playground. Go to the social media. That's right. Of mimemetic desire, mimedic rivalry, and scapegoating. Yes. The mobs that form on online. Correct. I think he's the great prophet of our time.

you know, Girar and and your friend Peter Teal as well. And we'll talk, frankly, about the demonic element. Yes. The devil is two great names in the Bible, right? He's Hosatanas. He's the accuser. And he's the diabolos, which means the scatterer. Yes. There they are. Go to social media. Accusation and then division. Yes. No, but it's a it's a playground for that. And I I really think the church has got to be involved, not just, you know, to inform people, but to name these dynamics that are going on. But you sensed them in your own you know rise your own career. I want to stay for a second too. The ambition thing is interesting to me because Aquinus talks about magna nimitas which means magnaanima big soul. Yes. He likes magnanimous people. To have a big soul means I want to accomplish something great for the kingdom of God. Yeah. But see the intake would be hey and you and I can both desire the same great goal. Let's say so you're a politician. It's the common good. Yes. And like hey let's all get involved. We all want the common good. We're not looking at each other. We're looking together at a transcendent third. That's Aristotle, too. But see, that's the distinction between a healthy ambition and the one that's that becomes fussy and self-regarding. Correct. You know.

It can turn like that. It's a subtle thing which is why you need prayer and spiritual direction a lot in your life because you can be going this path. Oh, I'm on the magnanimous path. I'm just seeking. No, but you actually took a turn a while ago. But and the the signs of it though, look at in Galatians, look at the fruits of the of the flesh. you know, Paul calls some or look at at mimemetic rivalry breaking out. Then you know you've deviated from the right path. That's right. But I to my mind, spiritually speaking, that's the great thing in this book that people can really get. It applies to anybody, no matter what field you're in. How are you desiring? What's the nature of your desire and and you tell a moving story about your own, you know, conversion. Um, hey, tell me a bit more because I was really interested in the stuff on Catholic social teaching on the economy. Sure. um raram navarum the great you know fundamental text of the Catholic social teaching tradition Leo I the 13th late 19th century a text you read even in your atheist period and you found powerful and and naming dynamics in the political order better than many people were left center and right that's right tell me what was it exactly that that grabbed you about that text

Yeah. I think it's the central thing and you know we bishops wrestle with a lot because we're trying to teach the Catholic social uh doctrine and of course it famously doesn't fit within the leftight correct you know language of of our political parties and the way you put it there is really good because Ram Navarum stands firmly a thwart socialism it offers like five strong arguments why we don't like socialist or communist arrangements on the other hand you have a line like this from Leo the 13th once the demands of necessity and propriety have been met in your own life, everything else you own belongs to the poor. Yes. Now that's that's classical Thomas Aquinis. That's the universal destination of goods. Meaning this world belongs to God really. We're all stewards of it. And so once you know necessity and propriety now those can be defined broadly. But once that's been met in your life, the rest of your property belongs to the poor. Yeah. And I've been saying that to Catholics for years. Like that's a deeply challenging teaching. It's extremely challenging just as the opposition to forms of socialism is a deeply challenging teaching and Catholic doctrine is somewhere in that space. Yes. Not popular all the time. That's why you know we get caught in the crossfire a lot.

Yeah. And you know, it's we can stay at the high level of abstraction and and we tend to agree at that level. when you get down to cases, okay, in this particular case because I bring that up at our bishop's conference. I mean, we're always very strong on, you know, Jesus welcoming the stranger and being open to the immigrant and, you know, all of us look in my own dascese, we have a lot of folks from Honduras and Guatemala come to work in the port processing plants in my dascese. So, we all face the pastoral challenge of, you know, people coming to our country and and and being taken care of and so on. But then yes, as you say, the the right of a country to defend its borders, to enforce its immigration laws, and that see what I would say is it's not my job as a bishop to work out the details of that particular policy. That's your job. That's a job of people who really know what's what's obtaining on the ground and so on. Yeah. And that's an ongoing problem. That's an ongoing issue. How do we bring these to bear? I think my job as a bishop is to bring the great principles to bear and make sure that they're they're taught publicly and so on, but then it's the job of Catholic politicians, I would say, to now apply these in the particular case.

and conversation is essential to and not just kind of exchanging invective at a high level of abstraction because at the high level abstraction we tend to agree with each other. Yes. You know, openness to the stranger. Yes. A right to defend the border. That's right. Now, let's get down to cases. But to do that, you have to be in steady conversation.

Stay stay with Francis for a minute because I think that document late in his papacy called Dignitas Infinita. Yeah. Is one of the best summaries of Catholic social teaching in its breath and its variety. Sure. So all you know leftwing people Yeah. love this this and that. Right-wing people love this this this and that. All the above and uh that was a good challenge you know to the political conversation. That's right. Um no Francis was was uh another good example is that universal destination of goods. So in another one of his later documents he talks about a nation's obligation to poor nations. So again once the demands of necessity and propriety have been met the rest of what you own belongs to the poor. That applies personally but also at the national level. Well he was being criticized by a lot of right-wing Catholics as a Marxist. I hate Marxism, but I wrote frequently saying, "No, that's not Markx. That's Thomas Aquinus." What he's saying there. So, that's a good example of how to shake up that conversation in a good way. That's right. And we should keep having it. Yes. That's what bugs me in some way. We We don't have it uh at the level we should.

