Bishop Barron and those Brazilian male feet (it's not what you think)
Catholics should pay close attention to how our bishops respond to alleged scandals.
Shortly before Christmas, a Catholic writer contacted me about an odd discovery. He had found that Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona–Rochester had a personal Facebook account which followed pages for an account dedicated to “Brazilian Male Feet” and a couple of young muscular men who regularly posted provocative pictures and videos.
I was able to get sufficient confirmation that the account did, in fact, belong to Bishop Barron.1 And some of the likely explanations that these follows were a mistake were ruled out.2 And so I shared the discovery on social media, with some of my thoughts.
Within six hours, Word on Fire had responded to me directly, stating: “This social media account with Bishop Barron’s name has been hacked. Word on Fire is investigating the security compromise.” The personal profile for Barron was deactivated.
And that evening, Word on Fire shared a much longer response on their Twitter account:
“Unfortunately, Bishop Barron has become the target of an escalating wave of digital fraud and malicious impersonation, an inevitable byproduct of his growing public prominence. Earlier this year, he was compelled to warn followers directly about AI-generated videos falsely impersonating him and soliciting money for fraudulent causes. Our team also thwarted another sophisticated attempt to gain access to Bishop Barron’s social media accounts.
More recently, Word on Fire’s security team was alerted to irregular activity connected to one of Bishop Barron’s social media accounts. A preliminary review indicates that a bad actor gained unauthorized access and, last month, ‘liked’ a handful of scandalous pages. This activity appears to have been deliberately weaponized, with those responsible flagging it to multiple media outlets in an attempt to manufacture controversy where none exists.
As potentially intended, media outlets that generate revenue by attacking Bishop Barron appear likely to attempt to inflate this episode into a media spectacle. Bishop Barron’s name reliably generates attention, and for some publications, outrage and insinuation have become a substitute for truth. Accuracy is secondary while clicks are the objective.
What should not be lost amid this noise is the reality these attacks reveal. Bishop Barron is targeted precisely because he matters. The persistence and coordination of these efforts testify to his immense influence as a force for good, within the Catholic Church and far beyond it. In a cultural moment marked by cynicism, confusion, and moral drift, he remains an uncompromising witness to truth, reason, and human dignity. That moral clarity attracts millions, and, inevitably, provokes those hostile to it.
Word on Fire continues to invest aggressively in strengthening its cybersecurity defenses and countering digital fraud. Yet resilience in this environment is not merely technical. It also depends on a vigilant and informed community, followers who recognize deception when they see it and are willing to call it out, protecting others from being misled.
Truth endures. And so does our mission.”
This has been the only public statement on the matter, and I think it’s very revealing. I’ll share a number of thoughts on this episode and what we can take away from it as a Church. We can pull away from this episode a range of reflections on the clergy abuse crisis, the rhetoric of defense, homosexuality and hyper-masculinity, and the mixed nature of both people and organizations.
The rhetoric of defense
Even if I think Word on Fire’s explanation for those follows is unlikely and makes Barron look more guilty in this situation3, let’s assume that Word on Fire’s account is true. Their statement is still problematic, for a number of reasons. In some ways, I find their defense of Barron more scandalous than the Facebook follows.
For one thing, their response exonerates Barron before their investigation has been conducted. In the face of scandal, they take the exonerative account for Barron as their starting point, and then they conduct the review. This demonstrates a lack of objectivity in review, and also raises a number of questions. For one thing, is Word on Fire a ministry of the Church or a pet project of Barron? And to what extent is Barron’s team responsible for managing and maintaining his personal social media accounts?
Perhaps more scandalous than this is the direct use of spiritual and psychological conditioning and manipulation that is occurring through Word on Fire’s public statements. They say, “Bishop Barron is targeted precisely because he matters. The persistence and coordination of these efforts testify to his immense influence as a force for good.” This response insulates Barron from critique, not by insinuation but by explicit messaging. Word on Fire is explicitly claiming that critiques of Barron are demonstrations of Barron’s superiority. This is precisely the messaging that exists within cult-like environments.
And it’s also the rhetoric of the Church during the worst moments of the clergy abuse crisis. This message is scandalous, not necessarily because it indicates guilt for Barron in this particular situation, but because it conditions his followers to defend him in the face of any allegations that may arise in the future. They are preemptively deploying the tactics of the clergy abuse crisis to insulate Barron and his circles from critique.
