By Barbara Falconer Newhall

What is at the heart of Catholicism? What makes all those Catholics so tenaciously Catholic?

The Rev. Robert Barron would say – the Incarnation. The central truth of all Christianity is the shocking notion that God, the Creator and Ground of the Universe, humbled itself to take on human form, to enter into and enhance creation.

The difference between Catholicism and the rest of Christianity, according to Barron, is that other denominations fail to take the Incarnation seriously enough. If one does indeed accept Jesus as the human face of God, after all, the ramifications are huge and – quite literally – awesome.

Barron cites an often overlooked passage in Mark (10:32): “And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem and Jesus was walking ahead of them; and they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid.”

And why not? If that is indeed God Incarnate walking up the road ahead of you, fear and amazement would be the most fitting response. And that, according to Barron, is why Christianity in general, and Catholicism in particular asks for a commitment: Is Jesus divine? Or not?

Barron says yes, and from there his text marches boldly on to explain and assert the body of Catholic belief as centuries of church authorities have built and elaborated upon it – beginning with the Incarnation and extending to the Resurrection, Pentecost, the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the apparitions at Lourdes, the communion of saints like Therese of Lisieux and Katharine Drexel, and the doctrines of heaven, hell and purgatory.

Barron also tackles – fearlessly – the Catholic church’s age-old understanding of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, which Barron characterizes as “nothing other than a sacramental extension of the Incarnation across space and time, the manner in which Christ continues to abide, in an embodied way with his church.”

Author Robert Barron

Protestant and Orthodox Christians, of course, would assert that accepting the Incarnation does not necessarily lead to faith in an Immaculate Conception, in  miracles at Lourdes or any of the other doctrines of the church — including those prohibiting the use of birth control.

But Barron, to his credit, is a wonderfully lucid writer who, like his church, is not afraid to commit to a clear and powerful understanding of who Jesus was. Which maybe explains why the Catholic church continues to be such a powerful force in the lives of millions of Catholics around the world.

Barron is the Francis Cardinal George Chair of Faith and Culture at Mundelein Seminary and the host of the ten-part documentary series Catholicism to be aired on PBS stations beginning this month.

© 2011 BF Newhall

Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith, by Robert Barron, Image, 2011, $27.99 hardcover.

My computer monitor the day before my mother broke her hip and brought progress on my book to a halt for a year.

My book is close to done. I’ve been working on it for nigh on to 13 years now. Can’t imagine how it will feel to have it  done-ish.

As some of you know, it’s called “Finding Holy: True Stories of Religion and Spirituality in America.” I’m within spitting distance of finishing the last three chapters.

There will be quite a few holes to fill in, but the hard part — finding that #$%^&* story arc — is done.

How I find Holy, of course, is quite another matter. You’ll have to read the book to find out about that.

When it’s done will I feel really, really good — or really, really bad? Dunno. Watch this space.

c 2011 Barbara Falconer Newhall

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

As a religion writer, I’ve got plenty of respect for Islam as well as for the many (friendly, smart, lovable, cool, inspiring) Muslims I’ve met on the religion beat over the years. So, trust me. This is not a rant against Islam or Muslims.

It’s about how it feels to have one’s culture and faith obliterated by someone else’s culture and faith.

Eight roundels emblazoned with Arabic script are focal points in the Hagia Sophia.

I got a close-up look at this when I entered the magnificent Hagia Sofia for the first time during a trip to Istanbul last October. Completed in 537 by order of the Emperor Justinian, this glorious Byzantine basilica was the focal point of Eastern Orthodox Christianity for nearly a millennium.

The Hagia Sophia’s status as a Christian church came to an abrupt end, however, when the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453 and converted the basilica into a mosque soon after.

I am fully aware that Western Christians have done their share of imposing their culture, technology and religion on the peoples they have conquered or overwhelmed. I know, just for starters, all about how the Parthenon, a temple built to honor the Pagan goddess Athena, was taken over and turned into a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

Still, I see now that I’ve understood religious oppression only intellectually all these years. As a Christian living in a mostly Christian country, I’ve never really known how it feels to have one’s faith and its most cherished symbols obliterated by a colonizing force.

Until I stepped inside the Hagia Sophia.

It was dark in there. The few remaining Christian mosaics – including those of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Saint John Chrysostom – were nearly invisible.

