The Word on Fire piece: FAQs

Barron outed the victim to his staff without her consent.

May 02, 2022

Over the weekend, I shared some of the backstory behind Joseph Gloor’s removal from Word on Fire ministries. It included excerpts from a staff meeting in October in which Bishop Barron and his staff discussed sexual misconduct, employee intimidation, and other issues at Word on Fire. The piece generated a significant amount of discussion, some of which questioned the motives of the piece, its accuracy, and what to do with it. So I’m providing below some follow-up thoughts, which I will update as additional questions arise. The questions are as follows…

How can you confirm the account is accurate if you haven’t heard all sides?
What was Bishop Barron supposed to do? Fire Gloor immediately?
Why are you out to get Bishop Barron/Word on Fire?
Shouldn’t the Word on Fire employees, and those associated with the ministry, speak out?
But they followed protocol. What’s the big deal?
What about the stories of the women?
Is it really such a big deal that Barron refers to victims of sexual misconduct as “accusers”?
What should Barron, and Word on Fire, do?
What about the statement Word on Fire Released?
You are a bad writer, and this is bad reporting.

Before I get to those questions, however, I have been asked to clarify something. According to the original meeting transcript, Bishop Barron revealed the name of the victim to his staff, discussing how she had shared her story on a facebook post. It has since come to my attention that this is not true. Rather, the woman shared her story in a private group message. (Barron therefore outed the victim to his staff without her consent.) According to my source, Claire Couche, wife of Word on Fire employee Mike Couche, was in this group chat. She told her husband, who then called Father Steve Grunow. Grunow responded, “Fuck.” Shortly after, Gloor began reaching out to all of the victims.

How can you confirm the account is accurate if you haven’t heard all sides?

That’s a fair question. I haven’t heard all sides. If Word on Fire employees would like to share their experiences with me, or with the public, I am very open to that. At this time, I can confirm that multiple Word on Fire employees have confirmed that the piece accurately portrays the issues and institutional dynamics at Word on Fire.

What was Bishop Barron supposed to do? Fire Gloor immediately?

In my opinion, Barron/WOF actually fired Gloor inappropriately, before they should have. If the transcript is correct, Gloor was immediately placed on paid leave as soon as the allegations arose. This was exactly the right thing to do, in my opinion. And then the Word on Fire protocols were followed, an investigator was hired, and they followed process. This is all very good.

However, process was set aside as soon as the the organization thought the woman had shared her story on facebook. At that point, Word on Fire stopped following protocol and made a proactive decision to terminate Gloor. This demonstrates to Word on Fire employees that protocol will not be followed to its conclusion in every circumstance. If the facts are correct, Gloor should be fired. But he should be fired during the course of a well-structured and victim-centered process that is followed correctly. That’s not what happened here.

Why are you out to get Bishop Barron/Word on Fire?

This is a question I’ve gotten in various forms. Similarly, one individual who identified as a current Word on Fire employee wrote in the comments (they have since edited the comment):

“I find it ironic that Chris Damian and JP from Clean the Church have come together to destroy Word on Fire. You, who are so polar opposite in your ideologies have joined forces against a common enemy. At all costs, right?”

I fundamentally reject the framing of this question and related comments. There’s a certain false dichotomy that came up among some WOF defenders. They built a false dichotomy between those who are concerned about these issues and those who support the ministry. They have defaulted into a “your side vs our side” framing. It’s a false and unnecessary framing.

Acknowledging these harms does not have to mean you hate the ministry. Taking them seriously doesn’t mean you just want to destroy it. You can acknowledge them because you love the ministry, take them seriously because you want to help it. But that’s not what I’m seeing. I had two (anonymous alleged) employees comment on how I’m just lying and am out to get WOF. Which suggests, for them, there’s no way to both speak seriously about these harms and be on the side of the truth. This is institutionally toxic. It functions to silence any employees who feel the piece gets things right. It forces people to take one of two sides: with us or against us.

The thing is, I won’t force you to choose. Support WOF generally, or not. I recognize that they’ve done good work. My aim is to address a specific set of harms.

Maybe these alleged employees have a desire to see Catholics and Catholic institutions as just good or bad, to sort all of us into one category or the other. But that’s not how we are. We’re complex, always a mix, needing to acknowledge and address both. If we become convinced there can only be one, our institutions will do bad in the name of good.

