The Megyn Kelly Show - Young People Turning From Faith, the New Religion of "Woke," and an Easter Message, with Bishop Robert Barron | Ep. 753

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

On this Good Friday special, Megyn Kelly is joined by Bishop Robert Barron of "Word on Fire Catholic Ministries" to discuss the decline of people going to church, young people disaffiliating from religion altogether, how to recruit disaffected Catholics, the commercialization of Easter and Christmas, how "woke" has become a new religion, he "Christ is King" debate happening on social media, the media nonsense about "Christian Nationalism" led by the absence of religion, debauchery in our culture today, how he helped actor Shia LaBeouf reclaim his faith and get confirmed in the Catholic faith, the value of silence in connecting with God, his love of Bob Dylan, stories of preaching in 2024, why he decided to become a priest, and more. Plus, Megyn gets personal and opens up about going through the annulment process, why it's leading to her having a "crisis of faith," the role of marriage in Christianity and Catholicism, and her recent trip to an Episcopalian church. Barron- https://www.wordonfire.org/about/bishop-robert-barron/ Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. On this Good Friday, we are bringing you a special show with Bishop Robert Barron. He is one of the most followed Catholics in the world on social media and has been named one of the church's best messengers. We'll dive into why and we'll dive into what's happening in our culture from a historical perspective, all sorts of things to get to, including actor Shia LaBeouf's recent confirmation with the bishop into the Catholic faith. Bishop Barron, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me on. Oh, it's wonderful to have you. And this is airing on Good Friday as we go into Easter weekend. And, you know, just let's kick it off with what you think Catholics and Christians should be thinking about on a day like this. They should be thinking about their own sin. I mean, so in a way, what we see in the cross of Jesus is our sin. So the author of life came and we killed him.

That's a basic biblical message. God sent his only son, God's own self in human form. And our reaction was to kill him. And that means there's something really off with us. The cross of Jesus is a judgment on the world. So whenever we're tempted to say, you know, everything's fine, I'm okay, you're okay, don't worry about it. We hold up the cross of Jesus to say, no, all is not well with us. They killed him 2,000 years ago. And if we're honest, if he came back now, we'd do the same thing.

And so it's a reminder of our sin, but at the same time, a reminder that God was willing to go all the way to the bottom of our dysfunction to find us. So on the cross, we also have God identifying himself with the fallen human race. So it's both those truths that we're sinners, but that we are saved by a sheer grace. Both of those truths, I think, have to be in play as we look at Good Friday. Oh, Bishop, I have a feeling that you were sent here for me for this interview. Maybe I'll help some of my audience and maybe I'll help myself because I have to tell you something.

I am a sinner and I am having a bit of a crisis of faith these days. I'm a Catholic, a lifelong Catholic, and I've been going through something and I really wrestled with whether I would raise it with you in this interview because it's, this is about Good Friday and Easter, but I've been thinking about what you just said about what Good Friday means and being a sinner and, and where that takes me. And I just want to, I'll outline it for you as follows. Maybe you can give me some guidance. I have been going through the process of getting an annulment of my first marriage. I've been married to Doug now for 16 years. We just celebrated our wedding anniversary,

but I never annulled my first marriage to my first husband with whom I am still very friendly. He's a great guy just to work out. And he, and I agreed, he's Catholic too, that we would try to get an annulment and he would marry, you know, I would get married to Doug in a church and you know how that works. I'm not technically allowed to receive, um, absolution and confession until I do this and so on and so forth. Well, I've been doing it and I'm going through the process and my priest is helping me. And I have to tell you, instead of like renewing my faith or leading me on a journey where I would feel closer to God and embrace things like Good Friday and Lent and Easter, it's been driving me in a different direction. I didn't even observe

Lent this year. I did not go to church on Ash Wednesday. I'm like, I'm feeling kind of emotional just talking about it. And I'm, it's the, it's been like that in your face interjection of man in between your relationship with God that is getting to me. You know, as I fill out these forms, it's not my priest. I want to make that clear. I really care about my priest and he's been wonderful, but I'm submitting these forms about my first marriage to whom, who are these people who get to review my personal private

details and pass a judgment on my marriage, you know? And I went to my cardiologist recently, cause I go once a year, he's a Jewish man. He tried to recruit me Bishop. He said, you know, and I went to my cardiologist recently cause I go once a year, he's a Jewish man. He tried to recruit me Bishop. He said, you know, in, in Judaism, we don't have any, there's no interloper. It's just you and God. And, um, I've just really been wrestling with it. There, there've just been a couple of experiences where I've been questioning why, why do I have to, who is, who is the man making me through jump through hoops in order to have a more authentic, blessed relationship with God? So that's where I, it's a weird place, forgive me to kick it off with you, but I wasn't even sure if I'd raise it, but it's seeing you and hearing your first answer. I'm like, I've got to do it.

Yeah. You know, there's so much we can say about it. And my first instinct really is that I shouldn't be talking to you about this because you should be talking to someone who's much closer to you and to the reality of the situation. So it's a sensitive pastoral matter. But I'll say just this. It's the church's deep respect for marriage that's behind that whole process, so that the church respects the sacramentality of marriage. And my instinct is, Megan, you're doing the right thing, and to be patient with the process and be patient with yourself. I think you're making the right move. The church respects marriage, and so it insists upon honoring marriage as much as possible. And so, as you know,

in the annulment process, the determination ultimately is, you know, a full sacramental marriage did not take place. And the church, out of respect for marriage, takes the time to make that judgment. But I would say trust the process and have patience with yourself as you're going through it. I get the feelings, and I've dealt with people over the years who are going through a similar process and often are trying to process the same feelings. So I get it. I get the experience of it. I would just urge you to be patient with yourself and with the process. And maybe don't judge the church too harshly. The church is trying to respect the integrity of marriage, and that's what stands behind it. Well, I'll give you a glimmer of hope that I had in my own

faith and my Catholicism. So feeling somewhat disaffected, but also missing like mass and my rituals and just, you know, the way you feel when you take the sacrament. I'm going to confess something to you, Father. I went to an Episcopalian church. I gave it a try. I'm like, you know what? It's kind of Catholic light. Maybe I'll feel something here. And I sat down and within two minutes, first of all, we had a female priest, which, you know, that's a lot. That's a big change from the way we do it in the Catholic church. And I said, okay, it's fine. I can forge through that. And then everything was set up differently. The priest came down into the aisle and was sort of preaching from the aisle. Like what's, what's, what's she doing over there? Okay, fine. The congregation turned. Okay. We're turning now. I don't know what's happening in the Catholic church.

