The Matt Fradd drama proves Catholics don’t know how to disagree

Matt Fradd, Catholic podcaster and host of Pints with Aquinas, recently joined The Daily Wire, a conservative media company. According to Fradd, his show will remain focused on Catholic content, and he’ll retain editorial control.

This is great news. Matt gets a broader platform and the Daily Wire is more Catholic.

Of course, a lot of Catholics are upset.

Matt Fradd, looking as surprised as we all are

But their anger is indicative of a deeper problem in Catholicism: We don’t know how to disagree.

Why people are mad

I see three camps.

The first camp is on the left. They don’t like that Catholic voices tend toward conservatism. They don’t want the Catholic Church to be identified with the right.

The second camp is on the right. They don’t actually believe Fradd will retain editorial control, despite what he says. They believe he will be influenced by people they disagree with—especially Ben Shapiro.

I disagree with both.

But there’s a third camp I sympathize with. Some think the move is a net positive but wish something better had happened instead.

They say Fradd and other major Catholic creators should have built their own platform. A Catholic Daily Wire. Editorial control solely in the hands of devout Catholics. Independent. Uncompromising.

But that likely won’t happen. Why? Because of those first two camps.

We’re afraid to disagree

I’ve been doing Catholic media independently since I started my podcast in 2016. I’ve seen many attempts at creating a Catholic content platform. Virtually all have failed because the platform maintains too much editorial control. Catholic institutions are terrified of losing control of the message. They don’t want creators to deviate. They’re afraid of rocking the boat.

Independent creators know this fear well. Most Catholic media organizations will pressure you if you don’t toe the line—because they’re afraid of either 1) Allying with someone they disagree with or 2) upsetting people who don’t agree with them.

This goes deeper than media strategy. It speaks to a problem at the heart of our Church: we’re afraid of disagreement.

I once disagreed publicly with how Christopher West interprets Theology of the Body. He reacted to my video and made a little stir. But because of that disagreement, I was almost disinvited from a speaking engagement about dating. They were worried I was preaching heresy because I disagreed with Christopher West.

Church institutions are uncomfortable with conflict. They think it means one person is heretical.

Disagreements is not disloyalty

If I were totally blacklisted from speaking because of that disagreement, that would have been bad for me, obviously. But it also would have been bad for Christopher West—a good man with good ideas and some bad ideas, like all of us. It would be a shame if he or any of us lived our lives unchallenged.

The point of community is to move toward truth together. When you and a friend disagree, you are not trying to beat each other. You’re not supposed to prove he’s wrong and you’re right. You’re supposed to work together to find truth that exists outside of you.

Engaging with people who disagree with you—even allying with them, even being employed by them—is a good thing as long as there’s mutual trust that you are both seeking what is true.

That’s why I’m excited Matt is joining Daily Wire. He’s now part of a large organization having that conversation: What is true? And unlike many large organizations, they seem willing to be wrong. That willingness is sorely missing from public discourse, especially in the Church.

And that’s my takeaway from this whole Matt Fradd thing. We need to be willing to be around people with whom we disagree.

Otherwise, we’ll keep losing our best voices to secular platforms while wondering why we can’t build our own.