Tucker Carlson and the Bp. Barron Kiss of Approval

Recently, Bp. Robert Barron has taken to flogging his relationship with dear, dear respected figure (check notes) Tucker Carlson.

Carlson, you may recall, was fired from FOX for lying his head off in defense of the Big Lie that Trump had won the 2020 election and, most especially, for earning the ire of Dominion Voting Systems for lying that they rigged the election. FOX offered him as a sacrificial goat because they had him dead to rights lying. They still wound up paying nearly a billion dollars in damages. Carlson, absolutely impenitent, has simply gone on to his basement podcast where he continues to lie for a living, as well as commit treason with suckupery to Trump’s leashholder Putin.

What you might not be aware of is that another reason Carlson was dumped by FOX was their fear that his massive, overt racism might make them look even more like the flaming racist network they are. To wit:

It was revealed this week in an article in The New York Times that one of the reasons Tucker Carlson was fired on April 24 was for sending a racist text message to one of his producers on Jan. 7, 2021. The popular Fox News host sent the text after watching footage of a group of Trump supporters beating up a young man in Washington, D.C., a couple of weeks before the attack on the Capitol. It read, in part, “Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight.”

The text’s implication was clear as day, a racist stage whisper everyone could hear: Black men and Asian men and Hispanic men and every other race of man gang up to beat someone senseless. But noble white men go mano a mano. They fight dirty. We fight fair. White men are trying to be good; all those other people are awful.

The statement was not out of character for the lightning-rod populist news figure. Tucker Carlson regularly inveighs against immigrants and advocates “replacement theory”—namely, that white people are being replaced by people of color.

Here’s the thing: so far as I know (and I am open to correction), despite all the chummy bonhomie between Carlson and Bp. Barron, I have never–not one time–heard a word of rebuke or correction for his impenitent lies. Nor have I heard a word of confrontation of his long history of racism or Great Replacement filth that lies (in every sense of the word) at the heart of MAGA ideology and was the uniting force for the violence of January 6:

It’s not like Carlson hasn’t offered him (and his audience) an open door to confront the racist filth in which Carlson routinely trades. Carlson has occasionally displayed a (very imperfect) sense of troubled conscience about his grave sins:

The rest of that text betrayed a self-confessional Tucker Carlson I can begin to identify with. And I would make a thousand-dollar bet you can, too.

It reads:

“Yes, I suddenly found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it. Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn’t good for me. I’m becoming something I don’t want to be. The Antifa creep is a human being. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I’m sure I’d hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?”

This part is a painful confession. This part is real. This is a pinhole gaze into Christian contrition and repentance. (Flawed as it is—Carlson calls the kid a creep and declares he would hate him personally.) Nevertheless. Bundled up in the dirty rag of racism is something true, that anyone who has ever hated someone can get behind: “I’m becoming something I don’t want to be.”

And: “I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it….”

Bp. Barron might easily have engaged that to call him and his audience to repentance since, as the Church says:

We cannot truly call on God, the Father of all, if we refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man, created as he is in the image of God. Man’s relation to God the Father and his relation to men his brothers are so linked together that Scripture says: “He who does not love does not know God” (1 John 4:8).

No foundation therefore remains for any theory or practice that leads to discrimination between man and man or people and people, so far as their human dignity and the rights flowing from it are concerned.

The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against men or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion. On the contrary, following in the footsteps of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, this sacred synod ardently implores the Christian faithful to “maintain good fellowship among the nations” (1 Peter 2:12), and, if possible, to live for their part in peace with all men,(14) so that they may truly be sons of the Father who is in heaven.

He could even have done what the America writer did and extended him charity for his real-but-profoundly-imperfect contrition while at the same time confronting him on the considerable quantity of half-assed and self-serving bullshit in that partial contrition. He could, in a word, have seized on a huge teaching moment for Carlson and his MAGA acolytes.

But he has done none of this, so far as I can see. Instead, he was simply helped platform a liar and affirmed a racist bigot in his okayness, giving him to understand that the muffled screams of his dying conscience are no big deal and glad-handing with him while ignoring both his victims and his dupes and their need for mercy and truth.

And don’t give me the “all things to all” and “eating with tax collectors and sinners” jive. Bp. Barron consistently chooses to turn a blind eye to MAGA culture warrior evil while also consistently being swift to reject and rebuff those who will never get an invite to a Napa Institute wine and cheese soiree. George Floyd’s body was only a few months in the ground when the bishop bravely faced the applause of MAGA Catholics to denounce what he called “vile wokism” with a forcefulness never reserved for the likes of Carlson’s lies and racism. And when perfectly reasonable Catholics of color and their allies attempted to speak reasonably with him about that, he met their pleas with stony, silent rejection.

It is, in short, very clear that, for Word On Fire, all tax collectors and sinners are equal, but some are far more equal than others.

My brethren, show no partiality as you hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man with gold rings and in fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while you say to the poor man, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brethren. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you, is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme that honorable name by which you are called?

If you really fulfil the royal law, according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well. But if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. (Jas 2:1–9)