And he's the Lord of your life, the whole of your life.

Remember CS Lewis's line about uh most of us if we invite Jesus in is to the front parlor of the house for an hour a week and then please go away. Yes. But he wants to be lord of the living room and the dining room and the bedroom and the kitchen and the basement and the pool house. He wants to be lord of the whole operation. And that includes the our economic and political lives. We can't bracket those. That's not spiritual stuff. Of course it is. Everything.

Right. And see, I think the answer is people like yourself and others that that I've met, for example, in the Trump administration, a lot of Catholics. Yeah. Good. I Catholics in positions of high influence who understand the political, economic, social, all the details. I don't understand all that's not my Bailey wig. That's your Bailey wig. But to bring your Catholic formation and sensibility into that work is a way to do it. You know, I love the chapter in your book on the dismal science on economics because it reminded me very much of my training not far from here at Catholic U when I was a kid many years ago. Yeah. And we great professors of philosophy who would say we get it today completely backwards in in the classical world. Let's say Plato Aristotle. The point of politics was to make us virtuous. It was to make us good. Yes. To seek the common good to create the right society. Economics, right? Literally the law of the household was private matter. That's it was a household affair, right? And we reversed it where now they almost everything in politics is about economics. That's our main preoccupation economics and the moral order. Oh, that's private. That's right. Well, that stayed in my mind ever since. That's a really insightful thing. And you were catching that, I think, uh, as you look at how we measure the value of life and how much of political discourse is about GDP and it's it's read through an economic lens almost exclusively. That's right. and how problematic that is. Talk about that a little bit.

and the market can make us good. Think of like a Michael Novak you know argument that there are virtues associated with participation in market. Think of John Paul II saying the whole purpose of regulating the market is not to eliminate it is to invite more people into it and make it more entrepreneurial and make it more you know of a growth producing reality. To me that's a good place to get. It avoids the easy, you know, bifurcation,

let's think of that for a second uh I'm intrigued by how the two parties, the two great parties in our country have changed a lot in the last maybe 25 years. Sure. Um how did Trump most change the party of let's say Ronald Reagan? Uh the first election I was able to vote in was Reagan 1980. Yeah, I was 20 and um you know the people that trained me were very much shaped by JFK and the civil rights movement and the Peace Corps and all my generation it was Watergate. It was the end of the Vietnam War. was the Carter Malaise etc. For our generation, my generation, Reagan comes along as this great, you know, sunny optimistic figure that does bring the country back to greater economic health and so on. How is how has the party changed from, let's say, Ronald Reagan 1980 to to now? What's the biggest change? you know, Republican party.

It's you mentioned Milton Freeman. I'm dating myself, but I remember this interview with um Phil Donahghue. The younger people don't remember Phil, but he was, you know, this talk show host had serious people on and uh Milton Freeman was an older man at the time and treated Donnu like a bright but not very well read, you know, sophomore and was laying out, you know, the fundamentals of the very lazy fair, you know, hands-off economic approach. And it's an entertaining interview, but it strikes he was that's not Catholic social teaching. We believe in the market. We do. We don't like socialism. We don't like we believe in the market but a market regulated in a morally alert manner. Something like that and I think that's what you're you're gesturing toward there. That's right. Tell me I asked the same question to uh Roan. I had him on my show. I I talked to Tom Suis about this. You know I'm from Chicago originally. I'm an Irish Catholic which meant Democrat. My family was involved in Democratic politics in Chicago. Um, Roie Wade had a lot to do with uh, Catholics getting uneasy with the Democratic Party, but what has happened like the last about 10 years where the Democratic Party today, it seems to me, is one that my father would not even recognize. Sure. Give me what's your read what happened to sort of to my in my judgment sort of radicalize the party.

Yeah. I mean look at somebody like like Martin Luther King. Um, so the civil rights movement is not just participated in by religious people. It was led by religious people. Correct. Explicitly gospel-based people. Uh, King gives the great speech on the steps of Lincoln Memorial and effortlessly weaves together American themes and biblical faith. Absolutely. Letter for the Birmingham City Jail. Same thing. Weaves together American civil rights activism and Thomas Aquinus. Like a super theologic letter from Birmingham jail is a super theological argument. People underappreciate that. And I, you know, I gave a talk at the 250th thing on the the mall and I made that point because I was saying just as you know Jefferson uh these rights come from the creator and we're created equal and so on that that's what King saw as well that the American ideal is grounded in a finely biblical ideal. It's not theocracy. It's not the imposition of religion, but it's the information of the political by the religious. And yeah, I I would agree with you there that that's been lost in a lot of our political discourse and convictions. That's right. Um, tell me a little bit about I have a quote here from you uh when you went to the um Munich security conference. It's a really interesting gathering of some of the leading lights in politics, economics, the military too, I suppose. Here's your quote. It was Western Christian civilization and the values particular to it. The concept of natural rights including freedom of speech, a sense of duty to one's neighbors and obligation of the strong to protect the weak. Meaning that's what that undergurted the convictions. Correct. And that's even that's been lost.

