EWTN Live - 11-16-2011 - Catholicism - Fr Mitch Pacwa SJ with Fr Robert Barron

if you had to use three words to describe Jesus would you use strange dangerous and divisive well tonight on EWTN live we'll talk with one man who did and find out why so please stay with us [Music] [Applause] thank you thank you and welcome I'm father Mitch Pacwa and welcome to EWTN live our chance to bring you guests from all over the world before we get you tonight's guests I want to mention that today is the feast of Saint Margaret of Scotland she was born in 10:45 AD and died in 1092 not very long life but enough time for him to become very holy she married Malcolm the third who is the King of Scotland and used her influence as Queen to support the cause of religion and piety including the eventual regulation of the Lenten fast and the observance of the Easter Communion so she was canonized by Pope Innocent the fourth in 1250 ad so we want to continue to pray for the church in Scotland many of whom watch us and God bless them and the growth of their church now we have some guests tonight who've been spanning the world they came only from Chicago but they've been going all over the world to bring the heart of Catholicism to your television screen in an inspiring new documentary series meant to evangelize Catholics and Protestants alike simply titled Catholicism it has already been picked up by PBS and it has prompted Chicago superstation WGN to launch a weekly half-hour television series called word on fire hosted by the documentaries creator so please welcome the creator of Catholicism series father Robert Barron and the series director and editor mr. Matt Leonard Paul the Baron is capable of so you've completed this series how many parts of the series do you have father we have 10 episodes so we cover 10 of the major themes of Catholicism and I went around the world to find places and color and texture that would exemplify these themes so we have 10 episodes in total yeah I've been watching this series and you know you start off in the Holy Land you return there as necessary for the same but you're also in Rome in India and Africa and other parts of Europe Schatz from Sweet Home Chicago great steam countries I think and I wanted to give that sense of the global texture of Catholicism because we're a world religion and I wanted that to come through I think it does each episode I might go to four or five six different locations so as we're discussing God or Jesus or church or sacraments you're getting a sense of this really global reality which is the Catholic Church I know that comes across in the video in the video and Matt did you go to all these places yourself I did I was part of the crew there were two places that we didn't go we didn't go to the Philippines and Brazil we sent a camera crew out there but everywhere else we were we were there from as long as short as three days to two weeks depending on how much stuff we had to shoot there sure but yeah it was an amazing experience you know one of the things that amazed me is how often you were able to get shots of very big very busy locations and shrines and tourist sites and you got shots with nobody in it like you got an opening scene from the Sistine Chapel yeah no how did you get everybody cleared out well we pulled some strings and I guess you what do you know the hope it was interesting you know we sometimes would get into a place before the tourists you know ours were so we'd film at 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. other times though it was simply our crew taking the people saying folks could you just hold on for a second and we drew them quickly very often be filming a stand-up and there'd be all kinds of people standing around looking at pointing and so we do it different ways I think as we moved on and we sort of learned the trick of filming for hours after hours maybe at lunchtime I remember in the Orvieto Cathedral we filmed in that beautiful section where the Signorelli frescoes are and the tour guide said to us or the the curator you got 10 minutes and so they opened the little gate we went in and I had to do this kind of elaborate stand-up talking about angels and devils in ten minutes and then it was through and then all the tourists came back in so we sort of scramble learned our way around for hours after hours one of the places that really amazed me was how you got an empty song Chappell yeah you know did you go too quickly I didn't but of course is my the chapel yeah North st. James check and uh you know South Chappell is one of the treasures of Europe one of most beautiful places but it takes forever to get in this big crowds and all and you got it without a crowd yeah of course I was a student in Paris for three years I did my doctoral work there so I knew Sanchi felt well but I had never gotten in except through the tourist line where you come up the stairs wait for hours no we just got in before of the tourist hours it was probably 6:00 a.m. okay film there and then a great moment was after the stand-up the cameraman said to me if either one she just go outside the doors because you never get in those main doors open the door and just enter the chapel so I did and we got this shot and I said right that's our money shot that's the shot for the whole series right opening the door to this treasure-house of Catholicism so that was a great joy that day let me tell you show you a little bit of a clip to give you an idea of how good the series looks we'll take a look at one of the trailers we don't realize how dangerous Jesus what if he is who he says he is then we have to give our whole life to Him if he's not who he says he is he's not a good man he's the dangerous misguided phonetic Jesus more than any other figure more than any other religious founder compels us to make a choice [Music] the church has meant together not just the people of the world it's meant in some mystical way to gather all of creation all of nature around the energy of Christ to be grounded in price she realized was to be grounded in that very power which here and now creates the cosmos that power which lies beyond the