Is Robert Barron a Bishop of Baal? By JOHN ZMIRAK for The Stream
Did God punish Elijah for destroying the prophets of Baal, as Bishop Barron suggests? John Zmirak has an answer.
A classic satirical poem, “The Vicar of Bray” describes an all too well-known religious type: a reed who sways in the wind, a pastor who trims his sails to whatever prevailing fashion, with the pretext that his compromises are necessary to his mission.
In the poem, an Anglican vicar goes from High-Church royalist to quasi-Catholic absolutist to Low-Church Whig liberal, without ever missing a beat or expressing a real conviction. His one firm principle he admits in the poem’s chorus:
And this be law, that I’ll maintain until my dying day, sir
That whatsoever king may reign, Still I’ll be the Vicar of Bray, sir.
Church Chameleons
As a Catholic, I’ve been shocked at many people whom I thought solidly orthodox and faithful when the doctrinally sound Pope Benedict XVI reigned. With the accession of Pope Francis they promptly transformed themselves into liberals. Many used as a pretext the claim that they’re “just following the pope.”
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But our church does not demand that believers abandon apostolic moral principles just to suit a faithless pope. I think it far more likely that these “professional Catholics” are just following the money and the power. They are also conveniently shedding Catholic stances that would make them unpopular with our increasingly intolerant Oligarchy.
As Saturday Night Live’s “Church Lady” might have said, isn’t it convenient that Pope Francis (and his countless Vicars of Bray) is shoving aside or obscuring doctrines that attract the hostility of the U.S. government, billion-dollar Woke corporations, globalist power-brokers, Ivy League universities, and social media monopolies?
Francis condemns Western citizens who wish to limit Muslim immigration, but says absolutely nothing about the Chinese government’s full-on genocide of Muslim Uyghurs. Francis offers the Eucharist to corrupt, pro-abortion Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but denies the ancient Catholic Mass to millions of faithful, obedient believers.
The P.T. Barnum of the Catholic Church
One of the most blatantly opportunistic public figures in my church has been Robert Barron. When John Paul II and Benedict XVI were pope, he assiduously cultivated an image as a defender of traditional faith. He raised tens of millions of dollars from well-meaning believers who bought into that image, and got himself named a bishop. But as soon as Francis took power, Barron’s skin instantly changed color to match his new environment. As Jason Jones wrote here:
