Transcript of Interview with Fr. Mitch Pacwa about St. Paul a Bible Study Guide for Catholics. This interview and others like it can be found at http://www.catholicspotlight.com
Listen Now to the audio version of the show.
St. Paul – A Bible Study for Catholics is available at The Catholic Company.
http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-books/1111218/St-Paul-Bible-Study-Catholics/
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Chris: This is the Catholic Spotlight the podcast where we talk about what is new, cool and exciting in the Catholic marketplace. I am your host Chris Cash director of e-commerce from Catholiccompany.com your source for all your catholic needs. Today in the spotlight we have father Mitch Pacwa from the Society of Jesus we are going to be talking about the jubilee year of the apostle Paul and his St. Paul a Bible Study Guide for Catholics which is an excellent new bible study book that really brings out the writings of Paul for everyday Catholics. Father Mitch I am so happy to have you welcome.
Fr. Mitch: Well thank you very much it is an honor to be with you.
Chris: Now contrary to what his write up says that I got from his assistant he is not currently wearing his boots.
Fr.Mitch: That is because I happen to be indoors, but I will be heading back out after I am done later, that is for sure.
Chris: Absolutely, now you said that you had, you did wear your boots for mass this morning though.
Fr. Mitch: Yes I did.
Chris: Also contrary to what his write up says he doesn’t wear them to prove he is a born again Texan, it is more because they are comfy.
Fr. Mitch: They are comfortable and I love my boots.
Chris: So I just wanted to share that with our listeners to get warmed up here a little bit. Father Mitch you have been very busy. Well I guess you are probably always very busy, but one of the more recent projects you have been involved with is getting started with Ignatius Productions which can be found at www.fathermitchpacwa.org. Can you tell us a little about what Ignatius Productions is, why you started it, and what it does?
Fr. Mitch: Ignatius Productions is first of all a video production company that I started in the year 2000 and I did it because one of the things I like about television as a medium is that it is very much oriented towards using the visual and I wanted to have us do a lot more work on visual productions of TV shows that would be more along the lines of documentaries. Because you know a lot of times you know doing that is very expensive, and I know you definitely can have a difficult time you know getting enough money to do some of the work.
It is tough you know to get the financing to be able to do these productions. They take an incredible amount of time but also incredible money. So that is something that we try to do by, first of all I go over to the holy land and I make videos there about scripture and try to use the holy places in Israel, and Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon but also in Greece and turkey. These are all very important places for biblical history and teaching so I try to incorporate that.
So that is the main thing, and we have been doing a lot of videos for other not for profit groups that are trying to get their messages out, specially pro life issues but a lot of other thing too.
Chris: Now getting in the topic of Paul, we have just started that year of Paul and I guess my question for you is what is the significance of the year of Paul why is it that the Pope has declared this year, the year of Paul.
Fr. Mitch: Right, that right there is going to be an extremely important element here of what we are trying to do. Ever so often the church likes to have jubilees that it celebrates for important issues. For instance the jubilee of the year 2000 was to celebrate the 2000th anniversary of the birth of Christ. That is an important jubilee and we want to have these celebrations so that we truly sense how important it is for us to be about the business of proclaiming the gospel well and to do it with great care.
You know think of it you are married and you have got a family. If you forget your wedding anniversary, because that is no big deal it is just a wedding anniversary. No it is big deal isn’t it.
Chris: No, I’d get maimed.
Fr. Mitch: Yeah, it is because if you don’t celebrate things and you forget them it becomes something that really hurts. Yeah, you’ve got to celebrate these sorts of specific things, and you are married everyday but you celebrate the anniversary of your wedding and it is not that your wife thinks well maybe he won’t love me anymore. No, it is just that this is a way to honor her and your relationship with each other. That is an extremely important task to have.
So we definitely try to have these celebrations in the church. Now with this jubilee there are two things going on. One Pope Benedict wants us to remember the approximate birth of St. Paul. Now we don’t know the exact day or the exact year but this is the approximate, but also there is still going to be a 2000 year anniversary of his birth approximately. That is why the very first celebration took place not in Rome but even prior to Rome there was a celebration in Tarsus which is St. Paul’s home town, his birth place. So that was one of the things that the Church wanted to do and to have this celebration at St. Paul’s home town, but another thing too. Is that we also are having this year another kind of anniversary, namely the, not exactly an anniversary perhaps but it is rather the celebration of this year where there is a senate of bishops and the topic of the bishops is the teaching on scripture and what does the church believe about the inspiration of scared scripture, itself a very important thing to celebrate and celebrating St. Paul at the same time helps us to do that.
