Catholic Bishop Robert Barron says society's love of athletic “excellence” on display at this year's Olympics runs counter to its current concern for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives and other efforts to ensure people have equality of life outcomes rather than opportunities.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, the bishop of the Winona-Rochester diocese in Minnesota and prominent Catholic influencer used the example of elite Olympic gymnast Simone Biles to illustrate the folly of DEI. He explained that her talent arose because she outperformed other athletes to become the best. In other words, she excluded individuals who were not up to par in their sport.
“Well, that's not only unfair, it goes against the excellence that we're celebrating,” Barron told Fox, regarding how the forced equality of results goes against what people so loudly applaud at the Olympics.
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Bishop Robert Barron tells Fox News Digital how the pursuit of athletic excellence runs counter to society's quest for diversity quotas. (Fox News Digital)
Bishop Barron said there is a “tension” between sporting achievement and so-called equity.
“I don't think you can really have both at the same time,” he said, noting that there is an important difference between equity of outcome and “equality of opportunity.”
She used the record-breaking gymnast, whom she called “the greatest of all time,” to make a point: “Let's say at some point in her career Simone Biles was told, 'No, no, you can't make the gymnastics team because you're black or because you're a woman,' or whatever. Of course, that's unfair. And that should be something to fight against at any time and at any level.”
And he continued: “Well, there is equality of opportunity. But there is also equality of outcome, which our society now seems to value highly; so that the outcome of a situation or a certain area of life should correspond to, let's say, the racial breakdown of a society, etc.”
Bishop Barron stated that this latter framework was unfair and then went on to describe how the fact that Biles has reached a higher athletic level than virtually anyone else in the world in her field is contrary to that and worthy of praise.
“She's at the pinnacle of Olympic excellence because throughout her life, a lot of people have been excluded. What I mean is not that they weren't given equal opportunities, but that, well, she won a medal, which means that the other people who competed with her didn't win the medal.”
“She was part of one team after another, which meant that all kinds of people who joined the team were excluded,” he added.
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Bishop Robert Barron described how Olympian Simone Biles' pursuit of athletic excellence contradicts our society's push for radical inclusion. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
He used other examples of people or institutions achieving excellence that contradicted the philosophy of equity of outcomes. He mentioned a talk he gave at an American university in which he asked students if they thought their institution had achieved “full inclusion.”
Barron said the students all nodded in agreement, so he confronted them with the fact that there was “an army of people” who were “excluded from the process for you to be included in this university.”
“I'm not judging the school at all. I'm not saying it's unfair. I'm saying they want to be an elite school. And so they excluded all kinds of people so that the really great students could be included,” Barron said, before doing the same for members of a world-class orchestra.
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