Robert Barron

Robert Emmet Barron (born November 19, 1959) is an American prelate of the Catholic Church serving as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He is the founder of the Catholic ministerial organization Word on Fire, and was the host of the TV series Catholicism, an award-winning documentary about the Catholic faith which aired on PBS.Previously, he served as rector at Mundelein Seminary in the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Barron has published numerous books, essays, and articles on theology and spirituality. He is a religion correspondent for NBC and has also appeared on Fox News, CNN, and EWTN. Barron's website, WordOnFire.org, is viewed by millions of people each year. As one of the world's most followed Catholics on social media, he has been informally called the "bishop of social media" and the "bishop of the Internet". As of February 2020, his regular YouTube videos have been viewed over 30 million times, he has over 1.5 million followers on Facebook, 160,000 on Instagram, and 150,000 on Twitter. In addition, has been invited to speak about religion at the headquarters of Amazon, Facebook, and Google. He has keynoted several conferences and events over the world, including the 2016 World Youth Day in Kraków, Poland and the 2015 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, which marked Pope Francis's visit to the United States.

The bishop's latest film series, Catholicism: The Pivotal Players, debuted in September 2016 and has been syndicated for national television in the United States.

Barron is a proponent of Hans Urs von Balthasar's “dare we hope” theory of universal salvation, declaring there is "objective ground" for a "hope that all men may be saved."

Robert Emmet Barron was born on November 19, 1959, in Chicago. He spent his childhood first in Detroit, then in the Chicago suburb of Western Springs. His mother was a homemaker, and his father, who died in 1987, was a national sales manager for John Sexton & Company, a national food distributor. He has a sister and a brother, John Barron, who is the Sun-Times Media Group's publisher and senior vice-president of news and editorial operations.

Barron discovered Thomas Aquinas when he was a freshman at Fenwick High School, a private Dominican high school. He transferred to Benet Academy, a private Benedictine high school, where he graduated in 1977.

Barron attended the University of Notre Dame for a year before transferring to Mundelein Seminary in Chicago. One year later, he was accepted as a Basselin Scholar at the theological college of the Catholic University of America where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy in 1981 and a Master of Arts in philosophy in 1982; his master's thesis was on the political philosophy of Karl Marx. Barron earned a Licentiate of Sacred Theology from Mundelein Seminary in 1986 and was ordained on May 24, 1986, by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.

After serving as an associate pastor of St. Paul of the Cross Catholic Church in Park Ridge from 1986 to 1989, he was sent to France and earned a Doctor of Sacred Theology at the Institut Catholique de Paris in 1992. His dissertation was titled "Creation as Discipleship: A Study of the De potentia of Thomas Aquinas in Light of the Dogmatik of Paul Tillich".

In addition to his native English, Barron is also fluent in French, Spanish, German, and Latin.

From 1992 until 2015, Barron was a professor of systematic theology at University of St. Mary of the Lake, where he was also named the inaugural Francis Cardinal George Professor of Faith and Culture in 2008. He also served as president-rector from 2012 to 2015.

He lectured extensively in the United States and internationally, including the Pontifical North American College and the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. The late Cardinal Francis George called Barron "one of the Church's best messengers". In 2002 he was a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame and at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in 2007. He was also twice scholar in residence at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, in 2007 and 2010.

On July 21, 2015, Pope Francis appointed Barron an auxiliary bishop in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and titular Bishop of Macriana in Mauritania. Archbishop Gomez of Los Angeles gave each of the three forthcoming auxiliary bishops pectoral crosses modeled after the one Pope Francis wears, noting that Barron's media talent and rapport with young people, as well as his outreach to other faiths and to the world of culture (including with non-believers and non-practicing or fallen away Catholics) and education, would be good for the archdiocese. Archbishop Cupich said he would be of great benefit to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, citing his work with Word on Fire, his doctoral training in theology and parish service in Chicago, his social media presence, and his administrative service to him and his two predecessors, Cardinal George and Cardinal Bernardin, especially since his appointment as rector and president of the seminary.

On September 8, 2015, Barron was consecrated as an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels by Archbishop José H. Gomez.

In 2000 Barron launched Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, a non-profit organization, that supports his evangelistic endeavors. Word on Fire programs, featuring Barron, have been broadcast regularly on WGN America, EWTN, Telecare, Relevant Radio and the Word on Fire YouTube Channel. Barron's Word on Fire website offers daily blogs, articles, commentaries and over ten years of weekly sermon podcasts. In September 2015, Barron and Word on Fire content director Brandon Vogt started a weekly podcast called The Word on Fire Show.