I know what the rituals are. They hadn't updated the mass. You know, we you know we weren't saying and with your spirit you know we're still saying it also with you it's a little things where you're like okay it's off it doesn't feel right and then her whole homily was about the trans issue and how we need to be much more accepting of trans kids which i don't believe is a real real thing. I think that's really not what's happening to these kids. They're being pushed with social agendas that probably in 99% of the cases don't match up. And I think it's actually quite abusive. And when she went on and on, and honestly, Bishop, I got up and I got right out of there after the homily. And I thought, okay, this is not for me. And there's a reason I'm generally drawn more to the faith with which I

was raised, where there are these strict rules that sometimes feel weird and intrusive, but resonate with me, you know, from birth. What are your thoughts on that? Well, my first thought is stay with the Catholic Church. You know, Cardinal George of Chicago, who is kind of a mentor to me, once said the Catholic Church. Cardinal George of Chicago, who is kind of a mentor to me, once said, the Catholic Church has all the gifts that Christ wants his people to have. It doesn't mean other gifts of Christ aren't available in other Christian churches, but the Catholic Church has all the gifts Christ wants his people to have. So I would say, stay with it. Stick with it. And then to your second point, I agree with that.

The Church's moral teachings are all about giving a sort of coherence to our lives. Our culture says in a thousand different ways, you know, do what you want as long as you're not hurting other people. Follow your own, you know, instincts. Follow your freedom. And the Catholic Church has always stood for an integrity to the moral life. There's a form to the moral life. There's a form to the moral life. And so we can construe them as oppressive rules, or we can see them as an ancient tradition grounded in the Bible,

grounded in Jesus, telling us about who we are and what the good life looks like and how to pursue it. I mean, there it's a bit like someone who's teaching you the golf swing. You don't want someone just handing you a golf club saying, swing any way you want. No, you want someone that really knows the game and knows how to put those moves into your body. So that's the church, I think, in its moral teaching, its spiritual teaching. It's not trying to oppress us. It's trying to give a form and purpose to our moral and spiritual lives. So I would say, you know, stick with that program. Yeah, you feel it.

You feel it on a cellular level when you grow up with it, when you go to church every Sunday as a kid, when you go through, whatever, baptism, we don't remember, but confirmation. The body matters. No, I think the way you put it is really right from a Catholic standpoint, the cellular level, because the church, we belong to the mystical body of Jesus. We're connected to each other. And Christ's life is meant to get into us, not just our minds, not just our hearts. It's meant to get into our bodies, which is why things like genuflection and gesture and our physical stance while we pray, et cetera, et cetera, all of that is meant to bring us into conformity with Christ.

So I like the fact that you felt that at a cellular level. That makes sense to me. Well, I know you've been reeling about the people not understanding when they take communion that it actually is the body of Christ, right? That most people, most Catholics even don't really believe that. We had a comedian on the show a couple of years ago who was hilarious, I must tell you. And she's Catholic. And she was talking about how she goes up there and she takes the body of Christ. And she was like, which part of the body? Did I get like a leg? Forgive me, but it was kind of funny. That may be taking it too far.

But can you speak about that? Because that moment, I think a lot of people just kind of go through it and they don't give a lot of thought to it. Yeah, that's precisely the wrong way to think about it, because she's conflating substance and accident, if you want to use technical language. The church says that what God says is, right? So God creates through an act of speech. God doesn't know the world derivatively, but God knows the world into being.

So the Bible expresses that poetically as God says, let there be light and there's light, right? So what God says, what God knows is. Well, if Jesus is God, then what Jesus says is. And the night before he dies, he takes the bread and says, this is my body, takes the cup, this is my blood. And the idea there is that at the root and most central fundamental level, the being of those elements has changed. So it's no longer proper to say bread or wine. We now say the body and blood of Christ.

It's not through our power. It's through the power of God, who by his speech changes reality. I mean, we know that our puny human speech can change reality. I can say something that hurts someone very deeply. I can say something that lifts them up and changes their life. Well, if our little speech can affect reality, God's speech affects it at the deepest possible level. And that's what we say when we say the substance of the bread changes into the body of Christ. The substance of the wine changes. It means at the deepest level of their being, they become what God says they are.

That's, I think, at the root of the Catholic understanding of the real presence. So as we go into this weekend and we take a moment to reflect on our own sins and what happened to Jesus on that cross, what happens? We go through this process where Saturday comes, we reflect more, and by Sunday, the heaviness of all of that, is it supposed to still be with us? Are we supposed to be leaning toward the heaviness of it? Or by Sunday, do we try to let it go and experience the joy of resurrection and what it means for the rest of us? We say, Alleluia, and we experience the joy of resurrection. But it means for the rest of us. We say, hallelujah.

And we, we experienced the joy of resurrection, but there's a basic spiritual principle, which is found in all the great spiritual teachers. The only way up is down. See, there's a kind of phony, cheap grace that wants to just avoid sin.