Or Conrad Adnau on the German side, right?

Well, you know, it's that Will Herzburg the cut flowers theory, you know, that we cut flowers, you put them in a vase, they'll look fine for a while, but then they'll die in short order. They're cut off from their base. Well, the same thing with the great moral values and political values that that inform people like Eisenhower and Adnau and that generation. They were rooted in the ground of Christian faith. Correct. Now, cut them out. Oh, human rights and the freedom and the individual and put them in the in the water. Yeah, they look good for a while, but they are going to fade. Yes. And that's what you noticed, huh?

You know, and my little sermon on that point, and I it's self-reroachful here, is I think the church has lost their nerve. The church that I came of age in, so not because of Vatican 2, but after Vatican 2 was a hand ringing church. It was an apologetic church. It was unsure of itself, but that the church of the era you're invoking, that's a time of also like a Reinhold Nebore, right? The theologian, a Paul Till comes to mind, too. Thomas Merin, Fulton Sheen, of course, edify him soon. But these sort of confident Christian voices that were drawing upon the Bible and Augustine and Aquinus, the great people, they were applying it to the political conversation in a robust way. The church I came of age in was this hand ringing. I'm not sure we're here to listen to the culture. Uh I'm not I'm not here imposed upon you. That was a disaster. I agree. It seems to me and what you're saying and I really agree with it. Both are stronger when right both religion and politics are stronger when they're in a robust confident dialogue with each other. Uh and religion rightfully claims its place as as the ground the fertile ground out of which these values emerge. Augustine would have held that. Aquinas would have held that. Thomas Jefferson held it in his own enlightenment you know way. Uh Martin Luther King clearly held it, right? That's that would be my uh diagnosis. End of sermon on that.

Yes. You know, Pope Benedict said that the what people want out of a priest. He was saying it's not you know social worker it's not psychologist someone to hold your hand they want a master in the spiritual life yes I thought right now of course who is his great hero Augustine and what young people anybody but especially young people want they want a guide doesn't mean someone imposing himself and all that you know proitizing not that but someone that with confidence can say like what we talked about the outset of this conversation there are certain dynamics in the spiritual life that the great masters have known forever and things that are making us very unhappy. The church has a lot to say about that. Yes. Here is why. You know, um and so yeah, an assertive church in that good sense. Absolutely. I think is what we want. That's right. Hey, tell me a little bit. I was very intrigued by, you know, famously you're one of the last people to see Pope Francis alive. Yeah. Uh and he asked to see you and you're very moved by that. And here was a very frail man literally about to die had the conversation with you. But then afterwards you sat down I think it was Cardinal Peril and some of the other you know foreign policy people and and you just felt that they didn't get beyond I think as you put it trit platitudes. Yeah. It kind of speaks to our earlier part of the conversation but say a little bit more about that is what what was dysfunctional in that conversation.

which seems everyone of goodwill would agree with that.

Yeah. Let me in the remaining minutes uh shift back into maybe a more personal. Sure. How do you pray? What's your prayer life like?

but you got to take the time. That Thomas Merin, someone asked him, "What's the one thing I can do to improve my prayer life?" And Merin said, "Take the time." Yes. That's That's Was the number one recommendation.

Practice your way into it, right? So take the time but also have a practice. Um I also I think it's great to carry some symbol of faith around with you. So someone like you, I mean who facing every day tough decisions, important decisions affecting the lives of millions of people literally around the world. Sure. Um that you have a rosary in your pocket or you have a a crucifix or you've got a icon or something that you carry with you. Yeah. That you can touch with your hand. That's a good idea. Lord, help me. Yeah. You're you're tempted or you're you're torn. What do I do? How Lord, help me with this. You know, something as simple as that. Yeah. the, you know, the

which is terrific. And the Jesus prayer is thinking of, you know, Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner, repeated over and over again. And you get a little thing called the shotkey, a little rope of of um knots, you know, and carry that in your pocket. Okay. I think that sort of thing that really concretizes it. Having the kids too learning the ways of prayer, that's great because you know, kids, you got to discipline. Say just do it. That's right. I don't get I don't care if you just do it. But then you can participate in that too and say, "Okay, I'm going to I'm going to kneel down with you." I I'm with CS Lewis there too that you know the body has so much to do with prayer and that's a very Catholic thing. It's not just a platonic exercise of I'm going to flee from the body up to God. No, God is incarnate and and so prayer is something I do. So that kneeling like folding your hand or as a Catholic I was even even holding the rosary can put me in an attitude of prayer because it's an embodied thing. Sure, you know. Sure. But I think for someone like you as a Catholic in very high office and very important influence that right worship, you know, that you're ordered to God over and over again is uh is super important. Yeah. You know.