vagaries of space and time [Music] the Christian faith has never meant to be held on to it's meant to be shared and so the Apostolic Church to the present day still has that great missionary focus [Music] come that you might have a life and habits before you know one one of the things that I'm aware of is that this is meant to be an evangelization tool for Catholics and Protestants alike you know because one of the things I like about going through the videos is that it's a compendium of the faith and you touch so many aspects of key doctrine but you do it not as a book but you do it on film and video yeah that was my goal from beginning was to talk about the faith were a smart religion or theologically sophisticated religion but we're also beautiful and I wanted to use that as an evangelical tool some people you know are converted less by words and more by images I do a lot with the Rose windows because I love the Catholic churches and the great paul claudel you know was converted by looking up at the North Rose window at Notre Dame that happens I think of of Cardinal Luce TJ who was the Archbishop of Paris when I was a student he was converted as a young man when he walked into one of the great cathedrals so I take that very seriously to use beauty as a means of evangelization and maybe someone is put off a bit by you know a to verbal approach but they see something that's so splendid it speaks of God the source of beauty and I wanted that to come through in this series well it does you know you really use a lot of wonderful artwork you you go to places you have Caravaggio you have stained-glass windows you use the art and the churches to which you go I mean I recognize that artwork that you have all over the holy land you know it's you know marvelous imagery that you bring in and you use that along with words so that the words and the images go together it's incarnation 'el it's Catholic you know the word becomes flesh and and I argue that the Incarnation is prolonged through space and time precisely in the church in the Saints in the liturgy the the Eucharist the teaching of the church is the prolongation of the Incarnation the word keeps becoming flesh among us I wanted that to come through I wanted the people to see it one of the great inspirations for this was Kenneth Clarke civilization from the 1970s now a wonderful series right where he showed Western civilization I thought well if he can do that with Western art how much more with the Catholic faith because we're such a visual sensual religion and I wanted that now to be part of the real texture of the show and I think it really comes across when you were working on the crew mat what did you find as some of the challenges in getting these images well you know we fortunately we had a brilliant cinematographer this guy John Cummings who was just great so he you know honestly a lot of times it was just about you know we're in this beautiful place John just get a bunch of great-looking shots and he did he did he did wonderful work you know and the whole crew did such a great job at organizing everything at getting us in at good times and his father Baron said you know if we needed five minutes for people to you know stay out of the way they were good at you know sort of at gently asking people you know could you give us a give us a couple minutes so the challenge for me there wasn't much challenge for me because of the people I was surrounded with were so great Oh being way too modest I mean you think of all these programs every shot is a decision that you know he is the editor here to make to put these together in this kind of lyrical way and they really do flow in this beautiful manner and that's you know that's Matt's genius to have seen all that and he's right about John Cummings John was a wonderful cameraman and often we would film the stand up so we do you know a film of me speaking and then we'd say John go and we're in Krakov we're in Jerusalem we're in Calcutta we're in Mexico City Rome and John would just wander around that city and take in you know the imagery and the color and the vitality that's what you see coming through over and over again right now one of the things that uh besides the approach it take that you know invites people in because of its beauty there's also the importance of the content you know for instance you begin by focusing on who Jesus Christ is you ask that question you also go into other key figures of the faith you have a one video just on the bus and mother yeah you deal with Peter and Paul you know so what are some of the themes that you wanted to get across about our Lord Jesus Christ yeah and you're right that I want to start with Jesus I think if Christian theology gets off the ground in any other way it becomes problematic you have to begin with Jesus Christ and then you can connect everything to him he's like he's like a rose window if he's in the center the rest will fall into harmony you start somewhere else the project will become skewed so I wanted to begin with him and you saw it a little bit in that trailer I wanted to begin with the distinctiveness of Jesus my generation got an awful lot of the language of a domesticated Jesus I would say Jesus who's like a lot of other religious teachers like a lot of other gurus I can find him inspiring and so on but see that's to miss Jesus because Jesus novelty is that he spoke and acted in the person of God see that's one of the things that you really bring out yeah he is not like Muhammad Moses Buddha or any of these other people there's something radically different that's right how would you put that into words well just that I mean and I say to the credit to the credit of the Buddha and Muhammad and Sony they're not drawing attention to themselves I mean Muhammad would say this revelation I received I want you to know it or the Buddha would say there's a path I found I want you to walk it I benefited from it maybe you will to the Buddha in fact drew attention away from himself in a certain way then there is Jesus I can say what you want about him whether you believe or not there's the claim of Jesus the question is