Shouldn’t the Word on Fire employees, and those associated with the ministry, speak out?

As more people become aware of these issues, those associated with Word on Fire will probably be feeling very vulnerable. It’s important to note that, even though the meeting at issue occurred more than six months ago, many of them are probably still processing. This isn’t easy. And institutional pressures are hard to step out of.

Many WOF employees have families to feed and can’t afford to go without the income that WOF provides. Or they may feel they have no power to speak up and are instead trying to figure out how to quietly support the victims in this case and drive change. They may worry about being blacklisted by other Catholic employers if they speak publicly. (This is a concern many Catholic employees have raised with me.)

I get this. I used to work for a law firm where my coworkers (and our vulnerable clients) suffered all kinds of abuse from our boss. I ended up quitting after a few months. But I didn't say anything. I was early in my career and didn't know what to do. And I was hurt myself.

Only years later did I get the courage to speak about the toxicity of that work environment. I felt ok doing that partly because I was safely in another job. Still, part of me regrets not making use of my (limited) power while at the firm to drive change.

There are employees who want to speak publicly. But they just don't feel that it's safe for them to talk right now. And this is part of the problem.

But they followed protocol. What’s the big deal?

As I noted above, they didn’t really follow protocol. (Though, to be fair, they did mostly follow protocol.) But that’s not the issue here. There are a couple of key issues that this transcript brings to light. First, Bishop Barron does not seem to have a victim-centered approach to these issues. Second, he exercises poor leadership when his staff shares that they are terrified of the CEO and of retribution. Third, the staff raise a number of broader institutional issues at Word on Fire.

Some have read the piece and think that its relevance hinges upon the veracity of the allegations against Gloor. I believe that is a separate (even if related) issue. Whether or not the allegations are true, the discussion during the meeting is still deeply troubling.

What about the stories of the women?

I had also intentionally not focused the piece on the stories of the victims. Those stories are for them to tell. The story my piece focused on was the harm to the employees, and the troubling disposition towards victims generally presented by Bishop Barron. Some readers seem to be preoccupied with the gory details of the allegations, and this preoccupation is used to wave away the other (serious) issues presented. Those allegations are important, but they were not stories for me to tell at that time. There, I focused on what Barron actually said about victims generally when he was talking off-script, and on the harm experienced by Word on Fire employees, multiple of whom have shared with me that they are appreciative of the piece. You don’t need to speculate about the stories of the women to recognize that there are serious problems to be addressed.

Is it really such a big deal that Barron refers to victims of sexual misconduct as “accusers”?

This was something a number of people took issue with. One individual wrote: “Perhaps Bishop Barron referred to the women as the accusers since that is accurate and non-judgmental.”

Terminology matters, especially when talking about issues like sexual abuse or sexual misconduct. It’s important to note that, according to the transcript, the attorney hired by WOF determined that at least one woman was subject to “unwelcome” and “unwanted” sexual acts by Gloor. One staff member expresses discomfort to Barron at the way the victims are discussed in the meeting, saying, “We can call them victims because the lawyers had come to that conclusion.” But Barron still declines to refer to them as such.

The choice of words is important. As one individual wrote, “Bishop Barron is too educated of a man to use words without knowing precisely what he meant.” “Accuser” is a term with a defined and developed use at Word on Fire. To get an idea of how Barron typically uses the term “accuser,” I did a search through his homilies and writings, as well as writings by some of his key staff:

July 25, 2012: Barron writes, “The other great New Testament name for the devil is ho Satanas, which means ‘the accuser.’”
October 5, 2017: Rozann Lea writes for WOF, “[St. Michael’s] greatest mission is to allow us to truly live, to win us for Christ, to fight on our behalf at the moment of death and to stand athwart the dark power of the Accuser.”
January 22, 2019: Barron writes, “one of the principal names for the devil in the New Testament is ho Satanas, which carries the sense of the accuser.”
December 29, 2020: In a piece on culture warriors, Barron writes, “So consider the abstraction ‘culture warrior’ as used by a left-wing commentator as a negative characterization of his opponent. As we have shown, it can’t possibly name anything real, since the accuser is every bit as much a culture warrior as the accused. It therefore functions as a smokescreen for what the accuser really wants to say.”
March 1, 2022: Barron writes, “the devil’s two principal names in the New Testament are diabolos (the scatterer) and Satanas (the accuser).”
March 18, 2022: Andrew Petiprin writes for WOF, “We should never forget that the name of our enemy, Satan, means ‘the accuser.’… Sometimes, however, it’s all lies. The “accuser” wins his case with no investigation or trial. With Christian leaders, accusations are even more complicated.”
April 3, 2022: Barron writes about the scribes and the Pharisees as “accusers” who are “scapegoating violence.”

