If you went to Mass last weekend, you may have picked up Bishop Barron's epistle, via the Word On Fire imprint which we've met last month. Our Lady's at Silverthorne was handing these out gratis. I took one and read it.
The needle which Barron needs to thread is this: to explain the gravity of the situation, to put it in context (somehow), and to urge the lay faithful to stay. The book's chosen tack is "stay and fight". The pamphlet has responses [SHIFTED 3/4/24 formerly: churchmilitant.com/news/article/a-response-to-bishop-robert-barrons-letter-to-a-suffering-church]; I'll respond too, here.
In order to fight, we need to know what, exactly, we are fighting for and what we are fighting against. The Catholics' claim is that our priesthood owns the Real Presence of our Lord - the ability to transform wafers and wine into His body and blood. (Not chemically; but in its Platonic essence.) The Orthodox claim the same, which Barron knows; so his book remains incomplete. I would have started with Coptic Miaphysitism, and taken it through the Monothelete pope Honorius, to explain why we need the Catholic rite delivered through the Catholic structure.
On the other side, Barron tiptoes around the ex-apocrisary Viganò. McCarrick is mentioned but not that Pope Francis reinstated him, and kept him around five years.
Also, the book has no index. Makes it hard for the reader just to look up what needs looking up.
I regret that this pamphlet is like other Word On Fire tracts: comfort-food for the lightly discomfited. But it is without substance; it will convince few.
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