St. Joseph Catholic Church

Pope Francis speaks during an in-flight press conference on the journey from Athens to Rome, Dec. 6, 2021. / Vatican Media.

Pope Francis offers Mass in the Megaron Concert Hall in Athens, Greece on Dec. 5, 2021. / Vatican Media

Pope Francis visits the Mavrovouni refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos on Dec. 5, 2021 / Vatican Media

Many years ago, in the context of a high school religion class, a very wise Benedictine nun gave me a template for understanding Advent that I’ve never forgotten. It is simply that Advent calls to mind three “comings” of Christ: the first in history, the second now, and the third at the end of time. Meditating upon each of these is a helpful preparation for the holy season upon which we are embarking. Let us first look back. Fulton Sheen said that Jesus is the only religious founder whose coming was clearly predicted. And indeed we can find throughout the Old Testament indications and anticipations of the arrival of the Messiah. How often the New Testament authors use the language of fulfillment and insist that the events around Jesus occurred “kata tas graphas” (according to the Scriptures). They…

In the wake of the French Revolution, the triplet of “liberty, equality, fraternity” emerged as a moral compass for the secular society. Something similar has happened today in regard to “equity, diversity, and inclusion.” For most pundits and social activists, at least in the West, these three values function as fundamental norms, self-evident moral truths of absolute value that ought to guide our behavior at both the personal and institutional level. But this cannot be right. For whatever plays that determining role must be good in itself, valuable in every and any circumstance, incapable of being positioned by a higher value. Neither equity, diversity, nor inclusion enjoy these prerogatives, and this can be shown readily enough.  First, let us consider equity. Fostering equality is indeed a high moral value in the measure that all people are identical in dignity and are equally deserving of respect.

The text below is the homily Bishop Barron offered regarding Church and state and the true purpose of the law for the Red Mass at St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans on Monday, October 4, 2021. The Red Mass is a special liturgy offered for judges, lawyers, and others in legal professions. May I say as I commence these reflections that it is an extraordinary privilege to be here with all of you today. Thank you, Archbishop Aymond, for the invitation to speak, and thank you to the entire legal and judicial community of New Orleans—judges, politicians, city officials, lawyers, students of the law—whose important work we place today in prayer under the aegis of God’s grace and providence. I fully realize that oceans of ink have been spilled trying to adjudicate the rapport between Church and state or between one’s religious convictions and one’s civil commitments. I furthermore realize…