Meet the bishop who weaves Gospel verses, art, and Tolkien into his ministry

Baltimore, Md., Jun 17, 2019 / 02:01 am

There are bishops who may or may not tweet with any regularity, and then there's "Amigo de Frodo", who provides daily Gospel verses, bits of art and literature, and maybe a Lord of the Rings quote or two at a Confirmation: Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville.

"As a bishop, I think Twitter-you shouldn't take yourself too seriously," Bishop Flores, who tweets under the handle @bpdflores, told CNA at the annual spring meeting of the U.S. bishops last week.

"It can be – it often isn't – but it can be a humanizing platform. And I think the challenge, just for Catholic Twitter in general, is to kind of be a humanizing voice in it that's respectful and that encourages and has imagination, and in a certain sense humor, in terms of how things can be."

One thing that can be seen on the bishop's account every single day is a Gospel verse from that day's reading and a brief reflection, in Spanish and in English.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">*Everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.<br><br>As charity- gift of the Risen Christ- takes possession of the heart, enabling us to love God and serve the good of others, there is less room in the heart to consent to sin. <a href="https://t.co/jBzGw2oKwo">pic.twitter.com/jBzGw2oKwo</a></p>&mdash; Amigo de Frodo (@bpdflores) <a href="https://twitter.com/bpdflores/status/1139487295411802113?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
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"I do think, fundamentally, for the Catholic Church, before we can tackle the problems and the issues, if we aren't fundamentally reading the Gospel every day and letting that inform how it is that we think and how it is that we see the world, then we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing in terms of being a people who are able to look at the world through the eyes of the Gospel, instead of judging the Gospel through the eyes of the world," he said.

"So it's just my way of saying 'folks, we all need to be reading the Gospel, and then we can deal with reality'."

Among the items discussed and voted upon by the bishops were measures to respond to the clergy abuse crisis, among them authorizing a hotline for victims of abuse by bishops to confidentially report the case.

On Tuesday, during a presentation of heads of the working group on immigration, bishops discussed the need for the Church to be concretely present to migrants and refugees, and especially undocumented immigrants whose future legal status is in question and who face deportation.

One item discussed was the threat of tariffs by President Trump against Mexico, to push for a stronger effort to curtail migration from Central America to the U.S.

"We can't use the immigrant as a bargaining chip," Bishop Flores told CNA of the tariff threats.

Bishop Flores is one of the "border bishops", whose diocese has for years been at the center of the rise in migrant children and women coming to the U.S. seeking asylum.

These migrants cannot be ignored, he said. "It's about the reality of the children and mothers and families are suffering. And we have to address that. There is no reading of the Gospel that the Church is familiar with that says we can exempt ourselves from any interest of what is going on here."

Ahead of the 2020 elections, immigration is once again expected to be a core issue among voters. When asked how voters can consider the Church's teaching on the right to migrate and on the state's just authority to regulate immigration, Bishop Flores pointed to global solidarity, the common good, and the limits of national sovereignty.

"The good of survival is a very high good in terms of Catholic social teaching," he said. "And while a country has a responsibility to defend its borders, it also has a responsibility to be just and reasonable in attending to the human crisis which is beyond our borders. Because Catholic social teaching has never considered national sovereignty as an absolute right that is sort of 'free to be capricious, it's not our problem'."

Pope Francis has taught of the "responsibility in global solidarity" to pay attention to crises beyond the borders of one's own country, he said, and the pope has pointed out problems that transcend national boundaries and demand the attention of everyone, such as human trafficking.

To ignore these problems, and the plight of migrants, as a country, "we will simply just kind of shrivel in terms of our own human awareness of the basic commonality we have as human beings."

"And the Gospel certainly calls us to look with open eyes as to the Lazaruses at the door. And to try to find some sort of reasonable accommodation to address those situations," he said. Migrants are often victims of gang violence and human traffickers, he said, "basically what the pope calls the modern slave trade. It happens not just in the Americas, it happens across the world."

"And this is, as the Holy Father keeps saying to the world, especially to the economically successful in the world, you can't keep pretending this is not happening."