Catholic Outreach Spearheads Exciting New Mission to Culture

Unpacking the Meaning of Cultural Events

“I think it was when A Guide to the Passion: 100 Questions about The Passion of The Christ hit #5 on the New York Times bestseller list that we knew there was a pretty significant cultural event happening.”

Matthew Pinto, one of the founders of Catholic Outreach, discusses the first time his organization’s work made a major dent not only on the American culture, but on the global culture.

Pinto previously worked with Tom Allen, the president of CatholicExchange.com, one of the highest-ranked Catholic websites in the world. Allen had been heavily involved in the distribution and marketing of Mel Gibson’s landmark film, The Passion of The Christ.

“I looked around the landscape of American Christianity and saw that the Evangelicals were pretty much the only ones who were using this cultural event as a means to share the Gospel,” explains Pinto. “I had to commend them for their creativity and boldness in launching all the initiatives they did, but I thought, ‘This is crazy! Here we are with more extensive knowledge of the film than anybody else (because Tom had seen numerous early cuts) and with a better understanding of the film (packed as it is with Eucharistic and Marian theology that would go right past most Evangelical viewers).' I wanted to come out with a resource that explained the film from a uniquely Catholic perspective. So I called Tom and ran the idea by him about creating a booklet that would unpack the meaning behind the film.”

The result: Allen combined his knowledge of the film with Pinto’s work as president of Ascension Press and, with the help of three other authors, created A Guide to the Passion, one of the best-selling books in the history of Catholic publishing. This 90-page “Little Catechism,” as it’s come to be called, went on to sell over one million copies and earn a place on both the Amazon.com and New York Times bestseller lists.

Stop Stomping on Our Values!

As a result of their success with A Guide to the Passion, continues Pinto, “we saw that major cultural events like this could be harnessed to present a compelling message of faith. And the events didn’t necessarily need to be Catholic or religious in nature. For example, our next major outreach was a rebuttal to Kinsey, the film glorifying the deceptive and destructive work of the notorious sex researcher, Alfred Kinsey.” Catholic Outreach produced another easy-to-read book entitled The Kinsey Corruption that documents how the man’s flawed research helped ignite the sexual revolution and propel the moral degeneration that has followed.

Some measure of Catholic Outreach’s success can be seen in the coverage given the apostolate on National Public Radio (NPR). Catholic Outreach’s efforts were mentioned in the first few minutes of a Terry Gross interview on Fresh Air with the film’s director, Bill Condon.

“It was very gratifying to hear the director cite Catholic Outreach as a leading group challenging the film,” explains Lisa Wheeler, who spearheaded the campaign. “For those of us who love the Church and have grown weary of the cultural elites stomping on our values, it made us happy to have stepped up and done something.”

Last year, Catholic Outreach also addressed five core questions at issue in the national election with a booklet called The Five Issues That Matter Most, bringing Catholic social teaching to bear on our cultural conversation as voters went to the polls. Avoiding the simplistic rhetoric of “Jesus would belong to the X Party,” Catholic Outreach instead presented readers with a summary of core Catholic social teaching and let them make up their own minds about how they should vote in light of those teachings. Given that polls showed a measurable shift among Catholic voters towards a committed pro-life position, the staff of Catholic Outreach was again pleased that their work appeared to have had an impact in helping Catholics think with the mind of the Christ in the polling place.

Entertainment Is an Opportunity

According to its founders — Pinto, Allen, and Catholic Exchange treasurer Anthony De Bellis — Catholic Outreach was created to provide Catholics with practical resources for faith formation and evangelization of the culture. Its website features not only the books mentioned above, but also downloadable flyers, posters and small-group discussion materials.

“We’re closely monitoring the media to see what upcoming events can provide the next opportunities to proclaim Catholic truth to the culture,” says Wheeler. The group’s newest evangelization project is “Narnia Outreach,” featuring another potential blockbuster booklet by the same core editorial team — A Guide to Narnia: 100 Questions about The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

The film version of C.S. Lewis’s classic work will be released on December 9th. It promises to be every bit the blockbuster that The Lord of the Rings was, and Catholic Outreach intends to be there to help guide the millions of film fans who will enter the world of Narnia for the first time. As with The Passion of The Christ, there are layers of meaning to Lewis’s story and to the filmmakers’ telling of it. Beneath the surface lies a beautiful allegorical tale of Jesus Christ and God’s plan for humanity. By helping moviegoers learn the “Deep Magic” of the classic tale, Catholic Outreach wants to improve the movie-going experience for people of all faiths, taking it from mere entertainment to an opportunity to discover Christian truth.

Released just in time for the highly-anticipated film, A Guide to Narnia is a breezy, energizing, and uplifting resource that anybody can read. Like A Guide to The Passion, it will take you deeper into the story and help you understand Lewis’s purpose in creating the enchanting Chronicles of Narnia.

Part of Catholic Outreach’s reason for doing this, says Tom Allen, is that “We're utterly compelled to help fuel and drive Hollywood’s renewed interest in faith-based movies. We support it because we want it to continue and we want the mass public to profit from it spiritually. It’s what countless concerned citizens have longed for and prayed for. Now it’s here — prayers answered — and we intend to make the most of it.”

Learn more about the work of Narnia Outreach and encourage your parish to order copies of the book in bulk. In addition, see how your parish can use their materials to facilitate youth groups, become parish promoters, and start study groups that look more deeply at the film and the work of C.S. Lewis. Remember: When — not if — this film is a smash hit, Hollywood will take notice. There are six more books in the Chronicles of Narnia, and you can bet they will all be filmed in the coming years. This will be a wonderful opportunity to bring lovers of film, Lewis, and Jesus together in your parish and light a fire for the renewal of our culture!

© Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange

Mark Shea is a Senior Content Editor at Catholic Exchange

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Mark P. Shea is a popular Catholic writer and speaker. The author of numerous books, his most recent work is The Work of Mercy (Servant) and The Heart of Catholic Prayer (Our Sunday Visitor). Mark contributes numerous articles to many magazines, including his popular column “Connecting the Dots” for the National Catholic Register. Mark is known nationally for his one minute “Words of Encouragement” on Catholic radio. He also maintains the Catholic and Enjoying It blog and regularly blogs for National Catholic Register. He lives in Washington state with his wife, Janet, and their four sons.

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