not what do people think about my teaching the question is who do people say that I am and that's because throughout the Gospels he consistently says and does the things that only God could say and do therefore you've got to make a choice about him and I'm arguing there with CS Lewis and many others that Jesus compels a choice the way the other founders don't right I think I'm not putting other founders down they just don't compel the choice the way Jesus does because of the way he speaks in acts and and you will see for instance in Buddhism that there is a devotion to the Buddha yeah in Islam yeah there is an extraordinarily high respect and love for Muhammad yeah but in Christianity it's something else it is and one of the clues you know as you well know in the early church the preoccupation with the ontology of Jesus who is he what's his being we didn't get by ontology the being of someone what makes up the existence of someone so we get up as Catholics every Sunday and we say Jesus Christ you know God from God light from light true God from True God begotten not made we're making ontological claims about him about his being we're a Buddhist wouldn't fuss about the ontology of the Buddha Muslim would not fuss about the ontology of Muhammad no even granting all the respect and so on and that tells you that something distinctive about Christianity and it goes right back to says a real Philip I to who do people say that I am and to the way that Jesus distinctively spoke and acted which compels this decision as he himself said either you're with me or you're against me and that's why because he makes you choose how you stand visa vie him and I think that's the starting point of Christianity right how do you stand visa vie Jesus if he is who he says he is as I say in that clip then you have to give your life to him if he's not who he says he is he's actually a bad man that's mercy as low as his argument right the old tradition had it out day without malice homo either he's God or he's a bad man and that's the choice that that he compels and this is one of the things that when you do your video on the Blessed Virgin Mary yeah you also make it very clear that all the statements and the conciliar points that are made at episode which you do nice shot at that church and we're where the doctrine of the Theotokos yeah was defined yeah you always make the point that the things said about Mary are really to go back to Jesus right and I quote Fulton sheen there that Mary's light is always reflected light like the light of the Moon and see even look at the moon in some ways more easily the Sun is so bright you can't take it in but the moon you can gaze at in a contemplative way so in a similar way we can gaze at the Blessed Mother but it's a reflected light from her son so all the claims that we make about her doctrinally are meant to be really christological claims finally statements about Jesus Christ yeah to say that she's the mother of God let's explain something extraordinary about her but it's also witnessing to the Incarnation that she has truly is gay and a lot of people think as a matter of fact the one that they were arguing about notorious you know use the argument that the statement that Mary is the mother of god or the Theotokos yeah is means that she must be God Aaron a lot of people still try to make that argument that's not the point is it no it's actually interesting in Ephesus as you know there's that great temple to to the goddess you know Diana Diana and so the claim is made sometimes oh they just transplanted the ancient you know belief in the goddess Diana now to the goddess Mary no no she's the mother of God and that makes the difference she's not a goddess she's a human being but she's the mother of the one who is God and therefore it's a it's a crystal logical claim and claim about Jesus and so we made that point in Ephesus that there's an interesting play here this is the place of Diana but we're not dealing with a new Diana here we're not dealing with a new goddess no but with the mother of God right but I love that you're right the the film in the ruins of the Basilica there in Ephesus I found very moving and to recall that when they made that declaration of feo tacos the people the common people and a torch light exaggerated they rejoiced in this title of Mary so the theologians came around to saying it correctly eventually but the people had that deep sense about Mary right right no it was there was something where the bishops and theologians yeah you know were at one in faith with the people that was important no map you had some challenges as some cool things happen to you went up to talk about purgatory in Scotland not that you think Scotland is purgatory oh do you actually Ireland it was also in Ireland you went to talk but you're not saying that Ireland is purgatory no that would be your point it's I've not been to Ireland but the pictures are lovely but they but you you why did you go to Ireland to talking about purgatory well Father Baron ed knew about this island called Loch durg which is where pilgrims go to I don't know how you would put it to just do yeah you know and and they had four for three days or two or three days they don't wear any shoes they don't sleep they fast and it's meant to be a you know very very challenging to three-day event and you know so he was using that to illustrate what purgatory would be like when we went to Ireland it was beautiful weather I mean blue skies brilliant sunshine except for the one day that we were going to shoot at this island it was miserable let's take a look at the clip we have that out ready for us Lock derp is a rocky uninviting island located in the middle of a forgotten lake in Northwest Ireland - this place strangely thousands of people come every year in order to make a penitential spiritual retreat they are ferry to the island and then told to take off their shoes and signs they are to remain unshod for the duration of their spiritual exercise they spend the first day praying the rosary walking on their knees over punishing beds of stone and attending services for that day and night they are