Minnesota Now with Nina Moini

How a southern Minnesota bishop became one of the most listened to Catholic leaders in the U.S.

Catholic bishops participate in a morning prayer
Bishop Robert Barron of the Winona-Rochester Diocese, along with other bishops, participates in a morning prayer during the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops spring meetings in Baltimore on June 11, 2019.
Jose Luis Magana | AP

Bishop Robert Barron of the Winona-Rochester Diocese is undoubtedly the most listened to Catholic leader residing in the United States today. His podcast and YouTube videos created from his studio in Rochester reach at least 1.8 million YouTube subscribers. And his unconventional way of spreading information about his faith has a heavy hand in the shifting tide of American Catholicism.

History professor Molly Worthen spent time with Bishop Robert Barron and wrote about it in an article for The Atlantic Magazine. She joined Minnesota Now to talk about the bishop’s rise.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

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Audio transcript

NINA MOINI: Bishop Robert Barron of the Winona-Rochester Diocese is undoubtedly the most listened to Catholic leader residing in the United States today. His podcast and YouTube videos, which he creates from his studio in Rochester, reaches at least 1.8 million YouTube subscribers.

And his unconventional way of spreading information about his faith has a heavy hand in the shifting tide of American Catholicism. Here's a clip from a recent podcast from the bishop. He's speaking about issues men face in this country.

ROBERT BARRON: It's a kind of malaise, I suppose, is the word you might want to use, that men have fallen into a depression, a loss of direction, a loss of meaning and purpose. Generally speaking, in our culture, there's a lot of-- there's despair that's born of the loss of God. And that's underneath a lot of that stuff, too. And that applies to everybody.

INTERVIEWER: Absolutely.

ROBERT BARRON: But there's something about men, though, that's worse. And there are reasons we got to search out for that.

NINA MOINI: Joining me now to talk about Bishop Robert Barron's rise in history is history professor Molly Worthen. She spent time with the bishop and wrote about him in an article for The Atlantic magazine. Professor Worthen, thank you for joining us.

MOLLY WORTHEN: Thanks for having me.

NINA MOINI: I am so curious, as a historian, what made you want to feature Bishop Barron?

MOLLY WORTHEN: Gosh. Well, I'm really interested in the transformation of human's religious impulses over time, especially as we push further and further into what people often call the secular age because, overall, the statistics are on a-- not a steep decline but a pretty undeniable decline when it comes to rates of church attendance, religious affiliation, people saying that they believe in God or pray on a daily basis.

And so against that backdrop, the picture of an evangelist who's really having quite a lot of success, at least by some measures in terms of media impact, especially one in a religious tradition that is not usually associated with evangelism, Catholicism, that was really interesting to me.

I mean, we think of evangelists as Bible-thumping Protestants or Protestant-- prosperity gospel preachers on TV or something like this. And I think Bishop Barron demonstrates just how wrong that cliché of evangelism is.

NINA MOINI: So he's got podcasts and videos. And he has this digital empire called Word on Fire ministries, all of these followers as well. And I understand you visited Word on Fire ministries, which is headquartered again in Rochester last fall. What was it like?

MOLLY WORTHEN: I did. It's a very understated headquarters. When I found my way there, I mean, there was no external sign that I could see. Initially, I wasn't sure I was in the right place, but the door was unlocked.

I mean, there's other businesses in the same building in downtown Rochester. And I went upstairs and then pretty immediately realized I was in the right place when I saw a poster wall featuring the great Catholic Evangelist Fulton Sheen, St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower, a famous early 20th century saint, and Pope John Paul II.

And the headquarters of World on Fire in Rochester, although it's not the only place where Word on Fire employees operate, it's very understated and quite single-mindedly devoted to media production. There's space to meet with visitors. But really, the focus of that space is the technology necessary to record Bishop Barron's homilies and get his media out into the world.

NINA MOINI: And traditionally, it's been an issue for the church getting men in the pews. And we played the clip off the top there with the bishop talking about this malaise or how to reach men and what are men experiencing. We heard this theme as well during the 2024 presidential election cycle. And you talked to a handful of men who are followers of Bishop Barron. And what were you hearing from them?

