The most dangerous people in our history are those who think you can achieve the Kingdom of God in this world.

Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Brandon Vot, the host and the Senior Publishing Director at Word on Fire.

Does Christianity still have a place in the public square? And what can it contribute to the broader culture?

That's what we'll be discussing today with Bishop Robert Barron, who joins us from our production studio in Rochester, Minnesota.

Hey Brandon, good to see you.

Let's catch people up on a couple of trips you've taken recently. One was to the Heritage Foundation, which is a big think tank located in Washington, D.C.

What were you there for and how did it go?

I was there in D.C. for the U.S. CCB meeting. So I'm chair now of what they call the Limfly Committee, that's LADY Marriage, Family Life and Youth.

So I chaired that committee and then as chair of that committee, I'm also on what they call the Administrative Committee.

So I had a couple of days of committee meetings. Then it was the close of that second day that I went to the Heritage Foundation.

They invited me to give the Russell Kirk lecture, which is one of their annual lectures. I've been a fan of Russell Kirk for a long time.

So I accept that invitation and wrote a paper on Catholicism and Democracy, Catholicism and America.

It's entitled, I think I get it right, it was the breakdown of a Tokevilleian equilibrium.

So I'm talking there about what Tokeville saw in the 19th century that American liberal democracy will survive only in the measure that it has to be a little more.

So it has a clear religious and moral kind of ballast. You take that away, it'll revert to its kind of cruder-Hobsian form.

So that was my argument that what we're seeing today is in fact a breakdown of religion and morality.

And so we do indeed see a return to more Hobsian forms. So it's kind of controversial area I was waiting into a lot of controversial waters, but it was, you know, it was an interesting talk to give.

Second interesting trip you have, we've talked about it briefly in the past several months here, but it was your visit to London.

If I'm not mistaken, this was planned and scheduled twice and this was kind of the third go around.

But you went there and in part to talk about the theme of today's show, what Christianity brings to the public conversation.

You were there from February 4th through the 15th, 2023. Give us some brief highlights of that trip.

Oh, I love that trip. It was, you're right, it was like three times delay because the COVID twice and then the death of the Queen.

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