not permitted to sleep if they don't rudely awakened them after two and a half days of practically constant prayer and spiritual exertion the retreatants are ferried back to the mainland in the Middle Ages this island was known as st. Patrick's purgatory and popular legend said that the entrance to purgatory was nearby we can dispense of course with the crude literalism but we should still pay attention to the association of what took and takes place on locked door and what the church means by purgatory in the supernatural sons [Music] those who come to the island love God they wouldn't go through such punishment unless they did but they recognize imperfections in themselves which need to be corrected so that their relationship to God might be set fully right and therefore they willingly go through a crucible just as denizens of Hell if there are any are there freely so those who pass through purgatory do so because they want once more this is nothing to do with a supposin cruel to your capriciousness on God's part it has to do with the sinners perceive need to deal with the effects of his sin so that in this case the weather was cooperating with you to show a little bit of the you know that the penitential life that that they live there unlocked door yeah if it were sunny out it would look that looks kind of nice you know walking in your bare feet it's you know nice lovely grass blue sky I'd like to go there but it just so happened that the weather and that's what was amazing about this this whole project is that for two years we never had a day that was was canceled by weather everything was perfect the only really bad day was that one day the one day that we needed the weather to be bad it was it was bad so one sense what we're saying is that you are really a code director with God exact right exact he's taking care of the weather the rain yeah I couldn't pull that also I noticed that in one of the videos that you were at the installation of the patriarch of Jerusalem he just happened to be there by chance we were in Jerusalem we were filming at the church Holy Sepulcher and then we hear around the bend this banging on the ground right right and then we hear this music I like martial music and Matt's dad Mike Leonard you know who's a Today Show correspondent and Mike was the executive producer of the show and that's a great part of the story too but Mike said what's going on and I say I don't know let's see and so we waited and around came this procession and then I remember that I had heard oh yeah the Latin patriarch is being installed as it must be the installation of Latin patriarch and so we got all that in film and and then Mike said oh tell me now on camera what's going on so I did a little explanation we had moments like that we're just might chance by wonderful times these things handling and that was a very interesting scene right one of the places that I remember in our conversation yesterday you were saying you really enjoyed Uganda oh gosh yeah yeah what was what was it that you liked so uh we went to namu gongo which is outside of Kampala and I taught students from Uganda for many years at one line and I'd ask them where underline is what it's the seminary outside Chicago oh just for Chicago seminarians but also guys from all over the country and even around the world I said where should I go to show African Catholicism and they all said namo Gong go I said where's now morongo it's where Charles lawanda and his companions were killed so he was the young man a page to the king of Uganda who refused sexual favors and and then resisted the Kings attempt to you know force him out of the faith and he and his companions were marched out to the site now mu Ganga and they were killed they're burned at the stake and now every year on June the 3rd the Feast of Charles illunga 500 thousand people come for this festive mass so we were right there at the heart of it and this beautiful you know exuberant African singing and dancing and so on then behind them in stately procession with the red cassock and the surplus the servers and all the priests and bishops and a great thing for me where they're filming and we were kind of standing out in the sea of you know African faces there were these white faces and we're filming so I'd hear father Baron is one of my students whom I taught here's one I never thought he'd ever seen me and namu Gong what are you doing here so we caught all that on film and it's whenever I talk about it I'm always moved again because anyone watching that scene back in 1886 would have said that's the end of Catholicism here in Uganda and now you know the blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christians there you see it and that place still stays in my mind yeah because now instead of the blood of the martyrs that was once shed there you have all these huge cursing and Christianity is growing very rapidly in Africa by leaps and bounds we tend to look at it as you know through the you know western lands and we all say oh the churches are suffering or numbers going down but then look outside look look to Latin America to Africa to Asia but especially Africa you're right this explosion 140 million Catholics now I think they're saying 400 million maybe in 50 years so we have to look around the world and I wanted the series to do that to some degree is to show the wider Church right right no it's very exciting and that you know you you show that what why were you focusing on those martyrs was there besides wanting to go to Africa yeah well it was tell us a little bit about the the maturity to do just a martyrdom yeah you know part of it was the suggestion of the students as I mentioned but I want to in the series always to show individual lives so we're dealing with ideas and abstractions you know incarnation and God and Trinity and so on but I wanted always to show this looks like something it shows up in people's lives so I have a whole episode on Saints I look at for Saints but throughout the series I wanted lives that embody it and of course the martyrs they correspond in many ways to that great demand of Jesus how do you stand visa