January 24, 2012: "Servant of the Word banquet, workshop to honor Father Robert Barron"

Father Robert Barron will be in Denver next month to receive this year’s Servant of the Word Award from the Catholic Biblical School.

He considers it a great honor to serve the word of God.

“I’m not here to preach a word of mine, my own philosophical musings, or my own perspective,” he said by telephone from his office at the Mundelein Seminary near Chicago. “When you’re a servant of the word, it’s the word of God that’s given to you—and you have the privilege of searching out its meaning, then searching out its relevance for our time.”

On Feb. 17-18, the Biblical School will host the Servant of the Word banquet Friday night, followed by a workshop on Saturday with presentations from Father Barron; Jonathan Reyes, president and CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Denver; and Father John Riley, faculty member at Denver’s Augustine Institute and St. John Vianney Theological Seminary....

Read the article in the Denver Catholic Registry.

Fr. Robert Barron’s new CATHOLICISM series is currently continuing its world premiere on stations throughout the United States.  The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) recommends the series as a tool unsurpassable in quality for promoting Catholic identity and spurring on the New Evangelization.

“We eagerly recommend Fr. Barron’s CATHOLICISM series,” said Patrick J. Reilly, president of CNS.

“Father Barron lets the Catholic faith be itself,” continued Reilly, “and the result is a beautiful and irresistible account of our Catholic identity.  Never before has there been such an effective vehicle for spreading the light of Christ through the media.”...

See the full blog post here. 

I posted this over at the National Catholic Register and thought that you might be interested as well…

Finding Father Robert Barron these days is an easy task. This is good news for those who love the Church, and good news for those on the outside wondering if they should step in, or even back in as the case may be. Whether it be books, radio, DVDs, or television, Father Barron’s seemingly ubiquitous voice has been called “one of the Church’s best messengers” by Cardinal Francis George. With a nimble intellect and loving heart, Father Barron has given the faithful an arsenal of catechetical material. However, now he presents the Catholic faithful and a searching world a landmark production on a scale and quality rivaled only by Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. Father Barron’s 10-part miniseries Catholicism has been hailed by George Weigel as “the most important media project in the history of the Catholic Church in America.”...

Read the entire blog post here. 

It is with a particular fascination that I’ve been following the speeches that Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) has been delivering in his native Germany. We can certainly hear Herr Doktor Professor Ratzinger in the distinctively academic rhetoric of the addresses, but we also hear the voice of a pastor, uttering a cri de coeur to his wandering flock. In his first speech on the tarmac in Berlin, upon being welcomed by the officials of the German government, Benedict XVI specified that his main purpose was not to foster diplomatic relations between the German nation and the Vatican City State—as welcome as that would be—but rather to speak of God...

Read the rest of Father Barron's column here.

First, and to the point: this is an excellent book, the new standard to give to the seeker, the RCIA participant, the college student, the non-Catholic spouse, the skeptical friend. It is slender and readable, accessible, creative, and thorough. It is artful. It is the fruit of both an accomplished scholar and a popular writer. I highly recommend it.

As I was reading it an image came to mind. In 1895 the French artist Paul Cézanne produced a still life painting entitled The Basket of Apples. Like any still life, it appears to the viewer first as a picture of something: apples spilled out of a basket onto a table. One is immediately drawn to what the painting is about, its subject. At face value, Barron’s book does something that any number of other books do: present the subject of Catholicism by walking the reader through many of its key elements. There are ten chapters (a good Biblical number) on revelation; the person and teachings of Jesus; God; Mary; Peter and Paul; the Church; the liturgy; saints; prayer; and last things. So at this face value, Barron gives us a very pithy presentation of the Catholic Church’s major doctrines.

But there is something remarkable about Cézanne’s painting, and something remarkable about Barron’s book. Just about any new art student can paint apples on a table, and any blogger can write some ideas he gained by flipping through the Catechism. Cézanne’s painting demands a careful look: the table seems oddly disjointed, as if it were painted from different perspectives. The flashes of light that are the apples resist the structure of photographic realism. Cézanne started with a blank canvas and made very specific choices to paint the way he did; why did he do things this way? Analogously, I asked myself, why did Barron do things this way, rather than (say) just expounding on the Catechism of the Catholic Church? What were these men trying to say, and what were they trying to elicit from us?...

Visit patheos.com for the rest of Mr. Muldoon's comments on the book.

[PBS'] “Civilization” was the perfect way to finish a serious undergraduate liberal arts education; it brought together ideas, art, architecture and history in a visually compelling synthesis of the history of western culture that respected Catholicism’s role in shaping the West.

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.

WTTW, Chicago’s premier public television station, announced that it will premiere and distribute four episodes of Catholicism – a multi-part documentary series for public television – in October 2011 to public television stations nationwide. This epic television production illustrates the history and treasures of a global religion shared by more than one billion people around the world. The series is filmed in stunning high-definition and spans more than 50 locations in 15 countries. 

Read the entire Press Release here. 

On May 1, Pope Benedict XVI will celebrate the Solemn Mass and Beatification before hundreds of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square and for millions of television viewers around the world. This is the first time a pope has beatified his immediate predecessor.

Read the Press Release here. 

"Father Bob Barron, my good friend, reminds me of Archbishop Sheen." says Archbishop Dolan. "We were so proud of Fulton Sheen because he embodied the truth, the beauty, the light, the warmth of Catholicism. He was able to present the timeless truths of our beloved Catholic faith in a very timely manner and able to tie in art, architecture, news, humor, sports and you name it - to bring that to bear in the Gospel, and the teaching of Jesus and his Church. He did it in a dynamite way. I think we've got a winner in Fr. Bob Barron, he speaks with that same eloquence and that same pizazz and same conviction."

Barron is a professor at University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary and is one of the world's most innovative teachers of Catholicism. His global media ministry called "Word on Fire" has a simple but revolutionary mission - to educate and engage the culture.

“The faith of the Church is our strength,” says Barron. “Our program will strive to show viewers the richness of the Catholic faith and how it is a treasure to be shared now and with future generations. The faith imbues our life with meaning and imparts to all a renewed sense of purpose.”

Father Robert Barron is a sought-after speaker on the spiritual life. He has published numerous books, essays and DVDs. Word on Fire, a non-profit organization, has attracted millions of viewers and listeners to its web site www.WordOnFire.org and its programs on other media outlets.

Please tune in to WGN America nationally Sunday mornings at 9:30 am Eastern/8:30 am Central for “Word on Fire with Father Robert Barron“(the WGN Chicago broadcast airs at 9:30 am central). Funds for the program have been raised through private donations.

Media inquiries, contact Nanette Noffsinger at nanetten(at)aol(dot)com or 615-776-4230.