There are a lot of conversations which happen on YouTube, and by and they can range rather widely in quality, though most aren’t nearly as good as individual videos are. This conversation between Bishop Barron and Jonathan Pageau was on the very high end of quality:

I watched it about four times, if I recall correctly. There are a great many interesting things that they bring up. The theme, fairly later on, that the main purpose of humanity before the fall was priestly—to lead all of creation in the right praise of God—was quite fascinating. Also the detail thrown out which I had never considered before that Eden had to be an elevated place because several rivers flowed from it in different directions, and of course it is on mountains where God is so often worshiped and encountered.

I also liked Jonathan’s observation that the people who want to make the Church worldly will inevitably fall away because they will, at some point, realize that they don’t need to go to Church to be worldly, and will stop going. This may be described as a particular instance of how the meek will inherit, but it is something we are seeing. On may, in particularly strict times, attract followers by promising laxity, but it does not work at all in lax times. You can see that in how many of the largest women’s religious orders which modernized and wear frumpy clothes from k-mart are collapsing but the traditionalist religious orders who are more cloistered and habited are flourishing.

Earlier on there was an interesting discussion of atheism, and how it can have something of a cleansing quality when catechesis has gotten too bad. I think that there is something to this; atheism can serve as a fire to burn away dead wood. Though I think that much of the new atheism was really about being anti-Islamic in the aftermath of 9/11, you can see that to some degree this has happened anyway. You don’t find many unthinking Christians these days, nor are there nearly so many merely cultural Christians. This is to the good; Christianity must be entered into as a whole person, mind with the rest. And merely cultural Christianity is a desecration.

It’s a really fascinating conversation that very much rewards listening to. Both men are quite sharp, in addition to being quite knowledgeable, and I very strongly recommend it.