vie Jesus right are you with him here against him they make the most radical decision when push comes to shove they said I'm with him even if it means my own death I'm with him because of who he claimed to be if he's one teacher among many you say oh yeah I like his teaching but if you're gonna kill me over but if he is who he said he'll be over him that's right not over his teaching that's right it was his teaching I mean it could take or leave it but if you say no this is someone who claims to be God then you have to take a stand you know and the martyrs did that in the most dramatic way so I we talking about Edith Stein for example in the Saints episode and we filmed in Auschwitz well if she died that was a great moment cuz I knew she had died - words I didn't know exactly where though in the camp and we had a guide you have to have a guide when you go in to Auschwitz and I said well I'd like to film at the end of those tracks you know the train tracks that come in and they end so brutally there because people just were taken off the train he said oh no no but she wouldn't have come by those tracks they were 1943 she came in 42 I said ah so where did she end up these I'll show you and he showed me the ruins of the gas chamber where she died just the ruins and then behind it this open feel with kind of a pit in it where the bodies were burned right and so we film right there and yeah extraordinarily moving and you're right about the martyrs that they show forth the distinctiveness really of this claim we have to take a break we want to let you know that if you want more information on the series please go to www.assist.org series.com we're going to take our break now we'll be back in a couple of minutes and we want to get some of your questions and your comments as well as those of our studio audience so please stay with us [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] thank you and welcome back first I want to mention that we've got a nice group of folks here from different parts of the country who have come to join us and we'd love to have you come and be part of our audience and to join us at mass as well if you can make a pilgrimage here to EWTN please contact our pilgrimage Department at two zero five two seven one two nine six six that's two zero five two seven one twenty-nine sixty-six or he can also go to our website WWE wtn comm and you can find out more they'll help you with where you can stay and scheduling of programs tours of the network the masses and getting up to hands full to the shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament so come down here and join us are you ready for some questions I'm ready alright let's go to a call to have mark on the line hello mark hey hey how are you what's up pretty good doing well good what do we do for you today well I just wanted to thank both father baron and mr. Leonard for this for this wonderful series and I was wondering when the show was effort if it was was shown on PBS what was the reaction from what was the feedback from the average viewing audience about the series oh great question good thank you for that thanks for your nice words you know we pitched it to WTTW in Chicago which is the PBS channel and and they said they loved it they would love to show it and then they syndicated around the country to about a hundred other PBS channels okay so we were just delighted with that it's been playing as he was suggesting over the past month and the feedback so far has been very good oh good ratings have been good very little negativity a little bit from people saying you know why is public television showing a show on Catholicism but really very little most of the feedbacks been very positive and that's not round the country it's been in LA it's been in it's New York next week of course Chicago Miami all over the country so I've been delighted with that excuse me are they going to show all 10 episodes no they decided to take a package of four okay which is the usual timeslot they deal with and they said we'll choose four that we think would have the broadest appeal to secular audience and they chose the first episode on Jesus the third episode on God then the episode on Mary and the one on Peter and Paul okay and so I was delighted if they chose those for sure sure great congratulations on that we have a question from our studio audience father where are you from I'm from the Diocese of Springfield Massachusetts and I echo the caller I congratulate mr. Leonard and father Barron for not only having foresight but being courageous and doing it with a smile God loves a cheerful Giver I'm wondering especially in New England the church really is suffering from crisis in many ways and there's a lot of hostility not only directed at us but us at others I was wondering in your professional opinion is the media newspaper is the Internet TV are they really anti-catholic and a source of inks for us or is it more a type of indifference where they we have not won them over and I was wondering what really is your primary goal for making these wonderful programs yeah good thank you for all those questions the primary goal was to evangelize and I didn't want to make a sort of you know objective documentary where you get five scholars looking at it I wanted to be an insider's approach it was a Catholic insider who wanted to talk about Catholicism and show it but I hope this lyrical way that would draw people in so evangelization in the manner of john paul ii and pope benedict was the was the goal terms of the media of course is a complicated question as you well know I think there is some yes anti-catholicism in the media you can see in a lot of ways there's an animus against religion in general and you see the rise the new atheist and so on but I think Catholicism becomes the the whipping boy in many ways it's the it's the religions often you know picked on what do you do well I mean we can enter into a sort of a mano a mano combat with the media or we can maybe try to engage them you know and I'm trying I think we this series to do that is to say no there's something beautiful and rich and substantive about