Continuing our conversation about conversion and growing in the faith, Adam Rasmussen, Rachel Dobbs, and I discuss how a distorted understanding of the faith has been widely promoted by Catholics with reactionary and fringe views.

It has become clear that ignoring these voices, following the strategy of not “giving them oxygen” has failed.

How did this happen, and how must the bishops, theologians, and the faithful respond? Did the bishops cede their influence as teachers of the faith in the 1980s and 1990s to independent grassroots apologists? Why are there so few public-facing theologians defending Pope Francis and the Magisterium?