Not at all invisible, however, were eight huge round black disks, each one nearly 25 feet across and each one emblazoned with — to me unintelligible — Arabic calligraphy. Constructed of wood and leather, the disks were conspicuously placed, high on the columns supporting the basilica’s massive dome.

The disks – also known as medallions or roundels — felt like giant, flashy billboards for Islam. I’ve got God on my side and you don’t, they seemed to argue. It didn’t help that, when I climbed to the upstairs balconies and stood behind the disks, I could see their crude wooden backsides.

To my Muslim friends no doubt the calligraphy on those medallions would feel holy and beautiful. The inscriptions represent, after all, the names of Allah, Muhammed, Islam’s first four caliphs, and Muhammed’s two grandsons. (Peace be upon them!)

But as a Christian standing in what had once been a magnificent church, I could not feel the holiness of those huge disks. I felt bullied by them.

In the apse, Madonna and Child are flanked in roundels bearing the names of Muhammed and Allah. Photos c 2009 B.F. Newhall

It’s been hundreds of years since the Hagia Sofia was seized and turned into a mosque, but on that day in 2009, it felt like the desecration had happened yesterday.

The Hagia Sophia is a museum now, and I hear there’s a campaign afoot to restore the basilica as a Christian church.

Part of me would love to see those eight in-your-face disks go away. But another part of me knows better. Just as Jerusalem has become a holy spot for Christians, Muslims and Baha’is as well as Jews. So has the Hagia Sophia come to belong to Muslims as well as Christians.

Back home now, sitting here in my writing room, I study my photos of the offending medallions. I hunt down more pictures of them on line. I ponder their elegant, swooping lines. I open my mind – I try to – to the beauty of the calligraphy.

And after a while I see that, yes, indeed, they are beautiful. Like the Christian icons that preceded them, I find the boldface disks with the strange writing on them to be windows into the sacred. Soon I am scouring the Web for more photos. My eyes follow and are amazed by their complex, mysterious lines.

I wonder, the next time I enter the Hagia Sophia, will I feel oppressed by those medallions – or touched? I honestly don’t know.

© 2010 Barbara Falconer Newhall

We were sitting at breakfast on Friday morning when Barbara pointed out a story in that morning’s San Francisco Chronicle.  A three-judge panel of the Federal Appeals Court had ruled, 2-1, that including the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance does not violate the Constitution’s so-called “Establishment Clause.”

c 2007 B.F. Newhall

The “Establishment Clause” — as you know — is the first of the ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights.  It states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

My God, I thought, this latest decision doesn’t make any sense.   After all, many if not most of our public schools encourage children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance aloud each morning.  And when that daily chant includes the words “under God,” aren’t we indoctrinating our children with a firm religious belief?  Like it or not, there are millions of Americans who don’t believe in God, or who have other very sincere concepts of religion that find this wording objectionable.

Can you imagine the outcry from certain folks on the far, far right if the wording were to say: “one nation under ‘the Gods,’  or “one nation under ‘Zeus,’ or “one nation under ‘Allah’ “?

The Chronicle story went on to report that Judge Carlos T. Bea justified the decision by explaining:  “The Pledge of Allegiance serves to unite our vast nation through the proud recitation of some of the ideals upon which our Republic was founded and for which we continue to strive: one Nation under God–the Founding Fathers’ belief that the people of this nation are endowed by their Creator.”

Judge Carlos T. Bea might be surprised to learn a fact about the Constitution.  The word “God” or “deity” or any similar term does not appear – even once – in the entire Constitution.  Why?  That was not by accident.  It was because the Founding Fathers were strong believers in the separation of church and state.

They knew from personal experience the dangers posed by allowing religion or the church to meddle in the affairs of the state.

I need to make a slight confession here.  One of the reasons I find the inclusion of “under God” so tacky is that I’m a child of the 1940′s and 1950s’.  I clearly remember reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before the God phrase was added in 1954.  To this day, I find the rhythm of today’s Pledge a tad off key because of the imposition of that phrase.

I also remember that “under God” was added during the so-called McCarthy era, an period of national paranoia.  One of its primary purpose was to prove that God-fearing Americans were clearly superior to those godless communists on the other side of the world.

