Woke, Beige, and Plato: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised on Word on Fire

“[An] identification of the oppressor with the oppressed, the openness to interpreting the world from the underside, from the perspective of the victim. This, I would submit, is the Biblical difference…”

— Bishop Robert Barron, Seeds of the Word: Finding God in the Culture

“I’m not ‘dismissing’ CRT arbitrarily. I’ve made a series of arguments against it. Engage those.”

— Bishop Robert Barron on Facebook, June 22, 2021

In a series of three consecutive articles published at Word on Fire — dated February 18 and March 2 and 16, 2021 — Bishop Robert Barron addressed “woke” activism and “beige” Catholics and the Platonic problems he thinks they pose for the Catholic Church in the USA.

A fierce and unrelenting critique has emerged from this trio of short articles, which Barron has extended, repeated, and cited in other public venues. Perhaps the most pointed remark was in an interview with Babylon Bee titled “The Catholic Rock Star” where Barron said, “wokeism is vile.”

We, the authors, Sam Rocha and Gunnar Gundersen, have written separately about Barron’s recent social criticism. Rocha’s writing can be found in two essays on this Medium account. Gundersen’s article in the Black Catholic…