Catholicism yes we have this crisis that we have to deal with absolutely but I don't want Catholicism reduced to the sex abuse scandal there's 2000 years of art architecture theology the Saints poetry the liturgy etc and I want to show that and maybe beguile the media into looking you know with a less jaundiced eye that's been my strategy yeah and I think that it's not just the abuse scandal that's been because well before that came into play there was a strong anti-catholic strain as my factor i cooperated on a video called hollywood versus catholicism and this is a trend that was going on back since the 60s yeah and that yeah Catholicism was being attacked very strongly more you know evangelicals are too you know they don't necessarily like this evangelicals either yeah Jews less so but Christians are our targets and that stands in contrast to the 1930s 40s and 50s when song of Bernadette won an Academy Award going my way won an Academy Award and bells the Saint Mary yeah these were great Catholic movies and then there were lots of biblical movies and that changed in the late 60s in Fulton sheen of course in the 50s in right right very much so yeah and there's that strain of anti-catholicism that you see in much of American both high in popular culture going back to the early days which pops up I think you're right you can look at trends and say well in that period it was less prevalent but then it comes up and you know part of the JFK and his campaign reawakened some of the anti-catholic sentiment I think now the sex abuse scandal has done that but you're right it's run as a strain through a lot of American history the idea I think is to engage the wider culture and to show forth Catholicism in its splendor and its beauty opposing the culture when we have to and there are times when we have to there's the culture of death which does manifest itself my church has to stand against it but also the church looks forward the Fathers called law boys permit Okoye right the seeds of the word the word fully expressed in Jesus but then there are seeds of the word all over the place in philosophy in culture in the arts and so on and that's still true today right that's behind a lot of my work with the Internet I do these little YouTube commentaries on books and movies and music and popular culture and high culture and that's my inspiration is the law boys / Mata coy I'm looking for seeds of the word so I like that approach to the culture you have to oppose it sometimes other times you engage it and I think both are strategies that we've used over the centuries right we have another caller Joan is on the line hello Joan hi father Pacwa and calling from Yonkers New York great and what's your question by Justin my question is to when father Baron was what expired him inspired him to do the documentary and also was it because you know to show richness in the Catholic Church and and don't fall in the weak brothers and sisters yeah there are a lot of things inspired me but one of them was this time we're going through you know I might priesthood I've been freeze for 25 years I'm weird a 1986 and the first wave of the sex abuse scandal at least in Chicago you know his early 90s so he much of my priest has been under the cloud of the sex abuse scandal and it is the worst crisis in American Catholic Church history seems to be the last 10-15 years well what if the great Saints done in times of crisis you know go back to Benedict go back to dominic and Francis and Ignatius well they've come forward with a sort of back to basics evangelicalism to say what's the church about you know so think of of Francis and Dominic returning to the great gospel sources Ignatius rediscovering the spiritual heart of the matter so I thought that's a good thing to do now is to say let's recover what were fundamentally about so I that was part of the inspiration was to respond to the time that we're going through also I was very interested in reaching out to inactive Catholics they say the number two religion in America after Catholics are ex Catholics right if you if you count it the number two religion would be ex Catholics I'm very interested in getting them awakened reinvigorated that someone just might see something they might hear something in the show that would bring them back that was very much an inspiration to write Matt how is this this goal of the program how has that affected you in various ways well I was exactly who he's describing when this project started I was a lapsed Catholic I was Catholic and name only grew up that way but didn't really feel strongly connected to the faith other than it was the faith of my parents and my grandparents but it and that's probably part of the reason that that we connected is because I you know I could provide a hopefully a perspective on you know here's what I'm missing or here's what I didn't understand and here's what confuses me and but going through you know I feel so much stronger in my faith now two years later I mean it went from my first child honestly was I we had him baptized but it was just because I thought we should you know that's just what was done in in my family you know by my second child it was no question about it and I think that it's well I know that's 100 percent due to working on the series and I hope that you know it's like a testimonial it worked for me hopefully it'll work for many many many people excellent excellent let's go to another question why studio and sir were you from hello I'm from Missouri in the Diocese of Jefferson City Missouri actually from Columbia Missouri okay and your question well let me say a few thoughts here as a world traveler - and a convert to Catholicism seeing the extent of the Catholic Church around the world really was an inspiration to me and also of interest in history and it's a physician the development of medicine through the Catholic Church I think I think you've got the perfect evangelism tool here and I congratulate you and thank you very much for it and I hope it really gets a widespread showing both here in the States and overseas also thank you just address the issue you raised about