I compared Word on Fire’s statement to a number of public defenses of Marciel Maciel when allegations of abuse arose against him. There are striking similarities. Public defenses of Maciel came from leaders such as George Weigel, the then editor-in-chief of the National Catholic Register, Father John Neuhaus of First Things Magazine, Mary Ann Glendon, and others. As someone who greatly admires Glendon in particular, I can’t imagine the pain of having to face how wrong she was about Maciel after having publicly proclaimed his “radiant holiness.” But I think her and others’ statements have much to teach the Church today.
These public statements put forward rhetorical positions that match onto those of Word on Fire in a number of ways:
They highlight the success of the Legionaries of Christ under Maciel’s leadership, as a rhetorical counter to the claims of sexual abuse being made against him. Glendon wrote, “The most powerful refutation, however, comes from the spiritual vibrancy of the great organization he founded… That irresponsible journalists keep dredging up old slanders is perhaps best viewed as a tribute to the success... in advancing the New Evangelization.” This is similar to Word on Fire’s claim that “attacks” on Barron are just evidence of his greatness.
Just as Word on Fire does, the Maciel defenses dismiss the allegations as “vicious gossip” and “slander” that will “feed the rumor mill”.
Both Word on Fire and Maciel’s defenders attribute malicious intent to those bringing forward claims and promoting them. Similarly to Word on Fire, Maciel’s defenders argued that those doing so “do not even try to hide their hostility to the Legion” and are treating the Legion as “the enemy,” focusing on “decades-old animus against the man” and a “resurgence of anti-Catholicism,” or framing these attacks as veiled attacks on Church teaching.
One especially striking thing is how similar the end of Kearns’s defense (“Don’t let their vocations - and the truth - become ‘collateral damage’”) is to the end of Word on Fire’s defense (“Truth endures. And so does our mission.”).
Another rhetorical move that is of particular interest is the defense of Maciel by the President of The Catholic League. The Hartford Courant detailed allegations by nine men, including some who were told by Maciel that he had the pope’s permission to “seek them out sexually for relief of physical pain.” Donohue blasted the Courant, saying that it relied on “gullible” readers and that the “balderdash” they were printing was no better than what would put out by a tabloid. But, we know now, that it’s entirely believable Maciel would have told the men this. The article wasn’t saying the pope had made the statement, just that Maciel told the men he had before he abused them. But, again, Catholic leaders were insisting that what turned out to probably be true is evidence of unscrupulous reporting.
A number of lessons can be derived from those past defenses of Maciel, among them:
Catholics need to stop using success in ministry as a counter to abuse and scandal. The argument “the attacks are evidence of how good he is” is a form of spiritual and psychological conditioning and manipulation. It’s been used as many times as we’ve seen abuse in the Church. One of the most common gut reactions among Catholics when their pastor is accused of abuse continues to be, “But he’s done so much good!” We can acknowledge the good work of our pastors, but we need to stop using these good works as a way to dismiss or silence those bringing forward concerns or harms that may need to be addressed.
It’s certainly true that many outlets highlight scandal (at least partly) to drum up readership. But that reality isn’t a great argument against the truth of allegations. Many victims are more inclined to be open with publications that more readily cover stories of abuse.
Again, perhaps the most problematic argument by Word on Fire, and the argument most emblematic of the Church’s rhetoric during the clergy abuse crisis, is the claim: Barron is critiqued because he is so good.
The issue isn’t necessarily that Word on Fire is covering up abuse and scandal. The issue is that Word on Fire’s rhetoric is equipping Catholics with psychological and rhetorical tools to cover up abuse and scandal. The organization is engaging in a form of psychological and spiritual conditioning. It insulates him from criticism and villainizes those who critique him. It’s the same framing we got during the clergy abuse crisis. Catholics shouldn’t just let that go. We should equip our ministries to do better and demand that they do better.
I think back to a dinner I had with a bishop as abuse allegations were arising in his diocese. I heard him say at that dinner how some people (the plaintiffs’ lawyer) are just out to get the Church. That bishop would later be removed from ministry after allegations arose against him. I read much of my review of rhetoric across the Church through the experience of that dinner.
Techniques of neutralization
The John Jay Report on the clergy abuse crisis highlights “techniques of neutralization,” methods by which perpetrators of harm deny victims and justify their actions. These include focusing on their own good intentions and proclaiming malintent for those raising issues. It’s possible the account had unauthorized access, and it wasn’t Barron who liked those pages. But, again, here the response by Word on Fire is a worse action than if Barron had. “They’re demonstrating their approach to people who raise concerns: villainizing critics by ascribing evil intent.”
