History Creator / BishopBarron

* ChildrenAreAWaste: The [[AnAesop aesop]] made by the TIME Magazine article "The Childfree Life" (which provides the trope's page image) is observed by Barron to focus exclusively on the private preferences of couples, as if choosing to have a child or not was like choosing to eat an apple or an orange. What the Bishop laments is not that couples aren't having kids, it's that they aren't doing so because they value their freedom over the value of their community, their family, and the truth.

** The popularity of Franchise/SpiderMan is attributed to his role as a Savior-Hybrid, a low man like us while still having a superhuman nature allowing him to thwart evil humanity cannot. Barron singles out the acting of Creator/AndrewGarfield in playing both man and savior without compromise as a reason for why Spider-Man continues to endure among the savior-superheroes.

Robert Barron is the Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and an aspiring [[Website/YouTube YouTuber]].

## Yet Morgan only knew that God's punishments could be gifts because he was educated in the Birmingham Oratory, founded by John Henry Newman.

* PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad:

* ChildrenAreAWaste: The [[AnAesop aesop]] made by the TIME Magazine article "The Childfree Life" (which provides the trope's page image) is observed by Barron to focus exclusively on the private preferences of couples, as if choosing to have a child or not was like choosing to eat an apple or an orange. What the Bishop laments is not that couples aren't having kids, is that they aren't doing so because they value their freedom over the value of their community, their family, and the truth.

* ''Film/BenHur (2016)''

* Creator/WilliamShakespeare (Literature/JuliusCaesar and others)

* GenreRoulette: The Bishop notes that Literature/TheBible, when taken as a whole, is an example of this trope. After all, there's histories like the Literature/BooksOfSamuel, poems like the Literature/BookOfJob, and legal codes like [[Literature/BookOfExodus Leviticus]]. The failure to recognize this is one of Barron's sharpest criticisms of his favorite atheist author, Creator/ChristopherHitchens, and also Creator/BillMaher.

As the leader of Word on Fire ministries, Bishop Barron has sought to answer [[UsefulNotes/ThePope John Paul II's]] call for a new evangelization by using online mediums like WebVideo and {{Podcast}}s to reach people who he could never reach from the pulpit. To attract these audiences, Bishop Barron comments on notable events in political, intellectual, and, most importantly for the purpose of this page, popular culture. In his videos, podcasts, and articles dealing with media, Bishop Barron often delves into what are essentially [[ConversedTrope conversations on tropes]] in the context their relationship to UsefulNotes/{{Christianity}} and Literature/TheFourGospels.

* ChildrenAreAWaste: The [[AnAesop Aesop]] made by the TIME Magazine article "The Childfree Life" (which provides the trope's page image) is observed by Barron to rely on personal, subjective preferences rather than any type of higher value.

* DamnedByFaintPraise: The Bishop opens his commentary on ''Film/LastDaysInTheDesert'' by praising it for its massive accomplishment: managing to make the most captivating human in all of history, [[UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} Jesus Christ]], "colossally dull."
* DamselInDistress: Barron cites the unfairness and omnipresence of helpless females in older action stories as the reason why more male-negative tropes like BumblingDad and WomenAreWiser appeared on the scene. The Bishop argues both types of tropes are unfair and imply that men and women are trapped in a Nieztchean power struggle where one must dominate the other.
* DeathByOriginStory: The commentary on ''The Dark Knight'' makes it clear that the violence in superhero origin stories taint their desires for justice with a desire of revenge, forcing them to indulge in the same violence that they attempt to stop.

* DracoInLeatherPants: Referenced InUniverse; an Episcopal Bishop interpreted an exorcism in Literature/ActsOfTheApostles as an act of intolerance against a demon who was charitably giving a slave girl unique spiritual gifts. Bishop Barron uses this absurd anecdote to distinguish an all-inclusive, never-challenging love with the Christian love that requires intolerance. That is, intolerance for {{Satan}}.

** Barron describes Aquinas's idea that since every person has an innate, natural desire for "a supernatural condition that grounds perfect fulfillment and happiness." The existence of this desire in every person from birth proves the condition exists just as hunger proves the existence of food. Only after outlining this logic does Barron drop the WhamLine that this condition is what "people generally refer to as 'God.'"

** In his video on the Doctor Strange movie, he mentions that the film can help introduce skeptics to what Father Robert Spitzer calls the “trans-physical consciousness." He off-handedly mentions some people call this "the soul."

* {{Hell}}: Belief in Hell is affirmed by the Bishop even in light of criticisms of comedians like Creator/GeorgeCarlin. While Carlin assumes damnation is an action by God, Barron argues that if [[GodIsGood God is Love]] and allows for Human Freedom, humans must be free to reject and totally separate themselves from God's Love for eternity, which results in a state like torment and fire that is called Hell.

* TheHerosJourney: In his commentary on ''Last Days in the Desert'', he describes Campell's vision as "Man's Quest for {{God}}" and makes it clear that [[Literature/TheFourGospels the story of Jesus]] is something entirely different: "God's Quest for Man."

-->''"Would you ever be tempted to say 'Oh, here's clearly the person upon which most of Western Civilization is predicated. Here's someone who had this explosive earthquake effect on the whole human race.' You would never guess it from a movie like this!"''

** In one of his most exasperated video, the Bishop spends his commentary on "The Doritos Commercial" describing how absurd a philosophy must be to require taking offense at a commercial about how babies want to eat doritos.

-->''"It's very clever way of influence us. Indirectly, clandestinely, by insinutation. In such a way that, heck, it looks like our activities, yet it's the dark powers having invaded."''