Let's just rush to the mountain of grace. But all the masters say this, and it's in the Bible, of course, too. The only way truly to go up is first to go down. Think of the great Dante's Divine Comedy. He has to go down through hell, which means he has to confront his own sin. Then he has to climb up Mount Purgatory to deal with that.

And then he's ready for grace. So it's the both and. There's a cheap grace that wants to go around it. There's also a preoccupation with sin. My whole spiritual life is about acknowledging I'm a sinner. Well, that's dysfunctional too. You go down to go up. And so that's what the church does during Holy Week,

is it draws us down so that we experience our sin, we experience the cross, and then it brings us up. And both those moves are indispensable. You know, Easter's become one of those holidays like Christmas where, you know, too many of us, and especially kids, know it for all of its commercialized aspects. The Easter bunny, the candy, the eggs, dying the eggs and so on. Same as Christmas with presents and Santa and the whole bit. Some of this stuff is a little weird.

Do you have any idea? Why don't we get to the point in America where we have a weird bunny coming into our house? Any thoughts? I don't think get to the point in America where we have like a weird bunny coming into our house? Any thoughts? I don't think that came from the Catholic Church. No, it came from an attempt to domesticate Easter. And I get that instinct because Easter is a revolutionary feast. It's an earthquake.

It turns the world upside down. Jesus is done to death by the powers of the world. And the passion narratives, we hear them at Palm Sunday, we hear them again on Good Friday, is they show you all the power of the world in its cruelty, its injustice, its stupidity, its corruption, and all of that brings Jesus to the cross. And you say, well, okay, there's the story of the world, right? So it has always gone, is wicked people, wicked institutions, crush, you know, whatever is good.

But then when God raises Jesus from the dead, what that does is it gives the lie to that story. And it says that God's love is more powerful than anything that's in the world. It's more powerful than corruption. It's more powerful than corruption. It's more powerful than injustice. It's more powerful than violence. And that means the tyrants have to tremble. That's why the first proclaimers of the Christian message were sent to jail,

and most of them were put to death because those who heard them understood the message. The message was the powers of the world have just been undone. There is a new king. So when St. Paul refers to Jesus as Lord, he calls him kurios, right? And we think that's a very spiritual kind of language. But at the time, Caesar was Lord. Caesar was called Kurios. And so when Paul says, no, not Caesar, but Jesus Kurios, Jesus is Lord, that turned the whole world upside down. That meant there's a new boss in town. There's a new emperor in whose army we should get, and it ain't Caesar. Well, they got that message. And that message resonates up and down the centuries to the present day, which is why the powers always want to domesticate Easter to turn into a little spring festival or it's like any of the old myths of the dying and rising crops or whatever, or the Easter bunny. Sure, domesticate it, turn it into something harmless, because at its heart, it's a revolutionary message.

So if you had your way, and I won't share this with the kids out there, would we be doing presents at Christmas with Santa and baskets at Easter with bunnies, or no? No, sure, as long as you also tell the great story in a way that's appropriate to their age. But I have no quarrel with, you know, if you want to use Easter Bunny for the kids. But tell them the real story, too.

Bring them to church, too. You know, the fact that so many young people have disaffiliated from religion, that's not just an institutional problem for Catholic bishops. That's an existential problem for the entire country, you know, because the human heart is ordered to God. And so when young people especially are staying away in droves from these great rituals, from this great message, man, it's doing damage to their hearts and souls. And I see that every day. So I would say, you know, Easter Bunny, fine, and Santa, but tell the true story as well. You know, what's interesting, Megan, is do the Christmas story under the same rubric in Luke's famous version.

It begins with Caesar Augustus, right? When Caesar was emperor, when Quirinius was governor of Syria, and you think, okay, I'm going to tell a story about the powers that be. And then he shifts you to this little nobody couple making their way to a little dusty town. And born in this miserable cave is this baby that's wrapped in swaddling clothes and put in a manger where the animals eat. What you're meant to see is the contrast because that's the real king. That's what Luke is saying. And one of the clues, by the way, in Christmas is at the end when the angel appears, and angels are always frightening, but with the angel, it says a whole army of angels appear. And that's the clue. See, because Caesar dominated the world because he had this big human army. Luke's point is, yeah, but the baby king's got the real army.

He's got an angelic army. So Christmas story, too, is subversive of our expectations. So send Christmas cards, but make sure you also tell the real story, which is a dangerous story. I did read in preparation for today that our friends over in France don't have an Easter bunny. They have Easter bells not always an annual celebration, that when things first started, it was kind of every other year. The one thing about Easter that's a little odd for a lot of people is it's not on a set date.

You know, it's like kind of a month, like between late March and late April. Why is that? I mean, there was a date on which Christ rose again, the third day. Like, why isn't that the date of Easter? Well, we don't know for sure. And it was a fight in the early church, and the East and West went back and forth. And the formula is Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. And that was determined a long, long time ago. That's a lot.

