Welcome to Two Drinks, the column where The Free Press catches up with a newsmaker, trendsetter, or power broker. This week, Madeleine Kearns sits down with America’s second most famous bishop (after the Pope, of course)—Bishop Robert Barron—to discuss his work with the White House, his media empire, why trad Caths think he’s a liberal squish, his impressions of the Pope, J.D. Vance’s memoir, and much, much more!
Bishop Robert Barron did not expect the success he’s had.
“Everywhere I go in English-speaking lands, I’m mobbed by people, and it’s amazing,” he tells me over dinner.
He began his Catholic media empire, Word on Fire, with the simple conviction that the Church should be more involved in mass media. As a priest in Chicago, he broke into radio in the late 1990s, TV in the early 2000s, and was on the ground floor of YouTube in 2007.
Today, Word on Fire has over two million subscribers on the latter platform, plus 3.1 million Facebook followers and many more on Instagram and X. More than 500,000 people subscribe to receive Barron’s Daily Gospel reflection by email, where he writes about the lives of saints, unpacks scripture, and explains how Jesus’ message resonates today. Plus, he regularly appears everywhere from NBC to The Daily Wire.
“The English language and the internet means you have this huge range, and I never saw that coming,” he says modestly.