Barron lectures extensively in the United States and internationally and he has published numerous books, essays and DVD programs. He is a frequent commentator on faith and culture for The Chicago Tribune, NBC Nightly News, Fox News Channel, Our Sunday Visitor, the Catholic Herald (London, UK) and The Catholic New World.

Internet

Barron's website reaches millions of people each year. The site hosts daily blog posts, weekly articles and video commentaries, and an extensive audio archive of over 500 homilies. His Barron's homilies are heard by tens of thousands of listeners each week, and over 350,000 people receive his daily email reflections.

Barron is one of the most-followed Catholics in the world on social media. His work has garnered:

• 1.7 million+ Facebook followers
• 228,000+ YouTube subscribers
• 160,000+ on Instagram
• 154,000+ Twitter followers

Videos

Barron has produced over 400 online video commentaries which have attracted over 40 million views. His weekly, high-quality productions include brief and lively theological reviews of contemporary culture, including movies, books, music, current events, and more.

Television

Barron's videos are aired on CatholicTV, EWTN, Telecare, NET TV, and Salt + Light Television.

He filmed a 10-part documentary, Catholicism, filmed in 16 countries, which aired on nearly every public television station in America beginning in 2011. A sequel was released in September 2013, Catholicism: The New Evangelization.

In October 2010 he began presenting a half-hour television show, Word on Fire with Father Barron, on WGN America on Sundays. Barron is the first priest since Archbishop Fulton Sheen in the 1950s to have a regular national program on a commercial television network.

Radio/podcast

Barron produces a weekly conversational podcast on faith and culture titled The Word on Fire Show which has been downloaded over four million times. His weekly homilies and podcasts air on multiple radio stations to millions of listeners.

Books

• A Study of the De potentia of Thomas Aquinas in Light of the Dogmatik of Paul Tillich (1993)
• Thomas Aquinas: Spiritual Master (1996)
• And Now I See: A Theology of Transformation (1998)
• Heaven in Stone and Glass (2000)
• The Strangest Way: Walking the Christian Path (2002)
• Bridging the Great Divide: Musings of a Post-Liberal, Post-Conservative, Evangelical Catholic (2004)
• The Priority of Christ: Toward a Post-Liberal Catholicism (2007)
• Word on Fire: Proclaiming the Power of Christ (2008)
• Eucharist (2008)
• Catholicism (2011)
• Seeds of the Word: Finding God in the Culture (2015)
• 2 Samuel (2015)
• Exploring Catholic Theology (2015)
• Vibrant Paradoxes: The Both/And of Catholicism (2016)
• To Light a Fire on the Earth: Proclaiming the Gospel in a Secular Age (2017)
• Arguing Religion (2018)
• Letter to a Suffering Church: A Bishop Speaks on the Sexual Abuse Crisis (2019)
• Centered: The Spirituality of Word on Fire (2020)
• Renewing Our Hope: Essays for the New Evangelization (2020)

DVDs

• Untold Blessings The Three Paths of Holiness (2005)
• Conversion (2006)
• Faith Clips (2007)
• Seven Deadly Sins, Seven Lively Virtues (2007)
• Eucharist (2009)
• Catholicism (2011)
• Catholicism: The New Evangelization (2013)
• Priest, Prophet, King (2014)
• The Mystery of God (2015)
• Catholicism: The Pivotal Players Volume I (2016)
• David the King (2017)
• The Mass (2018)
• Catholicism: The Pivotal Players St. Augustine & St. Benedict (2018)
• Catholicism: The Pivotal Players Fulton Sheen & Flannery O'Connor (2019)

Orders

•   Holy See: Order of the Holy Sepulchre

Academic

• 2019: Doctor of Theology, Honoris Causa, Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas
• 2018: Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa, Assumption College
• 2017: Doctor of Divinity, Honoris Causa, Saint Anselm College
• 2016: Doctor of Sacred Theology, Honoris Causa, Dominican House of Studies
• 2013: Doctor of Religious Education, Honoris Causa, Providence College
• 2012: Doctor of Humanities, Honoris Causa, Lewis University

Awards

• 2015: Fisher's Net Award for Best Overall and for Best Social Media Presence
• 2012: Relevant Radio Christ Brings Hope Award
• 2003: Catholic Press Association Book Award: The Strangest Way: Walking the Christian Path
• 1998: Catholic Press Association Journalism Award: Best Article - Clergy, Religious, "The Uncanny God"
• 1997: Catholic Press Association Book Award: Thomas Aquinas: Spiritual Master
• 1995: Catholic Press Association Journalism Award: Best Article - Professional and Special Interest, "Priest as Bearer of the Mystery"