I’ve always felt that American is better than that, and that we don’t need to chant about our nation and God in order to prove our system is the best the world has to offer.   Because it really is.

c 2010 Jon Newhall

Hey, Everybody: My mom is in the hospital again, and that’s all I can think about right now. As you can see, however, my husband Jon is doing a lot of thinking about Thursday’s Federal Appeals Court decision.  — BFN

Something big and white and cloudy was lurking in the steep canyon below our house. I stood up from my computer and peered out the window for a better look.

A shrub with red berries, a Monterey pine, a rangy bay laurel. Photos c 2010 B.F. Newhall

It was flowering tree, growing wild.

I’d never noticed that tree before. You can barely see it from our house. It’s surrounded on all sides by more predictable trees: A rangy bay laurel and its offspring. A couple of young and aggressive live oaks. An aging Monterey pine. A gigantic cypress. Also, an anonymous shrub with red berries that I have never much liked. 

But here it is February, early spring in Oakland, California. And a fruit tree – an apple? a plum? – is blossoming right below my back yard.

I went outdoors to get a better look, only to lose sight of the tree entirely. It’s probably a beautiful thing, I thought. But what a waste. All that splendor and no one to pay homage to it.

The hidden tree comes into view as I work my way down the canyon.

I resolved to make my way down the hill later in the week and appreciate that tree up close. Take a picture. Record the poignant, fleeting lives of those white blossoms.

And so, last Friday I grabbed our camera, put on my hiking boots and a pair of old, expendable pants, and made the steep downhill journey through mud, blackberry, sourgrass, and a rotting tree stump.

When I finally reached the hidden tree, I saw that it was a tangled mass of limbs, branches and twigs, many of them dead. Clearly no gardener prunes or tends this tree. It’s on its own. And this season, all on its own, it has produced thousands of small white flowers, each one quietly surging with life and – it seemed to me – intention.

Photos c 2010 B.F. Newhall

I snapped my pictures, but I did not linger under the tree. I couldn’t get much of a foothold on the muddy hillside. Also, my feet were getting wet, and I needed to get back to my writing room. I had work to do.

Picking my way back up the slippery hillside, I felt satisfied that this patch of beauty had not gone unappreciated. I had personally given it its full fifteen minutes of fame.

Back at the house I kicked off my muddy boots and thought about the proverbial tree falling in the woods. If no one hears it crash, does it make a sound?

Likewise, if no one sees this small tree bloom, is it beautiful? What if I hadn’t been here to take note – and a snapshot? Could that cloud of blossoms have been beautiful without me? Without a beholder, is there beauty?

Maybe God is like that tree, hidden, and beautiful whether I show up with my camera or not.

© 2010 Barbara Falconer Newhall

A plum tree? The result of an apple core I threw down the canyon twenty years ago?

The Green Bible: Understand the Bible’s Powerful Message for the Earth, NRSV, Foreword by Desmond Tutu, HarperOne, 1312 pages, $29.95.

Holy Ground: A Gathering of Voices on Caring for Creation, Lyndsay Moseley and the staff of Sierra Club Books, Sierra Club,  264 pages, $22.

If you or someone you know has any doubt that the Jewish and Christian traditions value the Earth with all its myriad flora and fauna, thumb through HarperOne’s Green Bible. Highlighted in green are the many passages calling upon humanity to respect and care for the Earth – even in times of war.

Check out Deuteronomy 20:19, for example. “If you besiege a town for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you must not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them.”

Or Timothy 4:4 – “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving.”

For the most part, The Green Bible does not gloss over the Bible’s more difficult passages. Genesis 6:7 with all its divine anger is highlighted in green: “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created – people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”

But it does let stand  — in inconspicuous black type — the story of Jesus cursing the out-of-season fig tree. Mark 10:12-14:  ” . . . When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’”

Holy Ground, from the Sierra Club, celebrates the sacredness of creation with an interfaith collection of personal stories, sermons and essays from the likes of Pope Benedict VXI, Terry Tempest Williams, Gary Snyder, Wendell Berry and Patriarch Bartholomew.

Open to page 239 and read Gary Snyder’s remarkable words on humanity’s place on the food chain. “Eating is a sacrament,” he writes. If we eat meat, “it is the life, the bounce, the swish, of a great alert being with keen ears and lovely eyes, with foursquare feet and a huge beating heart that we eat, let us not deceive ourselves.”

And don’t forget either, says Snyder, “We are all edible.” We too will be offerings some day, devoured most likely by very small critters.

Food for thought.