WOF 221: When Church Leaders Fail

The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture

Brandon Vogt

God, Vogt, Catholicism, Catholic, Faith, Christianity, Barron, Religion & Spirituality, Christian, Church

4.9 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 2 March 2020

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Just recently, Catholics were devastated to learn of another case of sexual abuse, this time involving Jean Vanier, the esteemed founder of L’Arche and a man once considered to be a living saint. Vanier, who passed away last year, was accused of sexually assaulting six women in France, using his religious position to abuse and manipulate them. How do we make sense of all this? How can a man who produced enormous good fruit fail so abysmally? And how should Catholics respond to this sort of abuse, and prevent it from happening again? Bishop Barron offers advice on all these questions and more.

A listener asks how energetic young people, passionate about apologetics and evangelization, can take their study to the next level.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Even though original sins have been dealt with, the effects of original sin remain in us,
0:07.4	tender of sin, so that, so that very easily we can fall back into sin.
0:15.9	Even as we have been baptized and now in the life of the church are becoming righteous,
0:21.8	there's always the danger in us of falling back into sin.
0:30.4	Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Brandon Vot the host and the content director
0:38.4	here at Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. Joining us as he does each week is Bishop Robert
0:43.2	Barron. Bishop Barron, good to see you. Hey Brandon, always good to be with you.
0:47.6	Now this episode, I think, takes on a little bit more of a serious tone and has some deeper
0:52.6	gravity because we're going to be talking about church scandal and what happens when leaders of
0:58.3	the church fail when they fall to sin. Just a week or two ago, we learned the news that John
1:05.4	Vanier, one of the most popular influential Catholic spiritual leaders in the world,
1:10.8	it was revealed that he sexually abused six women while he was doing his ministry in France.
1:18.1	Just a little bit of background on Jean Vanier, he was a Canadian philosopher and theologian,
1:23.0	probably best known for founding the large communities. These are an international federation
1:28.8	of communities for developmentally disabled people where other people live alongside them,
1:35.7	work alongside them. It's one of the most beautiful ministries I think in the world. We have a
1:40.7	large community in Jacksonville not too far from where I am and we've visited there with our good
1:46.0	friend Chad Allen who's a listener of this show. It's just an extraordinary ministry. Many people,
1:51.3	I think when when Jean Vanier was alive, he just died last year, described him as a living saint.
1:56.8	I think many people would have said after the death of Mother Teresa, who alive today,
2:03.5	would you be most sure is going to be canonized? For a lot of people, it was Jean Vanier.
2:10.0	Again, I mentioned he died last year and then after a thorough investigation, the head of the
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