And so we still follow that. And you're're right. It's roughly a month there for variation. It can be, you know, March 20th to like April 29th or something. Um, and so it goes, I, it's just, that was a decision of the, of the early church. One thing I love about that is it puts Easter within a cosmic framework. The very fact that we related to, um, the moon, we were related to the cosmic reality. That's a correct instinct, too. What do you think when you see—I will say our church is very well attended. I love it when you go and you see your shoulder to shoulder. I won't say every day is Christmas and Easter, but it's not quite that well attended, but it's very well attended. But of course, nothing's like Christmas and Easter. And so when you see all the people come, all the Catholics who have not been there Sunday after Sunday,

is it a hopeful thing for you? Is it something you lament? Like, what can we be doing differently to get these people here more regularly? How do you see it? Yeah. No, I'm happy they're there. And this has been true all my priesthood. You know, Christmas and Easter, you get these giant crowds and people standing in the aisles. And I'm always grateful they're there. And I usually acknowledge that and thank people for coming. I've said over the years, you know, we celebrate the Lord's resurrection every Sunday. So please, you know, come back. But that's been a shift, you know, in my years in the priesthood. When I first started out, you know, we had big crowds on Sunday for Mass. That's changed. I mean, there's no question about it. That's declined over the years, and especially among the young. You know, I've been following

this for many years, the disaffiliation problem, and it's now up to about 40 percent of Catholics under 30 have now disaffiliated. As I say, that's a major spiritual problem, and I've been trying to address it in a thousand different ways, because I think it's problem one in the church. It's the thing we should be most concerned about. How do we do something about that? I mean, I've heard you say priests and, you know, others need to get out of the churches and into the communities and sort of meet the young people where they are. But how do you do that? How do you recruit disaffected Catholics back into the church? Well, my wager has been social media. So I started

a long time ago now, even before we had U2, even before that, I said, look, we need to move into that space. They're not coming to our churches. I was at the Synod on Young People. This was about five years ago in the Vatican, and it was addressing this problem. How do we reach the young people? And person after person would get up at the Vatican. The Pope was there typically, and would say some version of, well, we need a program in this or a program in that, and we need to do this and that at the parish. And finally, I just got fed up, and I stood up and said, but folks, they're not coming to our parishes anymore. They're not coming to us. We have to go to them. And I think the best way to do it is to use the social media. And that's

been the wager behind my whole ministry in that regard. And then I think you lead with the beautiful and the true. Catholicism is a smart religion. We dumbed it down. That's the story of my generation. I mean, we dumbed it down. And the result is a lot of people in my generation left because they grew up and they realized that a childish

religiosity was not going to sustain them. The other thing we did is we kind of de-beautified the religion. Catholicism has used music and art and architecture, employing some of the finest artists of the age to propagate its truth. Well, we should still do that. Present the faith in a way that's true and beautiful. I think people will respond. The third thing I would say is young people respond to the church's outreach to the poor. And we have a spectacular record on that, up and down the

centuries, but to the present day, the work the church does all over the world on behalf of the poor is extraordinary. Tell our young people about it, but more importantly, get them involved in it. And you'll see, even when they talk to young people who have left, they'll say, I remember when, you know, in confirmation class, we had an outreach to the homeless, or we worked at a soup kitchen, or we reached out to the poor. So those three things, the good, the beautiful, and the true, I think if we do those three things, people still find the church compelling. Yeah, it is one of those things where no matter where you go, foreign countries, what have you, if you go into a Catholic church, you have some basic expectations of what you're going to see. And the beauty and the grandeur of the churches is one of

them. And when it's not there, it's kind of jarring. It's unexpected. And you almost wonder whether you're in a Catholic church. But to me, it makes it a lot easier to feel connected to God, to pray, to feel just out of your everyday routine and at an elevated level, which you should feel, I think, when you're in church. I see. No, I like the word you use. The young people is a problem. Go ahead.

Yeah, I was going to say the young people are a problem because I think they're depressed. You know, there's been a lot of news about how they're not driving as early as they can. Right. Forgive me, Father, but they're not fooling around, uh, the way they used to. And they're, they're not even like drinking the wine as soon as they can. They're just kind of sitting there. Uh, there, a lot of them are on their devices. They're not interacting with live humans as much, and they feel depressed. They feel anxious. And I definitely believe that if those imaginary people, right, we don't have names and faces in this particular discussion, had a religious base, had a faith-based life, they would feel better.

These things wouldn't be as hard on them. And they would embrace more of, you know, sucking the nectar out of life at a young age, like we always have. What do you think? Yeah, I completely agree with that. The woman that did the great research on that is Jean Twenge, who teaches in San Diego. And she wrote a book called iGen a couple of years ago. And she's one of the first ones that I came across who was tracing this phenomenon. And I was very intrigued by that, too, because when I was 16, I mean, every one of my classmates,

I did the same. On our 16th birthday, we went to get our driver's license. I remember my mother driving me down to the place on my 16th birthday, because we couldn't imagine not getting our driver's license. And she said, you know, today, that's just not the case. The kids often wait a long time before getting their driver's license. And then the spiking numbers of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, that's been well documented. Gene Twenge again is the one that said there's a tight correlation between screen time and depression, which I find completely credible. You know, we're all addicted to the screens now. I mean, I am. We all are. The machines

have addicted us. But we should do all we can to get the kids off to the screens now. I mean, I am. We all are. The machines have addicted us. But we should do all we can to get the kids off of the screens and outside playing and relating to each other. But then to your final point, yes, the loss of religion, the loss of a transcendent point of reference is deadly for people because we're made for God. Right? Augustine said that, our hearts are restless till they rest in thee, O Lord. When you lose that, you fall back in on yourself, and you fall back to the world, and the world cannot satisfy the deepest hunger of the heart.

And then another step here, you know, 20 years ago, the new atheists were all the vogue, and they were darn good evangelists, may I say. In other words, they were very persuasive, and a whole generation of young people bought into Hitchens and Dawkins and Sam Harris and the New Atheists. But see, what's the upshot of that? So, okay, there's no God. We didn't come from anywhere. We came from nothing. We go back to nothing, and our lives have no objective meaning. Oh, great. You know, in your face, religion.