* SentientCosmicForce: Barron speaks favorably of including supernatural elements in movies, but cautions that the easily manipulated cosmic forces ''Star Wars'' and ''Doctor Strange'' are not the God of Christianity. He identifies them with the heresy of UsefulNotes/{{Pantheism}}, but still, he finds it easier to talk to someone who is open existence of something supernatural than to a staunch materialist.
* SinisterMinister: Barron illustrates how priests go bad in his commentary on "David and the Priesthood." He compares David's one lazy day to any time a priest fails to work for God's glory. In David's story, he commits adultery with Bethseba and kills Uriel, and priests can fall into similar excesses of lust, greed, and gluttony.

* ThereAreNoCoincidences: ... for people of faith. The point of the video "On Stephen Colbert and Providence" is that the world is not random, but that every single random event is just a part of God's plan not fully understood. The whole thing is summarized in a world-rocking quote by UsefulNotes/ThePope John Paul II and one of Bishop Barron's many references to Music/BobDylan. And yes, he got all this from reading an interview with Creator/StephenColbert.

* TotalitarianUtilitarian: In his commentary on ''Film/ManOfSteel'', Bishop Barron identifies the film's antagonist with Karl Popper's view that all state control is evil, whether the state in control is Literature/TheRepublic laid out by Creator/{{Plato}} or UsefulNotes/NaziGermany. Barron is troubled by the state represented by General Zod, but he also finds the absolute-freedom represented by Superman to be just as problematic from a Biblical perspective.
* {{Ubermensch}}: In his commentary on ''Film/ManOfSteel'', Bishop Barron connects Zack Snyder's Superman with the original superman, that of Friederich Nietzche. Barron points out that Superman's view of freedom as the greatest good is idolatrous, making freedom {{God}} at the expense of the real God who knows us better than ourselves. The Bishop has no problem with the autonomous Superman refusing to bend the knee to the totalitarian General Zod, but it is his refusal to bend the knee to God that is problematic.

* WomenAreWiser: Barron identifies this trope as the "All-Conquering Female," where a female character is underestimated by all the men around her, but inevitably proves herself to be greater than all of them. He recognizes it's a correction to the DamselInDistress, but he finds reversing the situation to make men universally inferior as a submission to Friederich Nieztche's idea of an inevitable power struggle rather than any notion of equality.

* ''Film/TheGreatGatsby''

## John Henry Newman was an Anglican priest who was rejected by English society when he converted to Catholicism and kept at arms-lengths by wary cradle Catholics. Alone in the world, Newman discovered an abandoned oratory and began to educate their, using his experience of rejection to teach people to find joy in pain. In summary, without Newman's lesson, Tolkien would never be able to take his spirituality to create the world of ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' which would never be able to comfort a young Creator/StephenColbert, whose comedy could never comfort and save people maybe not even born yet.

## John Henry Newman was an Anglican priest who was rejected by English society when he converted to Catholicism and kept at arms-lengths by wary cradle Catholics. Alone in the world, Newman discovered an abandoned oratory and began to educate their, using his experience of rejection to teach people to find joy in pain. In summary, without Newman's lesson, Tolkien would never be able to take his spirituality to create the world of ''Literature/LordOfTheRings'' which would never be able to comfort a young Creator/StephenColbert, whose comedy could never comfort and save people maybe not even born yet.

* ''Film/IndianaJones''

* EasilyForgiven: Impossible; in his video "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74ePNl1YT7o&list=LLPCU2SBmzwR5bDZuINlNZFg&index=144 On the Charleston Tragedy and Forgiveness]]," Barron reads [[Literature/TheBible biblical]] forgiveness not as dismissing that evil was done, but loving someone in spit of all the horrible things they did, no matter if they deserve that love or not. The problem is that this is not done "easily," it is the most difficult thing imaginable.

As the leader Word on Fire ministries, Bishop Barron has sought to answer [[UsefulNotes/ThePope John Paul II's]] call for a new evangelization by using online mediums like WebVideo and {{Podcast}}s to reach people who he could never reach from the pulpit. To attract these audiences, Bishop Barron comments on notable events in political, intellectual, and, most importantly for the purpose of this page, popular culture. In his videos, podcasts, and articles dealing with media, Bishop Barron often delves into what are essentially [[ConversedTrope conversations on tropes]] in the context their relationship to UsefulNotes/{{Christianity}} and Literature/TheFourGospels.

His most popular outlet is [[https://www.youtube.com/user/wordonfirevideo/featured his [=YouTube=] channel]], where he posts many commentaries a year that are about ten minutes long on a variety of topics. He also cp-hosts a podcast with Brandon Vogt, "[[http://wordonfireshow.com/podcast-archive/ The Word On Fire Show]]," where the two of them discuss the role of the Church in the modern day. He also has the Word On Fire website to host his [[https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/article/ articles]] and [[https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/homily/ homilies]].

* {{Demythification}}: Drawing on N.T. Wright, Bishop Barron identifies this trope as the essence of the overarching narrative of the modern day. This meta-narrative can be seen in ''Film/ThreeHundred'', ''Film/{{Agora}}'', ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'', ''Film/ClashOfTheTitans'', and even something like The Rock's ''[[Film/Hercules2014 Hercules]]'' movie, which turns every Greek monster into some disguised soldiers and makes the demigod Hercules a normal human who is a hero by virtue of believing in himself. The only great challenge to this meta-narrative, in Barron's view, is the Christian one which holds Christ's crucifixion to be the climax of human history.

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* BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil: Creator/BishopBarron always likes to point out when movies portray Good and Evil as complete equals in need of balance, which is usually followed by a ShoutOut to the Force from ''Franchise/StarWars''. The problem Barron has with that morality is that it either ignores {{God}} or reduces Him to a magical tool that people can manipulate.