Thread by @SamRochadotcom

Barron's latest essay on Word on Fire's rejection of liberal "beige Catholicism" and trad "self-devouring Catholicism" is an overview of his primary critics and lays out what he considers his evangelical approach to be which he asserts as representative of the universal Church.

It is essentially a both sides stance, centering Word on Fire and, by implication, the Roman Catholic presentation of the Gospel as perfectly consistent across Barron's life and thought. The libs will be evangelized and the trads will be invited, not condemned.

The tone is self congratulatory and, interestingly, cites major sources of credibility but names no allies; it credits no one but Barron's books and essays except to say that his work speaks in the voice of Vatican II, the recent popes, and the Catechism of 92.

I think this essay is useful because WoF has mostly operated in a vague and cloudy aesthetical exceptionalism. Now we see what it is more clearly and unsurprisingly. It is basically just another US Catholic media apostolate, more or less identical to the previous and present.

But from top to bottom the essay is about the need to own the libs as a form of evangelical Catholicism that has motivated Barron from the get-go which only recently gained trads as fellow lib critics but who are too mad to be productive and need to settle down first.

Oddly enough the essay born from Barron's experience and is not particularly Christocentric, two of his accusations of the nameless beige Catholics. We all know that line though, it is the "60s and 70s were bad" Christian gospel as social reform message. Cliche to the max.

But as dated and repeated as this may be, the message is clear: for Barron and Word on Fire, an unconscious and reactionary conservative is the evangelical ideology of Catholicism, one which will conquer his critics with an emphasis on owning the libs.

An easy counter to the 60s and 70s were bad narrative is to ask how Barron deals with Medellin and Puebla. We can imagine the reply; after all, it is baked into his beige critique. Add to that the cultural and civic issues of the 60s and one can see what emerges here. No thanks.

In his books and previous works, he has named his position postliberalism, here he simply names it Catholicism. I would call it Catholic Americana.