But when you take that message in, what do you have left? You've got nothing. And the result is, are we surprised? Depression, anxiety, suicidal tendencies. So, yes, there's a tremendous need for religion. And my last point here, you can sense it. You can sense it in the Internet culture, people reaching out for the spiritual. I'm very, very against these people who seem to worship skin color or gender or sexual preferences. It feels like a false god to me, and it definitely feels like a new religion. And I firmly believe it's totally inconsistent with an actual faith-based life,

that if you were an actual observant Christian or Jew or Muslim, you'd be far less prone to these lures. What do you think? Yeah, I've been an outspoken opponent of wokeism now for a long time, and I quite agree with you. It is a kind of false religion. Chesterton said when you stop believing in God, you don't believe in nothing, you'll believe in anything. And so something will fill in that emptiness. It has to. There'll be some ultimate value. So for some today, it might be the earth. It's environmentalism. That becomes the supreme good. Or this kind of phony sense of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

My biggest problem with wokeism is it's predicated upon a deeply antagonistic social theory. I mean, it's setting us against each other in every possible way. Catholic social theory is a cooperative social theory. It is trying to bring people together in a harmonious, cooperative way. But wokeism, in myriad ways, emphasizes our antagonism, one against the other. The easy bifurcation of the world into oppressor and oppressed, which leaves all of us in a terrible situation.

Well, young people taking that worldview in, that antagonistic social theory, I mean, that's leading no place good. I mean, we're hoping that it's starting to wane a bit as people see how empty it is and divisive it is. And, you know, like I'm hoping that we're on the waning piece of that, but there's not a day that goes by that I don't think we either need more religion or someone has misunderstood religion. You know, right now, as we are talking to one another, there's a debate all over the internet about whether you should say the words, Christ is king. And whether saying that is somehow an attack. And there's been a lot of back and forth

about how if it's said to a Jewish person as like, you know, New York Giants suck, you know, if it's, there's an implication that this is the old, right? Like what, if you believe differently than you're bad, then it's provocative and it's using the Lord's name in vain. Whereas if you just state it as this is my belief, this is my religion, this is what's in my heart, it's something totally different. But there's, I mean, every day there's a debate

like this going on in our news and our social media and so on. Have you seen that latest? Yeah, I have a little bit. I just become aware of it. And a couple of things I'd say. One is the Feast of Christ the King within the Catholic Church was instituted in the early 20th century, precisely by the popes who were recognizing the rise of fascism, which often had a very deeply anti-Semitic quality. And they saw the danger of fascism was

a deification of the state. So that's trouble with all forms of totalitarianism. The state becomes absolutized. In saying, no, Christ is king, they're putting a moral and spiritual authority over the state. You know, the fact that we're one nation under God, that's not just pious boilerplate. That's a very important intuition, that all of our political leaders, all of our institutions, all of our laws are finally under God, under God's judgment. Well, that's what Christ the King means. Here's the second thing I mentioned already, when the first proclaimers of the resurrection said, Jesus is Lord. But look at the deep

irony of that. To construe that as, okay, Caesar, you're out, and there's a new Caesar who's defeated you on your own terms, that's missing the whole point. The fact that Pilate, who put over the cross of Jesus, Jesus Nazareneus Rex Judeorum, right? Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. Well, we're meant to see the tremendous irony in that, is the one who has no worldly authority, the one who has no worldly power, no worldly honor, just the opposite, is the one who in fact is the king. So it's not playing the old game of, you know, us against them, or I'm going to fight your king on his own terms and take his place. It's a revolution. It's a renewal of understanding. If you miss the irony of the declaration that Christ is king, you're missing the whole story.

You know what I'm saying? So that's why your point about, you know, hey, you guys, you're no good and I'm on the winning team. That's missing all the irony of religion on MSNBC in a way that talk about completely missing it. She was outraged. I guess she's never read any of our founding documents or attended a mass, but she was outraged that there are some of us who believe that our inalienable rights come from God and not from men. And she made, I think it's fair to say, international headlines and was almost universally condemned for the following nonsense that she spewed. I'll play it in part in Soundbite 3. I did write. Remember when Trump ran in 2016, a lot of the mainline evangelicals wanted nothing to do with the divorced, you know, real estate mogul who cheated on his wife and with a porn star and all of that. Right. So what happened was he was surrounded by this more extremist element. You're going to hear words like Christian nationalism, like the new apostolic reformation. These are groups that you should get very schooled on

because they have a lot of power in Trump's circle. And the one thing that unites all of them, because there's many different groups orbiting Trump, but the thing that unites them as Christian nationalists, not Christians, by the way, because Christian nationalist is very different, is that they believe that our rights as Americans, as all human beings, don't come from any earthly authority. They don't come from Congress. They don't come from the Supreme Court. They come from God. The problem with that is that they are determining man, men, men are determining what God is telling them. So only this weird group of Christian nationalists believes that. Got it, Bishop?

It's just these weirdos who think rights come from God. Not Christians. They don't believe. Anyway, your thoughts on Heidi Prisbala and her thoughts on Christianity. Yeah, I spoke out against her when I first came across that. And on her reading, I guess Thomas Jefferson would be a Christian nationalist. But see, again, that's not just pious boilerplate when Jefferson says that these inalienable rights of ours come from the creator. If they come from Congress and the Supreme Court, then they can be taken away. And you see that, of course, in the totalitarianisms of the 20th

century. That's exactly what happened. If rights are doled out by the state, the state can take them back. Jefferson's claim there is so important because he places the whole governmental enterprise under the judgment of God, under the authority of God. When we forget that, we are in very serious political danger. See, totalitarianism is, I think Reagan had that right. It'll come more likely through that kind of liberalism. It'll sneak the totalitarian perspective into the back door. That's a very dangerous perspective, not just wrongheaded. It's dangerous. It used to be so different. You know, I mean, we've had so many references to God in the public square from, you know, go, go, look, go to the Supreme court, look at our founding documents. Uh, it