What should Barron, and Word on Fire, do?

This is a tough question. A serious institutional examination of conscience would certainly be merited. And there should also be serious work on the institutional culture. If the individuals who identified as WOF employees in the comments section to my piece are, in fact, WOF employees, they shed light on how bad the situation is.

One of those individuals repeatedly accused me of “lying” in the piece. But when I asked for clarity on what constituted the lies, this was not provided. They finally clarified that I “lied” because I “picked out any comment where Bishop shoed any love to joe and then assumed Bishops meaning and tone and manipulated it into the writers own narrative.” In other words, this employee accused me of lying because they disagreed with my interpretation and narrative of the events. This individual was unable to point out any factually false statements I made. If WOF employees will accuse people of lying because they disagree on interpretation of events, this is a significant problem.

Neither of the supposed WOF employees who entered into the comments section of the piece expressed any sympathy for their fellow employees who felt harmed, and neither were willing to admit that either Barron or WOF did anything wrong. Instead, they unqualifiedly defended both Barron and WOF and accused critics of lying, and called one of the harmed employees a “disgruntled staff member.” One staff member implicitly accused me of doing the work of the Devil: “your harmful words are not helping anything, they are misconstruing a situation you have nothing to do with, and thereby somewing [sic] doubt in this ministry to attempt to weaken it’s reach, just as the Devil so desperately desires.”

Given the above, it is easy to see why Word on Fire employees feel afraid to come forward with problems at the ministry. This is really bad, and something which will take a lot of work to change. (As someone who is familiar with change management at large institutions, I can say that it will also probably require significant staffing changes.)

What about the statement Word on Fire Released?

Yesterday, Word on Fire released a statement. This is what it said:

“Word on Fire Catholic Ministries is a nonprofit global media apostolate that supports the work of Bishop Robert Barron and reaches millions of people to draw them into—or back to—the Catholic faith.
Last year, Word on Fire leadership received a complaint about one of its employees. The accusations against this employee surrounded events in the employee’s personal life, not the Word on Fire workplace, and did not involve any other Word on Fire employees.
Immediately, Word on Fire put the employee on leave and hired a third-party, independent investigator. Even though Word on Fire is a small, not-for-profit organization, it has robust abuse policies, including due process obligations.
As a result, Word on Fire terminated the employee’s employment, and within hours, notified the Word on Fire staff of this result.
As with any investigation of this sort, the process took time and required strict confidentiality in order to protect the reputations of those involved, to respect their right to privacy, and to ensure a fair and objective investigation.
Word on Fire did not ignore or bury any accusations; rather, it took swift and decisive action to ensure that an independent investigation moved forward without interference.
Ultimately, Word on Fire and Bishop Barron have been leading voices for accountability in the Church. The organization has zero tolerance for abuse or harassment of any kind.”

A few things to note…

First, the statement does not acknowledge any victims. Again, it talks about “accusations” rather than “allegations” or “complaints.”

Second, I am aware of employees who felt victimized by Gloor and the environment of Word on Fire while at work (more on this to come). If Word on Fire thinks none of this occurred at work, it’s because they didn’t look into it.

Third, as noted above, at least one victim’s privacy was not respected.

Fourth, the self-congratulatory portions (“Word on Fire and Bishop Barron have been leading voices for accountability in the Church”) are extremely tone deaf and distasteful.

Finally, it’s important to note that, unlike other press releases, this one was not shared on the Word on Fire social media pages. It is not accessible or visible on the home page of the organization’s website, and one can only find it if one knows where to look. This press release wasn’t really “released.”

You are a bad writer, and this is bad reporting.

Ok, this isn’t really a question. But a number of people have said this. It may be true. But just because I’m a bad writer, and I wrote the piece badly, doesn’t mean these issues shouldn’t be taken seriously. I worry that some are saying this as a tactic to avoid looking at these problems. It can be a both/and. It can be the case both that I am a bad writer and that there are significant issues at WOF that need to be addressed.

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