science and medicine in relation to the faith because one thing that really bugs me is this constant claim that were the enemy of science that faith and science are implacable foes we filmed outside of Tucson at the Vatican rhetoric way up in the in the mountains outside of Tucson is this state-of-the-art observatory and at that site I developed Yosef Ratzinger's argument for God's existence which is based upon the intelligibility of the world every scientist has to assume and it's a kind of mystical intuition that the world is intelligible psychology wouldn't get off the ground must sell the psyche had a law Gosse attached to it it was intelligible no astronomer would get off the ground less he thought that the heavens had some kind of order and structure and Ratzinger's point is this universal intelligibility speaks to a great intelligence which has thought the world into being his point there is that at the deepest level science and faith are are one that they they come together as as brothers or sisters you know because there's a mystical intuition behind the sciences about this great intelligence that gives rise to intelligibility and so I wanted to make that point as clearly as I could in the series that faith and reason are not opponents were the great both and religion faith and reason faith and science and I wanted that to come through because you hear it all the time today in the popular culture one of the things that I always loved is st. or CS Lewis's argument that science depends on faith yeah you science cannot prove the scientific method on ground because yeah too do so you'd have to do the scientific method you had to prove something by itself as tautology that's right you you break the rules yeah of logic and so you assume and believe that the scientific method is true and is well grounded but you can't prove it no and you also have to assume that the world you're gonna go out to meet is intelligible right that's a mystical intuition and we say course in the beginning was the word and all things came to be through the word which means they're not dumbly they're they're intelligibly they're they're marked by an intelligence and that's why I would argue with many others that it's no accident that the Western science has emerged when and where they did namely out of a Christian thought matrix because it's this great doctrine of creation which says the world isn't God therefore you don't worship the world you can experiment on the world you can analyze it but more to it the world is marked in every nook and cranny by intelligibility those are both corollaries of the more fundamental doctrine of creation and that's why this theology stands behind the sciences also how many people know I find on my internet ministry no one knows this the formulator of the big bang theory of cosmic origins was a preacher to atresia was a judgment priest George lamento so we found a photograph of him in his Roman collar with the blackboard filled with equations another photo of Lamech go and his collar next to Einstein he had to convince Einstein that this was right Einstein was resisting him how many people know that and that a Catholic priest formulated the great theory that everyone holds today of cosmic origins and he was able to teach Einstein yeah that's what he's taught I'm stuck yes a bug in the same theory but every day you hear you know faith reason implacable opponents not in the Catholic understanding you know I wanted that to come through so we think that's why we filmed up in Tucson even the father of genetics it was an Augustinian right that's right no in Austria yeah so it's you know there's a very important role of science and Catholic life and all of our universities are high schools teach science just yet well just the other day we celebrated Saint Albert the great patron saint of scientists yeah who was teaching science at the earliest universities of Europe that's right he was like doing cutting-edge science in his day and we look back now and say well the old primitive here and there well sure but it was the cutting-edge science of his day and he saw no contradiction between being a Dominican friar and being a scientist right and the line from Albert the Great to George lumetri is a direct line yep you know so that's a story that needs to be told I think over and over again yes absolutely I have to do more document she's just on that no quite right yeah yeah oh we have another caller Rich's on the line hole rich I father where are you from Tulsa Oklahoma great then what's your question well I was wondering from all the places that father Baron visited where did he is he's a wonderful place is where did he most sense the presence of God oh gosh that's a great question and you know I'm still unpacking this adventure I will for the rest of my life probably is one of the great moments of my life these two years of filming I sense the presence of God everywhere on every trip that's true but probably Jerusalem I'd never been to the Holy Land before we film there and just to be in remember the first night we'd arrived in Jerusalem and we got to the hotel and a jet lag and all this but I went down to the Western Wall you know and to stand there at this place you know this place that Jeremiah were the temple was that Jesus entered a new I mean it was extraordinarily moving to me and then to film in Galilee and you look around those hills and and we were there at night when you don't see many lights up there in those hills you think what this has not been that changed I mean Jesus would have seen this scene our cameraman took us up or our sound man wasn't Israeli and he took us up to the northeast corner it's beautiful sight spot overlooking the Sea of Galilee and he took the whole thing in in one view right there you know Farnham and and the hills were Jesus preached and there's the water on which he walked I'll never forget that I sensed God's presence so powerfully in the Holy Land the church the Holy Sepulchre how can any believer go in that church and that be moved right you know so that was probably the place that most sang to me yeah I know I I go back to the Holy