used to be a non issue. It would have been strange if we didn't have it. You look at how America was when it was founded. It was a very religious country, very Christian country. And now, I mean, I feel like if those founding fathers could get a glimpse at 2024 America, they truly would not recognize it. And one of the ways in which they wouldn't recognize it is the absence of religion, religion, how it's been shoved out of the public square and even more and more out of the private square, out of people's homes. And in its place, not only do we get wokeism and depression and anxiety, we get, forgive me for sounding 200, but debauchery. You know, we get more and more public nudity and sexual acts on parade in front of kids in the

public square and things that, you know, you would never want your child to see, nor your own innocent eyes. But it's, you're scrolling Twitter and there it is. You're just channel surfing and there it is. And then you walk to the public library and there it is. I think these things are definitely linked and I do think are a source of real consternation for many of us. Absolutely. Again, if God's kicked out, something will move into that central place. In our context, you might say it's our own freedom. It's the autonomy of the ego becomes godlike. And that's something I've noticed even the course of my lifetime, how that language has become so intensified. Roe v. Wade, the abortion debate, had a lot to do with it, but broaden that out across the board, that I have

the right, the privilege, the capacity to determine what did Casey versus Planned Parenthood say? The meaning of my own life? Indeed, the meaning of the universe. The most breathtaking claim ever made by the U.S. Supreme Court was Casey versus Planned Parenthood. But see, that view has now trickled down to every teenager in America, practically. My ego has a godlike power to determine my gender, to determine value, to determine the purpose and meaning of my life, rather than discovering the great goods by which my life ought to be directed. And that was traditionally the role of religion. Education, too, you know, but I'd say primarily religion was to teach the hierarchy of values

in relation to which our lives become meaningful. Again, to use my maybe corny golf example, but that you find a teacher, you find a mentor who knows golf and knows the moves of the golf swing and can place it within your own ambit, in your mind, in your body. If you just say, well, I'll swing any way I want, who are you to tell me what to do? Well, great, but you'll be the worst golfer in the world. But the same, see, is true of the moral life and the spiritual life. I'll decide the meaning of my life. Well, all right, you can do that, I suppose, but you'll have a miserable life. The Bible, by the way, knew all about this. It's called the original sin. So symbolically,

eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is saying, I appropriate to myself the knowledge of good and evil. I will determine good and evil, where that's only what God can do, which is why that tree is forbidden. It's not God being difficult or being tyrannical. It's acknowledging the metaphysical truth that God is the ground of meaning and purpose. And then he says, look, once you know that, eat of all the trees you want. And that means live your life to the full, have a richly human life at all levels, but don't irrigate to yourself the determination of good and evil. I think that's what we see a lot in our culture today.

And it's partially the result of a breakdown in religion. It's all around us. I mean, you can't turn on the television today without getting something very graphically R rated to put it mildly. And it was very different, you know, even when I was born in 1970, both in terms of our movies and our television shows, our plays and our songs, our music, you know, my pal Ben Shapiro over at Daily Wire did this great thing after, I'm not even going to go there, but this very X-rated song came out by, it was Megan Thee Stallion,

I think, and it was Cardi B. And he was mocking it because it was so graphic and it was so gross. And you think back to the way it was in the 60s, let's say, when even the free love generation, it wasn't that, like the music was conducive toward worship and faith and love and God. It wasn't quite this way. And that brings me to your love of music and in particular, Bob Dylan. So can you explain why you love Bob Dylan so much and what got you connected to him in that way. Yeah. It first happened in, I was 14 and my brother had this album called The Concert for Bangladesh. I don't know if you remember that. George Harrison and Ringo Starr and Eric Clapton and Billy Preston, all these people got together to benefit Bangladesh, which has gone through a

terrible flood, right? It was one of the first kind of benefit concerts, which has now become very common. And there was a recording of that concert. And on it, I heard for the first time Bob Dylan, who was like the secret sort of star of the show. And Dylan came out with his acoustic guitar and harmonica and played like five of his really classic songs. And I was 14, as I say, probably just discovering in school what poetry is and how poetry works, you know, the power of language used in that way. And I'm hearing this peculiar voice. I never heard someone sing like that,

but it was the way he was using language. I remember the song Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, which is one of his great classic songs. And it moved me very deeply. And it started me on this path that I've never left. I've been an ardent follower of Bob Dylan ever since. But one thing about Bob Dylan, to your point, if you're looking for the one great sort of golden thread that runs through all the Bob Dylan's work from 1962 until today, it would be the Bible. Now, he has an explicitly Christian period in the late 70s, early 80s, but all throughout his career, all these decades, I would say the Bible is the main inspiration for Bob Dylan, and his vision of life is deeply biblical.

So he's had a big impact on my own thinking, and I'd say my own development as a spiritual person. Yeah, a very big impact. I understand you actually took to playing guitar and singing some songs, including Bob Dylan's Every Grain of Sand. And we happen to have a little clip of that, Bishop. Let's take a look. Oh, come on. Of course. Gone from rags to riches In the sorrow of the night

In the violence of a summer's dream In the chill of a wintry light in the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space in the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face well done that was for bob Bob Dylan's 80th birthday. That was four years ago when he turned 80. I was going to do a little spoken tribute, and I thought, you know, for his 80th birthday, I should do something a little special. So that's maybe my top two or three favorite songs of Bob Dylan. Was he your inspo for learning guitar?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I started the guitar when i was in college buddy of mine played and taught me a few basic chords but absolutely the first book i ever got music book was you know the big fat bob dylan songbook and that's how i i learned how to play yeah but all every story about him is great you know it's i don't know how many years ago 10 or so he was there was this guy who was walking down the streets. I think it was in Ohio. I always forget the story.

I got to Google it. And the cops pulled him over saying, you know, you look like a vagrant, right? Like, why don't you get in the car? You're not allowed to wander here. He was wandering, looking for Bruce Springsteen's house. Bob Dylan likes to go. Yeah, it was Bob Dylan. They had no idea. Right.

