FR Robert Barron, a United States priest using new media to reach “outside the walls of the church” to millions of people around the world, has challenged an audience of about 1000 people in Brisbane to do the same.
Fr Barron spoke to the Brisbane audience at the Edmund Rice Performing Arts Centre at St Laurence’s College, South Brisbane, on March 8 as part of a national tour sponsored by Australian Catholic University.
The Chicago priest founded Word On Fire, a non-profit Catholic media organisation with a worldwide reach through its online presence, TV, radio, DVDs, YouTube videos, books and other presentations.
The Word On Fire website indicates the ministry “supports Catholic evangelical preaching … and reaches millions of people to draw them into or back to the Catholic faith”.
Fr Barron told the Brisbane audience, which included people of all ages – bishops, priests, religious and laity, that envangelisation was about “proclaiming the Lordship of Jesus Christ in a secular world”.
“Secularisation violates the deepest yearning of the human heart – that’s (the yearning) that is most precious in our heart – the hunger and search for God,” he said.
Fr Barron said that, with the overtaking of secularisation, “something dies within our heart”.
“Evangelisation is to bring that back to life,” he said.
It was with a passion for that ministry that Fr Barron approached a Chicago radio station WGN in a move that would be the forerunner to the establishment of Word On Fire.
WGN allocated him a weekly 5.15am timeslot and, with the financial support of his parishioners, he took to the airwaves.
The program grew in popularity, and then Cardinal Francis George of Chicago asked him to “jump-start” evangelisation in the city.
“‘Your job is to convert Chicago’,” Fr Barron said of Cardinal George’s challenge.
Fr Barron then launched into the new media, aiming to show “punchy videos about Catholicism” on YouTube.
He started with an eight-minute discussion on the Martin Scorsese movie The Departed.
“I didn’t know if anyone would watch,” Fr Barron said.
“To our delight and surprise, a lot of people started to watch (the videos).
“These videos got me outside the walls of the church. We began to reach the people who’d never darken the doors of one of our churches.
“I was talking about things people were interested in in life … looking out to movies and music that people might be interested in.
“I began to engage with the New Atheists.”
Fr Barron said this allowed him to exchange views with people he would not otherwise have the chance to talk with.
“I’m talking with people who are angry – that’s okay,” he said.
“I’m talking with people full of doubt – that’s okay. I can engage them and talk to them.”
Fr Barron told of one example of a young man who contacted him and told him he had once hated the Church, “but he loved Bob Dylan”.
The young man said that one evening he had been searching online for items on Dylan when he came across a YouTube presentation by Fr Barron where he was talking about the legendary singer.
He said when he saw Fr Barron in his clerical collar he almost exited immediately because of his anger with the Church, but he stayed listening.
“The young man said, ‘I ended up listening to another one (of Fr Barron’s talks on Dylan), and then some more (on other topics, and he became a regular listener).
“Now I’m in the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults),” Fr Barron said.
“The Holy Spirit was working in strange ways.”
Fr Barron said the aim was to tell the truth about Catholicism and to show its beauty.
He encouraged the Brisbane audience to search for ideas to harness more opportunities to evangelise.
“Be creative, be intelligent, be passionate about your Catholic faith,” he said.
“We have this great opportunity – YouTube – use it. We have access 24 hours a day around the world.”
Fr Barron had spoken in Sydney, Melbourne and Ballarat before visiting Brisbane but an organiser of the Queensland event said it drew the largest attendance of the tour.