Chris: So why is it that St. Paul has such a profound place in the church and in the scriptures?
Fr. Mitch: Oh, that is something that is in fact fairly simple.
Chris: I know it is but you know it is a fun question.
Fr. Mitch: When you consider that St. Paul is the author of major sections of scripture, you know that is amazing you know that St. Paul is the author of more of the New Testament than any other author. That is astounding and also ST. Paul has been read in the liturgy over the centuries.
This is something that we have always read in the church’s teaching, as matter of fact part of the very idea of the new testament is that we would have these different books collected, the books that St. Paul wrote that is very important. That the, I think it is earliest collection that we have of things written down for the New Testament would have been a collection done by the bishop of the Ephesus the name, I forget his name right now but it was in the early first century. So this is something that we take a look at and say wow we have to pay close attention to the importance of this.
Chris: Now, getting on to more specifics on your book, one of the first things that I noticed opening the book up is that you have a dedication to your brother Paul in the book.
Fr. Mitch: Yes.
Chris: You want to tell us a little bit about that and why you dedicated it to your brother.
Fr. Mitch: Well I dedicated it to him because at the time he was dying. He had liver cancer and in fact he, I finished it on a Wednesday night and then the next morning flew to see my brother for the last time and so that in itself was very important to me. To remember my younger brother, he was only 53 when he died and you know I have been trying to dedicate different books of mine to my family members, my first one Catholics in the New Age I dedicated to my father, but then I also dedicated a book that is a prayer book for the holy land I did, dedicated that to my mother and I still have another brother for whom I need to dedicate a book and hopefully I will and then my sister. So I want to make sure that I do this for all my family members. You know when you look back on family, where would you be without your family. You know it is something that I look back upon and say well you know without them, for one thing at least with my parents in particular I wouldn’t exist and so this is a very significant thing to show honor to our family members. So that is one of the reasons why I definitely tried to do that. Again I knew my brother’s illness was very serious so I thought it was.
Chris: Absolutely, I would hope that your other dedications are on happier times.
Fr. Mitch: Yeah, I do to, but you know it is one of these things you know, I did not expect my brother to be so ill at the time and so that is something that we definitely had to pay close attention to and with the others hopefully my other brother and sister will be around a lot longer.
Chris: I guess that means you have at least two more books in you somewhere.
Fr. Mitch: Well as matter of fact I am working on another one now also on St. Paul that is going to be about St. Paul and the theology of the cross. The Cross is an extremely important part of St. Paul’s writing so I want to make sure that I write well about that. You know, I think one of the reasons I want to write about St. Paul teaching on the cross is because you know we have so much that is you know neglecting and denying the theology of the cross. We have a lot of people who would prefer to skip talking about the cross and that is part of the modern world, is part of the very high living of the modern world. We live in a time when there are a lot of people who have plenty of money. I mean we live in an extremely wealthy society and I think it is very important for us to have a sense that meditating on the power of the cross of Christ as the means of our salvation. This is what makes it possible for us to be redeemed. That is extraordinary important to me and I think that we very much need to have a sense, that this is going to be a part of our theology. So this is a book that I’d like to have ready by the time of lent.
Chris: Sounds like a great idea for when it should be available and give us some good meditation for this upcoming lent. We are going to take a short break here to hear from our sponsor and when we come back we will be speaking more with Father Mitch Pacwa about St. Paul A study Guide for Catholics. We will learn a little bit more about what is inside this outstanding book. This is the Catholic spotlight.
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Chris: We are back on the catholic spotlight with Father Mitch Pacwa talking about St. Paul, a Bible Study for Catholics. So father Mitch what was your inspiration for getting started on this project.
Fr. Mitch: That is kind of a funny story to me.
Chris: Yeah, I love these kinds of stories too that is why I always like to ask.