He likes to go to the homes of famous musicians that he admires. And he was somewhere in Jersey, you know. And he was during the day and he didn't have his wallet on him or anything. And he looks kind of scraggly and he's just wandering around this neighborhood. And the cops pulled over

and he said, I'm Bob Dylan. And it meant nothing to... It was a young lady, a police officer. And then he said, well, just drive me back to this hotel and you'll see the Bob Dylan. And it meant nothing to it was a young lady, a police officer. And then he said, well, just drive me back to this hotel and you'll see the tour bus. And then she saw it and realized who he was. Such a great story. That's perfection. I love it. I'm Megyn Kelly, host of The Megyn Kelly Show on Sirius XM. It's your home for open, honest and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal, and cultural figures today.

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Go to SiriusXM.com slash MKShow to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com slash MK show and get three months free. Offer details apply. You have had plenty of real life interactions with well-known people. And I mentioned it when we introduced you because this whole Shia LaBeouf encounter would wind up being very profound for him. And he was raised, as I understand it, his dad was Catholic and his mom was Jewish, or his dad was at least Christian. And you wound up confirming him in the Catholic faith. So how did that happen?

Well, it's an interesting story. You know, he was researching his role in this movie about Padre Pio, who was a Capuchin friar. And Shia, at that point in his life, was a little bit lost, I think. And the producer said, well, there's a Capuchin friary outside of L.A. And it was in my pastoral region. So I was an auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles. And my region was Santa Barbara County and Ventura County.

So out in Santa Barbara County is this Capuchin friary. And so I had heard that Shia LaBeouf had gone out there and was talking to the friars. Well, then maybe a week or so later, I was at another friary out that way to give a talk to the deacons of my region. And I show up and here I see this guy, it was during COVID. He had the big black beard and the COVID mask. So at first I didn't know who it was. And then I realized, oh, that's Shia LaBeouf. And he said, do you mind if I listen to your talk? It was a talk on prayer. I said, no, no, sure, come on in. So he listened to my talk. And then I went to the chapel,

I remember, to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. And he came in and sat right next to me and was, I think, trying to figure out, okay, what are these people doing as they pray? Well, then a little bit later, the movie itself was made, and he showed us an early version of it, a group of us. But afterwards, he was asked, hey, tell me about the impact it had on you personally. And he told this beautiful story in a very compelling way about how researching Padre Pio and playing him brought him to a deep spiritual place. So I went up after and said,

you know, look, would you be willing to get this sort of on tape if you and I sit down and just talk it through? And he said, yeah, I'd love that. So it was the very last thing I did before I left California to come to Minnesota. I sat down with him, and for an hour and a half, I guess, we just talked about his spiritual life and his journey. And that little video was watched by, I don't know, like 3 million people or something. And then I gave him a lot of credit. You know, he started the process. He was articulate about it, but he hung in there as well. And he had been baptized as a young kid, but now he wanted to be confirmed in the Catholic Church.

And so he kept working with these Capuchin friars whom he knew. And then I agreed to come out and do the confirmation service, which I did at the very end of December 2023. So it's been a privilege to, uh, to walk with him. Maybe, maybe I need to play a Catholic Bishop in some sort of a movie. That could be of help to me. Wait, we have a little clip of you and Shia talking about this whole experience and he came on your YouTube channel. Here it is. It's not too. Yeah. You do this talk about prayer and how it's really a simple, uh, four-step process prayer you know and and i needed

somebody to simplify it for me because it felt like one i needed i needed to be defined i didn't want it to be this esoteric i needed something very defined and very practical i needed something very like boots on the ground and you said quiet leads to loving thoughts. Loving thoughts leads to loving action. Loving action leads to peace. And that hit me heavy. His mother, Teresa, was quoting there. Whoever it was, it's changed my life. Quiet leads to loving thoughts.

I mean, does it depend on the person? I think quiet can drive some people crazy in today's day and age. And they're used to the constant stimulation of, you know, all the devices. Yeah, well, he's remembering my citation of Mother Teresa, because she begins with silence memorably. She ends up with peace and coming through, you know, the works of love and all that, but she begins with silence, that that has to be your first step. And I do think, especially today, that's very much needed. People are so distracted. And so just to come to a silent place where God can start to speak, you know, is indispensable.

Well, I'll try that. I talk so much, but I'm willing to try it. Why not? So now you're in Minnesota. And how are you enjoying that after having been in Santa Barbara for so long? Did you, I mean, with all due respect to Minnesota, did you do something wrong? How did you, because that's a big shift weather-wise. No, but this is the way the church works. I'm from Chicago originally. So coming here was, you know, like coming home, I was back to the Midwest. So I grew up with terrible winters and all that, so that was not a problem. I was in Santa Barbara for six years. I was auxiliary bishop, and the church often works that way. in a big archdiocese that would have auxiliaries, right? And then they move you to, let's say, a small to medium-sized diocese, and then, you know, maybe, you never know, another one. So no, that trajectory is not unusual at all.

And it's really what's open at the time. So where do they need a bishop? And they start looking around, oh, now who might be able to do it? Oh, this guy could do it. So there's simply nothing unusual about that trajectory. I love it. I'm what we call the ordinary, meaning I'm the bishop of this diocese. So I can really provide spiritual leadership.

When you're an auxiliary, by definition, you're giving auxilium, you're giving help to the archbishop. But you're not yourself kind of providing the main leadership. So I like that. I like the fact that I can really be the shepherd of this diocese. And it's a lovely diocese. I live just five minutes away from the Mayo Clinic, so near Rochester, which is a very interesting city. A lot of my dioceses is rural, you know, beautiful farmers and people that live in a rural context. So, you know, I enjoy it. I make my way around the diocese. I go from Wisconsin to South Dakota.

