Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Brandon Vot, the content director at Word

on Fire. And today, as always, I'm joined by the man whom Dr. Peter Crave calls the most

readable and delightful Catholic essayist alive, the man whom Father James Martin calls one

of the most effective evangelists in the Catholic Church, and the man whom his mother simply

calls Bob. He is Bishop Robert Barron. Bishop Barron, welcome.

She is Bobby, she calls me. Bobby, gotta get it right. Tell us the story, you know, whenever

you said you were sort of ascending through the media, you produced the Catholicism series,

and then you're sitting at a table with your mom and she says, Oh, so Bobby, don't you

think you're a little overexposed? Yeah, my mother's good for that. Yeah, no pressure

after those irritations. God bless them, Peter Crave, too. I think it's one of the really

great figures in the life of the post-conciliar Catholic Church. And Jim Martin, who's been

very good to me over the years. So these are good people and I'm grateful for them.

Now, it's been eight months since you were ordained a bishop. If you were by for me, I'm

sure it has for you. What would you say has been one of the most surprising or unexpected

aspects about being a bishop? You know, I might say the amount of teaching that I continue

to do. So I've been a teacher much of my priesthood, you know, in both informal and formal ways.

Because as a bishop, you know, there's a administrative side to it, the meetings and sort

of managing the business affairs, money and building and personnel. There's a liturgical

side for sure. I'm always leading people in prayer and I'm now in the middle of confirmation

season, for example. But almost every time you stop someplace as a bishop, you teach,

right? You're always called upon to speak. And I always want to make sure I just don't

engage in, you know, anodine little hello, how are you kind of things. I mean, I figure,

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