This was a small scandal. But how an organization responds to a small scandal gives an indication of how they’ll respond to a big one. That’s the takeaway here. We still have much to learn about systems of harm. We’re not as far from the clergy abuse crisis as we want to be.
By studying the clergy abuse crisis, I think we can strengthen the Church and her ministries. But it’s hard. It involves seeing and changing patterns of behavior and thinking that are deeply ingrained. It involves more vulnerability. It involves challenging introspection.
And none of this is meant to say Catholic leaders shouldn’t or can’t respond when allegations of scandal or abuse arise. But we should be cognizant of our positioning. Today, the Church would do well to frame within a posture of humility, knowing our history of villainizing people who turned out to be victims and their advocates. We can lay out some known facts while not over-explaining, commit to investigating, and express appreciation for those raising concerns while not too quickly just agreeing with them. Strong comms professionals are often trained to take similar approaches.
One of the best resources on responding when your minister is accused of abuse is a resource from SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) on how to respond when your pastor has been accused of abuse. They emphasize how you don’t have to just assume the accused is guilty. But our responses should be intentional and supportive of victims generally.
On top of this bizarre episode is the fact that Barron is positioned as the media bishop in the Church, and he’s tried to position himself as the bishop to have better responses to the clergy abuse crisis. This episode suggests he and his organization are neither.
A better response would have been along the lines of, “Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We will be investigating.” And then Barron posts his excuse on his own social media, rather than through Word on Fire, to preserve independence in investigating and addressing.
Instead we get a demonstration of poor boundaries between Barron’s own public image and the organizations in which he is a leader. Which is precisely what we saw throughout the clergy abuse crisis. How are we as Catholics so bad at this, after all we’ve been through?
In the end I don’t think it would be a big deal for Barron to like feet or men. That’s not the issue. The issue is psychological and spiritual conditioning, defensiveness when faced with scandal, poor institutional boundaries, and lack of accountability.
A return to the past, and the accountability that never happened
None of this is particularly new for either Barron or Word on Fire. A few years ago, I was made aware of sexual violence allegations made against what appeared to be the highest-paid senior leader at Word on Fire. A woman had brought these concerns to Word on Fire, and they began an investigation. However, Barron mistakenly thought that the woman had shared her allegations in a generally visible post on Facebook. Fearing public scrutiny, Word on Fire abandoned the investigation and immediately fired that leader. And Bishop Barron held an all-staff meeting where he discussed details of the investigation, openly opining with his staff how “people do make things up sometimes”, and revealing the victim’s name to his entire staff without her consent.
That final detail is the most shocking and (in my opinion) disgraceful act taken by Barron during the episode, especially since Barron had been positioning himself at the time as a knowledgeable leader in responding to the clergy abuse crisis. That disclosure by Barron demonstrates a lack of knowledge of even the basics of how institutions ought to respond to sexual violence.
But neither Barron nor Word on Fire has at any time apologized for any of this, either to the public or to the victim herself. (I know this because I had been in contact with her, and she had given me permission to share this.)
Instead, Word on Fire had issued a couple of blistering public statements (which they have since removed from their website but you can still find here). They publicly shared details of an incomplete internal investigation against an alleged whistleblower and accused me of defamation. (Interestingly, these responses by Word on Fire helped lead a number of current and former Word on Fire staff to reach out to me to share additional information and concerns, some of whom agreed to be quoted, and one of whom even asked to share a public statement through my Substack.) That shocking episode led to a number of public and high-level resignations from Word on Fire. Interestingly their CEO, who had been accused of threatening staff who wanted to discuss issues related to the accusations of sexual violence, remains in his role.
I do believe Word on Fire institutionally has improved in a number of ways. Those who continued to work with Word on Fire informed me of a number of changes the organization has made, including hiring a human resources professional. I hope that in the future they are better equipped to support victims of sexual violence, even if I maintain concerns about the accountability they have never taken and the ways in which they continue to promote harmful rhetoric and do not seem to have learned enough from the clergy abuse crisis. There is still growing to do all over the Church. And I hope unpacking some of these issues can help with that.