So I cover a lot of territory. What's your favorite part of the job? Preaching. And, you know, Vatican II said the first office of the bishop is to preach. And I take that very seriously. So, you know, when you're a bishop, you're priest, prophet, and king. So as priest, you sanctify. That's the whole liturgical work.

And there's a lot of that. Yesterday, for example, was the chrism mass. So it's the mass where we bless the oils for the year. During the Holy Week, of course, you're very active liturgically, but all during the year. I do a lot of priestly things. Then you're a king, which just means you're the one who kind of governs and you direct the activity of the diocese. But then the third thing is you're a prophet, which means you're a teacher and a preacher. And Vatican II, as I say, said that's office number one, is preaching.

And I think today, for all the reasons we've been talking about, it's the most needful thing, is to articulate what the Christian faith is about. So wherever I land, you know, any place I go in this diocese, I will preach in some way. I'll teach in some way. And that's my favorite part of the job. Has anything wacky ever happened to you while you're up there delivering the homily? Has anybody ever shouted out? I just always wonder because it's in part a performance and people love to mess with people who are performing. Not a lot, but sometimes. Sure, I've been preaching for, what, 38 years, you know, and just a little misadventures i remember years ago i wore um i wore contacts and this is back in the day they were they were called gas permeable hard lenses which is a fancy way of saying they were really uncomfortable and i was preaching with the contact

lenses on in front of like 700 people and something got in my eye and I just started like to weep, like just water coming out. And the people said they were so moved that I was so affected by my, I said, no, no, the contact lens. I had to run off the altar and change it, you know, but it very rarely, but occasionally, yeah, people will, will get up and leave or they'll shout out somebody, but that's kind of rare. Um, most people are really receptive. Like me over at the Episcopal church. Boo! Boo! No, I didn't. Yeah. Once in a while, occasionally. I try to do it subtly. Not much. Not much. People are pretty good and they're pretty receptive. Is it true that we're shooting for seven minute homilies now? I read, I, it might've been my

friend, Carl, Colonel Dolan in New York, But I read something about one of our favorite cardinals saying we should be shooting for around seven to eight minutes on the homily because we start to lose them after that. The pope has said the homily should be short. My own feeling, honestly, is like 12 or 13 minutes is about right. So I preach for the Internet, you know, every week. And we set the clock, I think, for like 14 minutes. But you're a natural orator. I mean, not everybody, forgive me, is as talented as you are in communicating. I appreciate that. But I think, too, that we've got to give ourselves a chance to say something. My fear is that, okay, here's the one chance we have to really reach people with

the gospel, and I'm going to give them like three minutes and a joke. So that bugs me. I mean, we have to be able to do something substantive enough to feed them. I agree with you. In fact, just last week, a guy took me aside and said, Bishop, you've got to train these guys how to preach. You know, you know how to do it, but you've got to train them. And I said to him, which I felt for a long time, it's one of the hardest things in the world to teach, I think, preaching, because it involves so many different types of gifts, you know, biblical interpretation of knowing the culture, understanding psychology, and then all of the rhetorical gifts. So it's a very tricky, difficult thing to preach, I think. Well, you're a natural and you found the right calling.

How did you decide to enter the priesthood? Were you always very religious being raised as a kid? No, not particularly. My parents were good, devout Catholics, took us to Mass every Sunday, not ostentatious Catholics. My father never liked, he would use that phrase, wear your religion on your sleeve. He never liked people that did that. When I was a little kid, I wanted to be a baseball player. So most of my young years, I read a lot, but it was all sports books. It was football, basketball, and baseball books, especially. I wanted to be shortstop for the Cubs when I was like 10, 11, 12. The turning point for me, I told the story a number of times, but when I was 14, the same year I discovered Bob Dylan,

a young Dominican friar at my high school taught us one of Thomas Aquinas' famous arguments for God's existence. And it just had a massive impact on me. I don't know why to this day. I wasn't particularly religious. I didn't disbelieve in God. I was going to mass with my parents on Sunday, but I wasn't interested in religion that much. But for some reason, I think it was a grace, actually, but it just got very deep into me and started me on a path that I've never really left. I'm on it right now talking to you. So that's what started the process. But then, you know, even like in my high school years, that was more of an intellectual interest. It wasn't necessarily like what I want to do with my life. That happened in college. I was at Notre Dame for a year. And while I was there as a

freshman, the idea of becoming a priest began to sink into me like, okay, maybe I should really make this my life, you know? And then it went on from there. But no, it wasn't like written into my into my life story from from day one. But the Aquinas thing had a lot to do with it. OK, so here we are. This is we end where we began going into this weekend. Other Christians out there, Catholics and people of faith in general who might be feeling anything akin to what I have been feeling, maybe somewhat questioning, somewhat disaffected. To me, this is an opportunity now. You've inspired me to see this as an opportunity.

It feels like the last thing one should do when feeling these feelings is to disconnect, right? So I think this is an opportunity, but what's your advice? My advice to Catholics who have wandered away from the faith is come back this Easter. Give it a chance. Feel the prompting of grace in your heart and come back. I would suggest that deep down, you still have this connection. Deep down, you still want what you perhaps had as a kid in church. Go back. Take advantage of this moment in the year and give the church and give the spiritual life, give the grace of God a chance to work on you.

So maybe you take these words of mine as God maybe using a secondary cause to get his grace into your heart. Bishop Barron, thank you so much. Thank you so much for being here. We appreciate it. Please come back. My pleasure. I'd love to. God bless you.

All the best. Thanks to all of you for joining me today and all week. I hope you have a great Easter with your family or just weekend. If you don't celebrate Easter, we appreciate all of you each and every day and are praying for all of you. Talk to you Monday. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.