Fr. Mitch: We just after a very long wait we got a brand new bishop in Birmingham, Alabama. A wonderful bishop and of course I went to his installation which was a wonderful celebration of having this gift of a new bishop. However, the installation liturgy lasted for about three hours, over three hours in fact. I nearly was late for my program I had to do a show that night that was on a Tuesday afternoon and so I had to, I was thinking you know there are some parts of it that were in Spanish and he was saying the same thing in Spanish that he said in English so I said well all right I started paying attention to other things and as I was paying attention to these other things it occurred to me that this is the cathedral of St. Paul right here in downtown Birmingham. So why don’t we have a great celebration of the year of St. Paul here, and at the end of it all I suggested to the new bishop that we go ahead and have a celebration of St. Paul at the Cathedral, you know and I offered to give some lectures. An offer which the bishop you know very graciously took up, but he said I want you to make it into a book not just lectures. So that was his idea, and you know I felt like Laurel saying you know this is a fine mess you got us into this time Ollie.
Chris: Those darn bosses they just keep adding to your work load right.
Fr. Mitch: That is right, but you know it’s turned out to be a really good thing, and you know he at first had asked if I would do something on say the issue of justification. You know Birmingham, Alabama is in a very protestant area and you know issues of justification are still very important issues. There are on the minds of many of the evangelical and protestant people and they are taken greatly to heart. So he suggested that I go ahead and do something along the line of presenting a teaching on that but I said you know I think there is another kind of concern that we should deal with, and that concern is the concern for the sacrament. A lot of times Catholics because of the issue of justification, a lot of Catholics think that perhaps St. Paul is too protestant and he is not catholic enough and this becomes a concern, that they don’t pay attention to St. Paul, even though we read from him every day. Still a lot of Catholics just don’t read him, because it sounds like well maybe I have to give up my Catholicism or something which is not the case, but that is the fear that some people have.
So I said let’s take a look at this, at the writings of St. Paul in terms of, something that is a very important part of his teaching and yet is also very much part of his Catholicism mainly St. Paul’s teaching on the sacrament, and that is why I called this book, based on a title, that St. Paul gives himself. He just defines himself as a steward of the mysteries. What he means by that is you know, he sees himself as the steward of the mysteries of our faith and that he is there to take care of mysteries, and you see this one is also what a lot of western Catholics don’t know. I have a lot of you know connections with the eastern rite Catholics and one of the things about them is that, I also see that their terminology is so much different than western rite Catholics, and one of the differences shows up with the term for sacrament.
In the east the sacraments are called the mysteries, and so what I want us to do is you know deal with the mysteries of our faith and you know talk about them. You know in terms of the sacrament. St. Paul being a steward of the mysteries is a great way to understand his role as a priest and a bishop. He is there to minister the sacrament. That is extraordinarily important. So that is one of the reasons why I came up with that title and also the topic. How do we help promote these mysteries?
Chris: Now, I’ve got to say this book has been out for about a month or two at this point and it is already topping a lot of best sellers lists in the catholic world and especially among bible studies at least at our store. It is definitely the top selling bible study right now in no small part because of its topic and its wonderful book cover and author. I am sure but why don’t we talk just a little about what is actually covered in the bible study and as well as the format for those who are considering using this as a bible study in their parish or even for personal bible study.
Fr. Mitch: Okay, yeah, if you use it first for personal bible study as well as for you know a group study that is something very important to be able to have both of those options and you know we need to have more bible study to be sure that the catholic church is a biblical church, a lot of people down here I would like to point out they have bible believe in churches this is something that is key for us Catholic’s that we believe in the bible and we want to promote the teaching of scripture. So that is one of the things that I am trying to do with this bible study, let people know that in the specifically catholic item of our faith are also going to be very important to us and found in the bible. It is not something that the church just made up and invented but rather these are doctrines that the church very much has for us to follow, and to learn from scripture in these regards. So that is why we are doing this.
Chris: So how is your book structured in a way that it is going to be helpful for bible studies?
Fr. Mitch: Here is what I did, I took St. Paul’s teaching on the sacraments one at a time starting with baptism, then confirmation, and then the Eucharist, and then going through confession and priesthood. So this is you know how we structure it and this is what very much I want to see us deal with, each sacrament. Then I try to take his teachings on those sacraments in the order of the appearance of the books of St. Paul. So that is how we get the order of it.
