Bishop Barron hosts ‘married’ homosexual, father via surrogacy Dave Rubin on podcast

Barron, an influential intellectual, did not challenge or address at all Rubin’s homosexuality, so-called “marriage,” or fatherhood with his partner during their hourlong discussion. Rather than debate their fundamental differences of religion and worldview, the pair discussed public figures and applauded others’ ability to amicably discuss differences of opinion.

The bishop’s failure to substantively address Rubin’s beliefs and lifestyle during a public discussion is significant because they are stumbling blocks to his salvation, as the Catholic Church teaches. The two said they are planning to have a follow-up conversation with “a lot more to cover,” but have not specified a date.

In his post on the discussion to X, Barron said they talked about Rubin’s “ideological journey from left to right,” a claim that was questioned in comments.

“In what world is Rubin remotely on ‘the right?’” asked John Monaco, head of a classical Catholic school in San Francisco.

Rubin admitted during his discussion with Barron that he is a classical liberal, adding, “but I often say that defending my classical liberal beliefs has become a conservative position.”

Barron was heavily criticized for platforming Rubin given his radically anti-Catholic, anti-Christian lifestyle that has involved literally buying children from surrogate mothers. A few commenters asked whether he called out Rubin for his grave sins.

“Did you rebuke him on his sodomy and child trafficking? In a civil discourse, of course,” remarked Calvin Robinson, an Anglican “cleric.”

“Successor of the Apostles, Bishop Barron, did you tell Mr Rubin that he was going to hell if he didn’t repent of being openly gay, being an atheist, buying children, and rejecting Christ? If so, then it was worth it. If not, then you have to consider whether you failed Mr Rubin by not living up to your duties,” Firas Modad commented. All of the above claims about Rubin are true except that he said in 2019 that he was no longer an atheist.

Rubin explained during his discussion with Barron that he used to be what he described as a progressive allied with “hardcore” leftists when he began to work with the media outlet the Young Turks. 

“But after about a year of working there … something did not add up for me. I started thinking, ‘This can’t be right. We can’t be so morally and politically right about everything, and everyone is a bigot and a racist and wrong about everything.”

“And then … I started looking around and thinking, you know, these aren’t the most thoughtful people. Actually, they’re not the kindest people. They’re not, you know, all of the things that we’re told to believe about the progressive people, they actually were quite the reverse. And so my evolution then, it quite literally happened on camera,” Rubin sid.

He was struck by the fact that he found conservatives to be happy and willing to engage him in conversation about ideas, while with progressives, “the more you talk to other people, the more they wanted to push you away.”

Rubin said he was turned off by the “woke” movement in recent years which defined people by their skin color, gender, and sexuality, and framed these qualities as the “most important” characteristics of a person.

Barron went on to share his belief that the woke movement evolved out of post-modernism and the Frankfurt School of thought that had taken over universities, and had a “long gestation” there.

When Barron brought up Jordan Peterson, they both praised him: Rubin said he served as a “dam” for bad ideas reacting against conservatism, and Barron compared him to the river Jordan “that people cross to get to religion.”

Barron pointed out that Peterson himself “isn’t quite there yet,” meaning he does not have faith himself, but despite this he has attracted “tens of thousands of young men” to hear his Bible presentations and ends up drawing people to convert to Christianity.

Rubin celebrated the fact that Peterson “believes in telling the truth for truth’s sake,” and Barron then suggested that Peterson has the equivalent of a belief in God despite the fact that he does not believe in the one, personal God.

“St. Augustine, you know, ‘Our heart is restless till it rests in thee.’ That’s Jordan Peterson all over the place…I’ve sought this good, that good. I’m not satisfied. There’s always a higher aim,” said Barron, referencing Peterson’s frequent admonition to seek the “highest good.”

“When you say in principle the highest aim is the governing force of my life, that’s what it means to believe in God I would say from a theological perspective,” Barron said, seeming to contradict clear Catholic teaching.