MOLLY WORTHEN: Yes. And this is a statistical change that pollsters have commented on. I mean, for the first time, we are starting to see, at least in some demographics, specifically college-age millennials, slightly more men than women going to church weekly and claiming a religious affiliation.

And you're right, it's a it's a huge departure. I mean, one of the most reliable sociological facts of the past three centuries really across Christian communities is that women dominate the pews. And historians debate the reasons for that. I guess, as a historian, I'm a little bit skeptical of some of the current commentary we hear that casts the current crisis of masculinity as a brand new thing.

I mean, I think really in every generation, since at least the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, you can find commentators wringing their hands about how men are struggling to adjust to transformation, whether it's from the farm fields and military engagements, to offices, or simply working for another person, not having as many outlets for their physical strength, this sort of thing.

I mean, adjustment to economic change, it seems to have been something that has prompted in every era in the West, some lamentation about how men are coping. And so in that sense, we're just seeing the next chapter of this pattern. But I do think that something new is happening that is perhaps exacerbated in our own time by the total erosion of institutions.

And the young men that I spoke to again and again talked to me about how their generation just is totally unmoored and doesn't have the natural paths toward making community that their fathers and grandfathers' generations had.

And I mean, I think this is actually what secularization means. We think of it that word as specifically associated with the decline of churches. But I think really, churches are one kind of institution among many that have generally seen their hold on people's everyday routines and ideas about where authority comes from erode, and perhaps that in conflation with the #MeToo movement and this rhetoric about toxic masculinity. And it has sent the message to young men that society does not want you. You are a toxic presence.

And there's no wonder, I think, that young men in particular are looking for an alternative, a space where they can encounter a more positive vision of what it is to be a human, not just what it is to be a man.

NINA MOINI: And Bishop Barron is, it sounds like from your article, saying, let's tap into this and reach people where they're at. It's not just in the pews, it's online, and it's through podcasts. And really tapping into that. I want to read you just one line in your article that I thought really summed things up in an interesting way. And then I'm going to ask you a question about it.

So it says, "To fans, Barron is convincing a new generation that Christianity is not the faded wallpaper of the West but a compelling countercultural message to critics. He has forged a cult of personality and cozied up to culture warriors for the sake of clicks." What do you think about that? Is that a good representation of where Barron fits in the grander scheme?

MOLLY WORTHEN: Yes, I think he is like all successful evangelists, Protestant or Catholic, and that he provokes criticism from the left and the right, who both think that he has compromised too far in one direction or another.

And I think his view is, number one, really trying to move away from what he called-- he famously calls the beige Catholicism of his youth. So that's his catchphrase for the watered-down post-Vatican to Catholic experience, where traditional music is replaced by guitars and tambourines.

And there's just an effort on the part of the church to really accommodate culture and make this 2000-year-old faith that is not Western in its origins, of course-- Christianity comes out of the Middle East and is a global faith-- to make it more compatible with a scientific modern age.

And Barron's answer to that is absolutely not. Christianity is a bizarre religion. Christians worship this man hanging from a cross. And they believe in the burning bush and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and all kinds of crazy supernatural things.

And rather than trying to move away from that in the interest of bringing people along in a more modern, watered-down version of the faith, which has sometimes been the attempt of people who've tried to update Christianity, he's sort of gone in the other direction.

But I think in his desire to really meet potential seekers wherever they are, that does mean that he's willing to talk to almost anybody on his podcast. And that has spanned the right and the left. But certainly, I think as he has sensed this special need and interest among disillusioned young men, he has leaned into that.

And he's embraced what the YouTube algorithms kick up when people who go looking for Joe Rogan's podcasts or Jordan Peterson's lectures on YouTube on the meaning of life and purpose might also be amenable to his message. He wants to capitalize on that.

NINA MOINI: It's a fascinating read, and The Atlantic. I highly recommend it. Professor, thank you so much for being here and sharing your work with us.

MOLLY WORTHEN: Thanks for having me.

NINA MOINI: That was Molly Worthen, a historian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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