Last week over at my Being Saint Joseph Podcast I talked about Zach Braff’s new Kickstarter to support “Wish I Was Here” his follow-up to “Garden State”, which is billed as a sequel in tone but not story. In a little over three days Zach managed to raise over 2 million dollars and is still going. Let’s contrast that with the Kickstarter that I came across yesterday. Father Claude Burns who is also known as Fr. Pontifex is working with Spirit Juice Studios to produce his follow-up album and create a first-class music video. Father Burns is trying to raise $42,000 and after four days he has 57 backers and $2,241. I first came across Father Burns when he and Spirit Juice recorded a response to the viral video “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus” called “Why I Love Religion, and Love Jesus“. I have been familiar with Spirit Juice Studios for some time since they did some work for Greg and Jennifer Willits and their “The Catholic’s Next Door” radio show. If you are unfamiliar with their work, do yourself a favor and go checkout their website.
What I’m struggling to understand is that in a Church of 2 billion Catholics, with 77.7 million of those members in the United States alone how can a project like Fr. Pontifex’s have such a hard time raising funds? Now understandably only a small percentage of those who claim to be Catholic are active and an even smaller part of that number feel the need to support the New Evangelization. But even at that smaller percentage we as a community of missionaries should have no problem helping to promote and raise funds for each other. One of the original goals of Austin Catholic New Media is to do this at a local level. If we are serious about our mission I think there are a few things that have to be said.
- First of all stop the in-fighting. We are all on the same team here and if you haven’t figured it out by now no one is getting rich off of any of this work. So instead of taking people’s ideas and passing them off as your own, why not just help the person who had the idea in the first place get the project off the ground.
- Be honest. If a blog, podcast, video project, etc is not very good be charitable but also be honest with that person or group. No one ever got better at something by being told everything they did was great.
- Put your money where your mouth is and encourage others to do the same. The work of the New Evangelization isn’t cheap, especially if you want it to be done the right way. Everything we produced should be on par if not better then what people normally consume everyday. This takes time, commitment and money. Don’t think just because all you can give to your favorite apostolate is a dollar that it isn’t appreciated and that they won’t get every bit of juice out of that dollar that they can.
Think about it. If only a small percentage of Catholics in the United States were able to donate just $1 to Father Burns or similar projects he would have more then enough funds to get his new album and video off the ground. And lest you think I would say all of this without taking my own advice:
I just backed The Symphony & The Static on @kickstarter kck.st/1009PeN
— Jason Elizondo (@jdzondo) May 2, 2013
I do not disagree with the premise nor the 3 points made but I think a major reason for the large ‘discrepancy’ has probably more to do with exposure than with a lack of support for the new evangelization. At least on the surface. It sometimes easy to forget that those who typically try to keep abreast of ‘all things Catholic’ are more the exception than the norm. And just because they do not keep their fingers on the pulse does not mean they are any less ‘Catholic’ or part of the evangelization efforts of the Church.
Fr. Pontifex is doing great work but his exposure is nowhere near what a primetime TV star has. There is no big marketing engine behind him. That’s what we’re here for so, I think that our part in this evangelization is to make others aware of him. I don’t really think his lack of exposure is a result of in-fighting or it not being a good product (though I myself am not a fan of hip-hop and would not necessarily pick up his CD on my own).
Are you conflating the New Evangelization and New Media? I appreciate what you are trying to do at Austin CNM, and wish you well, but I don’t think the original call for New Evangelization was about new media necessarily. New media can play a part of course, and if Fr. Pontifex’s recordings contribute to the effort, more power to him.
We were discussing this at Spirit and Truth a couple weeks ago – whether it is more effective to evangelize face-to-face or through social media. One person said he thought he could accomplish more with a Tweet than with a one-on-one conversation. To which I thought (but did not say out loud) “Dude, how many people do you think read your tweets?” Twitter seems a particularly bad tool for evangelization unless you have an enormous following.
I agree it’s dumb for fans to fund a Garden State sequel. Zach Braff and the other producers are probably millionaires many times over and if their new movie is successful, they’ll just make more money. Why should fans give them money in advance? There are many more worthy projects seeking crowd-funding. I don’t know enough about Fr. Pontifex to know if he is worth supporting. The average person is hit with a host of worthy charities and efforts that need money. We have to pick and choose.
As far as the democratization of media, it has produced an explosion of videos, blogs, Facebook status updates, etc. Some is evangelical in nature. But it seems to me such evangelical efforts are most effective in evangelizing the authors/creators of these works, not their reader/viewers. And I bet these efforts are great at evangelizing the authors. When you try to convince someone else of something, you end up convincing yourself.
Thanks Dan and Delano for the feedback.
I do actually conflate the new evangelization and new media, but so did Pope Benedict. While new media isn’t the only way we should be reaching out to people, it is never the less an important part of “reaching people where they are”.
You actually made my point about the person who commented about Twitter. I believe you should have called him out if that’s how you truly felt. It goes back to the point I made about no one ever getting better at something if they aren’t challenged in what they are doing.
As far as face-to-face vs new media evangelization I don’t believe I was trying to say one was better then the other. I all honesty the best form of evangelization is how we live our lives and being that example in our everyday lives. It’s the prayer you say before you have lunch with a co-worker, the crucifix at your desk and the way we treat those who we come across in our everyday lives.
While I think Fr. Pontifiex’s album and Spirit Juice Studios are both worthy causes to share our treasures with. I was simply using them as examples of the larger effort that new media evangelist do and that they should be supported just like any other mission field in the Church today.
Thanks again for the feedback and I’m looking forward to more of it.