Masculinity and misogyny
One interesting question that comes up with the muscly Facebook accounts and the Brazilian male feet is the question of masculinity and misogyny, which I believe can also be illuminated against the backdrop of that prior scandal. Regardless of whether Barron had specifically liked those pages, this episode raised those questions for me, and so I’ll share some thoughts related to them here.
One can trace interesting connections when one examines the world Bishop Barron has built around Word on Fire. Until very recently, the priest-CEO of Word on Fire had as his publicly-visible Facebook profile photo an image of him in a small tank top, flexing his bicep while lifting at the gym. (He changed the photo after I publicly discussed it alongside this recent scandal.) My immediate reaction was: imagine the freakout if a woman religious had posted something similar. Many Catholics love flexing priests in tank tops, but they hate women in yoga pants.
But another thing to note is that there is a consistent physical type that Barron has prioritized for leadership at Word on Fire. Others have publicly noted that he has prioritized as leaders very beefy men who publicly perform masculinity through flexing gym pics. Word on Fire visibly has a literal image of leadership that’s very revealing and consistent with how the organization has often addressed issues of masculinity (although he did hire some women into leadership roles after that prior scandal).
And all this is consistent with what one woman told me she experienced at Word on Fire: “Constant (graphic) talk about only being open to marrying women who were virgins with hymens intact, dreams of smoking cigars with the boys while their wives gave birth, and so much mockery of any person or organization in the church that had ever criticized BB or the WOF organization.”
This is consistent with a misogyny that can be found throughout the priesthood. I recently explored this in unpacking the guidance that had been given for many years by a formator at a major US seminary: “When you enter a parish, the first thing that you should do is fire the most powerful woman there.”
How might a hyper-fixation with this muscular physical type for masculinity be connected to both subtle and explicit forms of misogyny, and also with homosexuality?
Willow Sipling (interestingly that alleged whistleblower from Word on Fire a few years ago) helped explore these and related questions in a recent episode of whiplash with Max Kuzma. I have a number of significant disagreements with Sipling, but I found the connecting of certain forms of homosexuality with misogyny very helpful.
In that episode, they unpack Nick Fuentes’s claim:
“If we’re really being honest, never having a girlfriend, never having sex with a woman really makes you more heterosexual. Because honestly, dating women is gay, having sex with women is gay. And having sex with men is gay. Really it’s all gay.”
One form of hyper-masculinity expresses a revulsion towards women, especially those who might step into leadership roles, and seeks their subjugation. This hyper-masculinity, I believe, could arise with both fetishizing hyper-homosexuality and also repression of homosexuality. What is privileged is any expression of brute strength, and what is demeaned is any form of softness. This positioning is as old as Plato’s Symposium, where the participants banish the women from the room at the start of their discussions. But Socrates challenges this, in placing Diotima in a privileged place in his own story of erotic love.
Perhaps because of a focus on hyper-masculinity in a variety of ways, Word on Fire doesn’t give a similar privilege for the softness we often associate with femininity, something particularly relevant in its public responses to scandal or critique. And Barron sets the tone here. In his own words, he “delights” in the “fevered imaginations of those on the extreme Catholic left.” But what of those who may be on the “extreme Catholic left” within his own diocese? Are they not deserving of a shepherd? Because he is their pastor, what are we to make of his “delight” in their alleged “fevered imaginations”?
When we see all this, we don’t have to just condemn Barron. We can also feel sad for him. That position, where one feels the need to constantly flex their strength, is exhausting. And it misses out on so much of what is best about being human. This is not who we were meant to be. I am so grateful to those who formed me in philosophy and theology and cautioned me against this. I’m grateful to reflect on Barron at times and to feel grief and tenderness and empathy towards him, and to know that such things are not incompatible with also holding serious concerns and critiques when it comes to his public image and the organizations in which he exercises leadership.
I won’t here make a claim about Bishop Barron’s sexual proclivities. And I’m not saying that I believe that working out, or sharing excitement about physical strength, is necessarily a bad thing. But I will say that, as with all things, a virtue can become a vice when either taken too far or isolated from other virtues. I believe helping clergy come to a more positive and integrated relationship to their homosexuality can help them develop more charitable and supportive relationships to women. The healing of homosexuality, including through acceptance and a certain openness about it, can help combat misogyny. And it can help develop new models of strength.
This is something that actually gives me a lot of hope. I think there are cultural connections between the increasingly positive pathways for those attracted to the same sex and the increased focus on female leadership and things like the #MeToo movement. We can rise together.
