Priest to Catholic convention: "Don't dumb down the Faith!"

DENVER (CNS) — The “dumbing down of the Catholic faith” that impacted catechesis in the mid-1960s “was a pastoral disaster of the first order,” Father Robert Barron told a crowd of about 500 people at the Catholic Media Conference in Denver June 19.

“That’s why many people in my generation left the faith,” Father Barron — creator of the “Catholicism” television series — told conference attendees and members of the public who came especially to hear his evening keynote address. “Don’t dumb down the message.” [And I recently read about two priests saying that the reason many people leave the Faith is either a) Mass is boring or b) the priest is boring!  Good grief!  They never realized that it is their monumental blunder as preachers of the Word why people leave the Faith!  People don't go to Mass to be entertained!  They go to Mass to be spiritually nourished!]

That was the second of six suggestions Father Barron gave for spreading the new evangelization. His other suggestions included “leading with beauty” and “preaching with ardor.”

Father Barron, who currently is rector of Mundelein Seminary in the Chicago Archdiocese, [a controversial seminary..] started out by noting that the convention marked the 20th anniversary of World Youth Day in Denver in 1993, where it is widely though that Blessed John Paul II kicked off the new evangelization, which urges Catholics to renew their faith and aims to re-ignite the Catholic faith in traditionally Christian countries where the people’s practice of the faith has grown lax.

In leading with beauty, the Catholic Church will draw people to itself the way the main character in Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited” was drawn to the church — from beauty to goodness to truth, Father Barron said.  [How can you see beauty when they dumbed down the design of our churches?  How can you see beauty when old angry nuns shed off their beautiful religious habits and angry priests don the business suit instead of their cassocks?  How can you see beauty in the Church when the Mass is reduced to an ordinary game show, or a talk show program extraordinaire with no one but the Reverend Showman leading the program???]

Another way the church can spread the new evangelization is to “tell the great story of salvation history” that includes the Old Testament story that set the stage for Christ’s incarnation.  [You won't hear much of that from our priests nowadays.  You'd hear more talks about the Church being too patriarchal and being too angry with women that they twist what was written in the Bible and even subscribe to the medieval hoax against the Catholic Church.  Yeah they do that, like Fr. Dan Pilario and Fr. Percy Bacani, and Fr. Genaro Diwa.  Nasty bunch.]

“Don’t turn Jesus into a bland cypher,” he said. “He’s not just another mystic or guru.” [Oh!!! But that is what Fr. Dan Pilario and Fr. Percy Bacani have been teaching us.  Jesus Christ is just one of the great men who lived in this world to teach us about the universal dogma of LOVE....*cue Age of Aquarius*.  You see....He is no different from Buddha, Gandhi, Muhammad and the other great teachers and founders of religion....Fr. Dan and Fr. Percy taught us that!  But! but! but!]

Noting the large number of people in modern society who suffer from addictions, Father Barron said the church must also help people reject “false gods of wealth, honor, pleasure and power,” and teach the anthropology of St. Augustine, who wrote that “our heart is restless until it rests in thee.” [Fr. Dan Pilario and Fr. Percy Bacani don't care about medieval authors like St. Augustine, and they couldn't care less if he is a saint too.  These two theologians only care one thing:  to remake the Church according to their perceived idea of what the Church should be.  Completely different from what Jesus Christ founded!]

“We need to mock (false gods) publicly,” Father Barron said.

And to combat modern atheism, the church must spread the message of St. Irenaeus, who wrote that “the glory of God is a human being fully alive,” Father Barron said. The saint, who died in the early third century, taught that the creed contains the essential truths of Christian faith.

In Christianity, God and man do not compete with each other, he added. It is only in pagan and atheistic belief systems that gods stand in the way of human progress.


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Unfortunately most of the damage against the Church comes from within.

Take the case of the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith who praised liberation theology, an approach to theology long condemned by Blessed John Paul II and by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI!

But do we see Defenders of the Faith defending the Faith against attacks from within like from Archbishop Mueller and Fr. Dan Pilario and Fr. Percy Bacani?

NO.  We don't.

We forget that much of what is hurting the Church right now comes from within and not from without.

Like priests who blatantly disobey their superiors over a hobby!  A hobby which he does not even excel at!  Goodness me!  Karl Keating at Catholic Answers can do a better job!

And this so-called priest has this so-called devotion to the TLM, when in fact he has been photographed a couple of times having liturgical dance in his Masses!  He even once used a plastic container for a ciborium!

Hey, Father!  You were in the city when you were photographed!  You were not in the mission lands!  Even some missionaries go at great length to use a gilded ciborium!

You used Lock-and-Lock!

Even the Catholic Biblical Apologetics can also do a fine research!

Guess they pick fights where they want them to be.

I have seen men and women who engage people of other faiths in a debate over which religion is "True".  But we must not forget to defend the Faith also from those "within".

And they would certainly not pick up a splendor of a fight against this "secret SSPX supporter" and "pseudo-Catholic"!

Hmmm...maybe I'd try to beat him to another speaking engagement.

So much for being a true apologist eh?

If it is not the fame that you are really after, then try not being on the spotlight!

As St. John the Baptist said "I must decrease.  He must increase."

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PS:  Fr. Barron has a wonderful blog.

Read that rather than visiting a pulpol site.