Fr. Robert Barron: "I want our story told, and that's a reason I did this."

Tim Drake of National Catholic Register interviews Fr. Robert Barron of Word on Fire about "The Catholicism Project":

How did you first come up with the idea for "The Catholicism Project"?

That goes back about four or five years ago. I told the Word on Fire board that I wanted to do something like Kenneth Clark's Civilization, where he showed the beauty of civilization as he talked about it. I wanted to do the same for the Church by going to Europe, the Holy Land, Calcutta, Africa, Notre Dame Cathedral and elsewhere.

One of the board members suggested that I should drop everything else I was doing and do that. The board agreed and approached the cardinal about it. Cardinal Francis George, who had invited me to do the evangelizing-the-culture work, said that whatever he could do to make it happen he would do.

So, with the board and the cardinal behind me, we started raising money locally. It came through a lot of blood, sweat and tears, begging and events. Eventually, we obtained enough to do one trip. The cost was about $250,000 per episode for traveling, housing, filming and editing. We went to the Holy Land first.

I always had a 10-part series in mind. We filmed and continued begging, and once we had the money, we'd take our next trip. In the middle of the project, the economy collapsed, and many of our donors backed out. We continued praying, especially to the Little Flower [St. Thérèse of Lisieux], our patroness, and, in the end, we took 12 trips to 16 different countries and eventually got it done.

What was the high point in the filming?

For me, it was the Holy Land. It was the first time I had ever been there. Being in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was overwhelming. Out of reverence and the religious excitement of being there, I knelt down. Our cameraman filmed that and used it in the series.

Another highlight was visiting Uganda. I teach a number of African students and asked them where I should go to see Catholicism in Africa. All of them said I should go to Namugongo, Uganda. There, on June 3, they have a massive liturgy and procession for the martyr Charles Lwanga and companions on the site where he was burned at the stake.

To see 500,000 African Catholics come with this giant procession of priests and bishops was overwhelming. In the video, I use the line about the "blood of the martyrs being the seed of Christianity," and the camera pans back to show this massive gathering. That was an emotional highlight for me. ...

In the past few years, the level of hostility directed at the Church has really intensified. Your project was, in some ways, a response to that, wasn't it?

The sexual-abuse scandal was the worst period in the history of the American Catholic Church. What do we do? We respond institutionally, certainly, as we did with the Dallas Charter. But secondly, and most importantly, we as a Church need to come back to the basics of evangelism.

The Church needs to reassert what it's about. That's what Sts. Dominic, Benedict and Ignatius did. They responded to crisis by talking about what we are about — Jesus Christ and caring for the poor.

I saw the project under this rubric and felt we should go forward at this time. A year ago I was on a local Chicago news program and the opening question was: "You represent the religion that has the worst public relations in the world." I said, "Yes, we have this problem, but I refuse to let 2,000 years of Catholicism be reduced to the sexual-abuse scandal. A handful of people did terrible things, but we have 2,000 years of beauty, art, architecture, liturgy and the saints. We have St. Thomas Aquinas, [Blessed] Mother Teresa, the Notre Dame Cathedral. I don't want that reduced to the sexual-abuse scandal." I want our story told, and that's a reason I did this.

Read the entire interview. The project is receiving rave reviews, including this from George Weigel:

Over the next four decades, I wondered whether someone, somewhere, at some point, would do a "Civilization"-like series on Catholicism itself: a Grand Tour of the Catholic world that explored the Church as a culture through its teaching, its art, its music, its architecture—and above all, through the lives it shaped. That has now happened. The result is the most important media initiative in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States.

The man responsible for this feat is Father Robert Barron, a priest of the archdiocese of Chicago and a faculty member at Mundelein Seminary. Father Barron is an old friend (and a colleague on NBC's Vatican coverage), but I'll risk the charge of special pleading by stating unequivocally that Father Barron's "Catholicism", a 10-part series premiering on public television stations around the country this fall, is a master work by a master teacher. In 10 episodes that take the viewer around the Catholic world, from Chartres to the slums of Calcutta and dozens of points in-between, Father Barron lays out the Catholic proposal in a visually stunning and engaging series of presentations that invites everyone into the heart of the faith, which is friendship with Jesus Christ.

And Elizabeth Scalia writes:

I believe this effort by Father Robert Barron's Word on Fire — its instruction, it's beauty, it's passion and it's profound humanity in exploring the Incarnational Christ and His church — may well be the precise and timely tool we need to learn how to respond to the world "as it is," because it tells us things about ourselves, our church and our Savior that many of us do not even know, or have perhaps forgotten. ...

Catholicism is what we need to replenish and renew; this is the adult catechesis that can re-invigorate one soul, and then another, and then another, until a secure and confident force amasses — one that in the face of "reality" and relativism can declare "we know who we are, and who sustains us," and effect the spiritual and social revolutions we so desire.

Back in May, I wrote about my involvement with the project as author, under the direction of Fr. Barron and Fr. Steve Grunow, of the accompanying Study Guide:

It has been a tremendous honor to be involved in what I believe is a really remarkable project. There are many reasons for saying the "Catholicism Project" is remarkable, and I'll mention just a couple. First, the series is a unique and seamless marriage of catechesis, theology, history, culture, devotion, art, apologetics, and philosophy, adroitly presenting the great breadth and depth of Catholicism. This is a testament to Fr. Barron's impressive gifts as a pastor, theologian, philosopher, communicator, author, historian, and speaker. He challenges viewers to grapple with the mysteries of Faith while always avoiding two great temptations: to dumb things down or to be needlessly obscure or pedantic.

Secondly, having now seen a couple of episodes, I can say that the "Catholicism Project" captures, often in breathtaking fashion, the tremendous beauty of Catholicism. The cinematography is of the highest order, and the range of visual material is tremendous, including footage from all over the globe, in cathedrals and churches, at liturgies and in monasteries, of priests and laity, nuns and monks. Each episode highlights certain works of art, literature or architecture, and the Study Guide discusses these as well. In short, this is not only a most worthy introduction to Catholicism, but a vibrant and personal tour, if you will, of the Faith established by Christ and alive and well today, despite desperate rumors to the contrary.

"The Catholicism Project", I'm happy to say (again) is available through Ignatius Press; it has been on back order because of demand, but should be in stock again very soon:

• "Catholicism": The ten-part series on DVD
• Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith, by Fr. Robert Barron
• "Catholicism": Study Guide and Workbook