Resisting the black and white
In closing, I want to respond to a remark one of my followers had made to me. They said, “I have some friends who like Word on Fire, and I was trying to explain to them that it’s bad.”
While I understand where this is coming from, I worry that this response operates within some of the problematic dynamics I’m trying to highlight.
One of the things I think we need to get better at addressing is a sort of black and white fundamentalism. Where we need to engage in either hero worship or shaming. The thing is, no organization is just good or just bad, even if some may be very good or very bad.
Ultimately I want Catholic ministries that improve, that change, that learn, that grow. We don’t have to just burn everything down and start over. We can renew. And even if I think Word on Fire doesn’t seem to do this publicly, I’ve seen some improvements. That’s good to acknowledge.
I know good people that collaborate with and write for Word on Fire. They care about the issues that I’m highlighting. They can help with the slow process of renewal. And I’m willing to be Word on Fire’s villain, if that’s what they need at this time. I can highlight issues, and then others can work from inside. The Holy Spirit works in weird ways. All we can do is be open to that work.
For one thing, Bishop Barron would regularly post on his public account and then respond to comments through this private account. My suspicion is that, like many creators with public social media platforms, these accounts were linked. And Bishop Barron may not have always been cognizant of when he was posting on each.
Some pointed out that Facebook has had an issue where someone will follow an innocent page, and then that page will be bought out and changed to something less innocent. I was able to also verify this was not the case by reviewing the page history for those accounts.
I found Word on Fire’s claim that Bishop Barron’s account was hacked odd. A “hack” is one of the least believable excuses here. I have friends whose accounts have been hacked. The modus operandi of the hacker has never been just to like three random pages. Hackers are either generally harvesting information, and so seek to be discreet as possible, or the hacker directs people to spam/malicious sites/links. They spam message or spam post on the account. Neither of those appear to have happened. Which was why I was the one who broke this. A hack seems unlikely. To be frank, the real hack job looks like the WoF statement.
Rather than publicly proclaiming a hack based on an assumption, Word on Fire organizationally should have investigated first. And, if they manage his account, an independent investigation might be merited to ensure trustworthy resolution. “The story” is now about their response.
I also did what a lot of millennials would do: I asked chatGPT about this.
It’s conclusion: the explanation given by WoF is possible but unlikely.
It is possible that the account had unauthorized access. I thought a more believable explanation would have been that he accidentally liked the pages.
In any event, giving proof of unauthorized access to the account would actually be easy (you can easily identify and trace IP addresses where your account has been logged in). It’s odd to me that neither Word on Fire nor Barron shared proof.
Word on Fire’s assurances around “strengthening its cybersecurity defenses” is also... interesting. You address this by changing passwords and ensuring MFA. They’re not going to pay for Facebook to update their software. Their statement reads like they don’t really understand cybersecurity.
I just don’t trust Bishop Barron, and it’s not the website you mention, it’s his mishandling of a case where a lay male employee was making sexually harassing remarks to lay female employees. His uncritical embrace of Charlie Kirk after Kirk’s murder was also scandalous. He didn’t educate himself about the hate and Christian Nationalism Kirk espoused. Kirk certainly didn’t deserve murder, and it was appalling. However, he does not deserve posthumous praise or sainthood either. He earned $25M by the age of 33 by peddling stale racism and misogyny. Anyone could do that if they chose to sell their souls to do so.
Since I don't see it mentioned here, I'd like to add one note on the version of events that WoF gave in its official reply: "A preliminary review indicates that a bad actor gained unauthorized access and, last month, ‘liked’ a handful of scandalous pages."
I happen to know nothing about who your original source for this was, but here's what I do know: in the days since you surfaced this, I spoke with one friend (who is definitely not your source) who explained that they had personally stumbled across Barron's Facebook page having "liked" this exact same "handful of scandalous pages"... over a year ago now, closer to multiple years ago. And I was told about similar screenshots (which I have not yet personally seen) that were taken and retained at that point in time. Consequently, WoF's claim that this all happened "last month" is either (1) a truly incredible and bold blatant lie, or – more charitably, and presumably more likely – (2) evidence of an absolutely abysmal "preliminary investigation" happening before they pronounced their official version of events, and thus in either case (3) still further evidence of some truly deep organizational incompetence operating behind the scenes, layered on top of all the other problems that you are highlighting.