Chris: Now are you doing that chronologically?
Fr. Mitch: Yeah, chronologically you know because one of the things that I felt was important was to see the way in which St. Paul’s doctrine on particular sacraments took its development. You know for instance, I will give you a good example, his teaching on marriage really changed over time because at first he thought that the end of the world was imminent and that is basic to understanding his teaching on marriage. If the end of the world is coming right away why bother to get married.
Chris: Well the end of the world did come right away in one sense the end of the old world and the old covenant, the temple and all that.
Fr. Mitch: But still there is another element too, namely that there is the coming to an end at the end of time when Christ returns that is still a different sense of the end time and I think that is very much part of what St. Paul was concerned about, is that we see that the end times are you know also this event that is going to come when Jesus returns and judges the living and the dead. So that is part of his faith and he wants us to understand that that aspect of the faith is something that we must live.
So that is going to be another element of what he does and what he teaches here and I want to have a strong clear sense that this is what we are going to be doing in teaching the sacraments and teaching St. Paul.
Chris: Now aside from the sacraments one of the other topics that you kind of cover is the confidence and the bold and creative approach that Paul used to address the people he was evangelizing and I believe you bring out somewhat how we can use this approach in bringing about change in society today, you want to talk a little bit about that?
Fr. Mitch: Right, yeah sure, one of the other things that is very important too is how St. Paul sees that you know part of what we must do is you know be about evangelizing. This is not something that we just sort of sit around and hold hands and feel good about ourselves, that the process of evangelization in the church and in our society as it changes is something that is formidable to be sure. You know you think of the way that what he had to deal with in terms of evangelizing it is astounding. Astounding what he did, and you know the pagan world at his time was in a horrible state you know in terms of morals and things like that but he went ahead and preached the gospel very clearly and very strongly and you know he did not see that oh yes they are going to listen to me. He wasn’t worried so much about you know whether they listened to him whether they like him or any of that kind of issue. He wanted to evangelize because it was true and he had the confidence that Christ would be able eventually to transform people’s lives. So that is one of the things that we see going on here.
I think that is an element of what we should also promote. We Catholics don’t evangelize nearly enough and we need to. We very much need to so that is one of the things that I very much want to see us be about the business of, more evangelization.
Chris: And Paul certainly is the very strong model of what we should be doing in terms of evangelization.
Fr. Mitch: Absolutely, absolutely this is something else that both Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul both have a very strong sense of that we must be about a new kind of evangelization, that there is an evangelization that is to go on in our modern world and in such a way that we bring about you know this transformation of our society. You know definitely we see that St. Paul you know is promoting this kind of work of evangelization.
It is phenomenal you know what we have been called to do so that is very cool as far as I am concerned.
Chris: Well we are about out of time now do you have any closing remarks that you want to share with our listeners about what is going on?
Fr. Mitch: Yeah, one of the things that I definitely would like to see us you know focus on in this year of St. Paul is that we would know what the text of the scripture say, that this is not optional that this is necessary for all of us, and to understand the very text of scripture should be a high priority for all of us. I very much want to see us have a sense of how crucial this is. We proclaim this gospel of Jesus Christ and our world needs to have it proclaimed. You know this is not something that is just optional, so that is one of the things I’d like to see go on here as well.
Chris: Well thank you.
Fr. Mitch: So god willing.
Chris: Absolutely, and thank you so much Father Pacwa for coming on our show and sharing with our listeners.
Fr. Mitch: My pleasure.
Chris: We have, I have certainly enjoyed hearing about what is going on with this book and thank you father Pacwa for coming on, it’s been.
Fr. Mitch: You are so welcome.
Chris: It’s been a real pleasure to have a chance to talk to you. I have admired you for quite a while and it’s been great and my little ones are starting to poke their head in so that certainly means that we are, it is time for us to get going. Have a great day everybody and god bless.
Fr. Mitch: Alright, you take care.
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Transcript of Interview with Fr. Mitch Pacwa about St. Paul a Bible Study Guide for Catholics. This interview and others like it can be found at http://www.catholicspotlight.com
Listen Now to the audio version of the show.
St. Paul – A Bible Study for Catholics is available at The Catholic Company.
http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-books/1111218/St-Paul-Bible-Study-Catholics/