Land past the ever yeah you know it's it's one of the places that I find also very powerful again but it's but I also noticed how much liveliness of the faith that you you you captured in your footage from Africa oh that must have been very powerful too wonderful yeah unforgettable that same trip you know we went to Calcutta and then to Uganda right we had to we were running out of time a little bit we had to get a lot of filming done so we that was an extraordinary trip I never been to Calcutta and never seen a place like Calcutta and to go into the midst of the city and the worst of its squalor and there you find them on the Teresa sisters and that was as beautiful as shard I mean it see the the smiles on the faces of those sisters working in the worst possible conditions and then we flew from there to Uganda you just saw some scenes there of a an orphanage north of Kampala that's run by a former student of mine and he invited us out there to to film and to visit you know so yeah that trip was was unforgettable all right let's go to another caller of Lorraine on the line hello Lorraine hello father were you from I'm calling from Tampa Florida I just want to say I love your show and I'm really looking forward to this series oh great what's your question I had a couple of two or three questions I wondered who chose the music who wrote the script how was it financed I think father Baron said it took two years to film that was one of my questions and I'd like to know which religious order father Baron belongs to and the Order of Saint Peter I'm easy I mean dicen priests I'm a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago I'll tell you a quick story about the the music it was done by a fellow named Steve Mullen who Matt knew and Steve described himself as an agnostic he's not a believer at all but very gifted composer and it worked with documentaries and various things and what we did is we gave him a lot of Catholic tunes and intervals and hymns and so on and boy did he learn them and he and we went to each episode I would say here's the theme I want to get across for example in the first one about Jesus that he's the conqueror of sin and death that he conquers the powers that he reigns his Lord and so the Christos Vinci that wonderful alright but that becomes one of the light motifs of the whole series but Steve took in these Catholic him tunes and so on and he wove them into a very creative and very contemporary score and a lot of people watch the show they're struck first by the music and we went through a lot of ups and downs because we're trying to get the right you know feel and the music is so important but I'm very proud of it I'm very proud of what Steve accomplished there and I did a wonderful job you hear the strains of any crowd of spirituous and all that like coming through we gave him all those tunes and suggested where they would belong somatically in the show and he did a wonderful job the finance you know was all done from private donors it was Catholics in the pews we began in Chicago but then went to New York we went to Boston and we went to San Francisco Omaha and I was a little princess can begging for money you know I just begged money for about two or three years the economy collapsed halfway through our fundraising so that was a challenge but we raised money and then we filmed as it came in when we got the requisite money for a trip I said let's go and is it a one part series five part series let's keep going till we finish and eventually we raised the requisite money so that was a kind of a miracle of grace and Cheryl's generosity sure and anything that meant just that it was a yeah I think as you said it was a two two and a half year process we would should we shot out of order so it with the exception of the first episode we sort of you know did all that at once but then after that we were you know we would go to one place and shoot this scene from sick scene from not in this scene from three and then I'd go back and sort of put those little those little small puzzle pieces together but there'd be a lot of big black holes in the episode and so that was a little bit of a challenge because it wasn't a linear process it was more like just grabbing these elements you know when we could get them sure yeah that's that's one of the challenges of doing this I want to be able to give people some more information on how you can see the catholocism series on EWTN we're going to be broadcasting here and you can go to WWE wkn comm and learn more about when we're going to show it and we want you to stay tuned to EWTN tonight because immediately after this show we will bring you a special presentation of the first episode of the Catholicism series it's entitled the fire of his love prayer and the life of the Spirit where father Barron goes on location to where the great saints and spiritual masters lived to explore Catholic spirituality and different types of prayer including contemplation adoration petition and intercession and after that at 10:00 p.m. Eastern time tonight you can see part two of the Catholicism series in which father Barron goes to Poland Germany Spain and New York City to illuminate the teachings of Jesus go to WWE wtn calm to find out how you can see that catholicism series right here on EWTN beginning tonight all the way through Saturday November 19th only on EWTN we're gonna show those well you know we've run out of time went fast yeah thank you very much for being with us and if you join me giving a blessing may Almighty God bless you and keep you the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit amen and again we can bring you father Barron tonight and the programs that he's going to be giving us to show because you bring this network to you you make it possible so please keep us in between your gas bill your electric bill and your cable bill and we'll pay all of our bills too god bless you [Applause] [Music]

Channel: EWTN

Views: 82,599

Rating: 4.7972808 out of 5

Keywords: EWTN Live Fr. Mitch Pacwa, Catholic

Id: aiXeIHySjLY

Length: 56min 33sec (3393 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 17 2011