{"id":2542,"date":"2008-07-14T11:34:00","date_gmt":"2008-07-14T11:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/07\/channeling-catholics-at-the-catholic-channel.html"},"modified":"2008-07-14T11:34:00","modified_gmt":"2008-07-14T11:34:00","slug":"channeling-catholics-at-the-catholic-channel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/07\/channeling-catholics-at-the-catholic-channel.html","title":{"rendered":"Channeling Catholics at the Catholic Channel"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was great to see this article<\/a> in the New York Times: a profile of Catholic radio in New York City, with a special focus on a budding enterprise known as the Catholic Channel. At a time when New Media (including this here little blog) seems to have eclipsed the Old, it’s heartening to see that The Word is still finding a welcome home in the “theater of the mind,” radio. <\/p>\n

Take a look: <\/p>\n

<\/a>Mike from El Paso was on the phone line to \u201cThe Catholic Guy,\u201d the afternoon drive-time talk program produced via the unlikely partnership of Sirius Satellite Radio (familiar to most people as \u201cHoward Stern\u2019s network\u201d) and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cI called the other day?\u201d said Mike. \u201cAbout how much I miss confession?\u201d This would be the Mike who was barred from the sacrament of confession under church law because he married a divorced woman whose first marriage was never annulled.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I remember!\u201d bellowed the host, Lino Rulli, the Catholic guy of the show\u2019s title. \u201cMike the Adulterer! O.K., Mike. Are you ready to play \u2018Let\u2019s Make a Catholic Deal\u2019?\u201d <\/p>\n

It seems an odd marriage of sensibilities: the rough banter of talk radio as practiced by pioneer shock jocks like Mr. Stern and Don Imus, joined at the neck to an official Catholic broadcast whose underlying mission is herding people back into the fold of a religious orthodoxy.<\/p>\n

But the stated mission of this new enterprise known as the Catholic Channel is to offer something more than \u201cthe audio equivalent of stained glass and incense,\u201d as Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the archdiocese, refers to conventional religious radio.<\/p>\n

Since taking to the air 18 months ago \u2014 with an understanding that there would be no promotional spots for Mr. Stern\u2019s show on any of its programs \u2014 the channel has harnessed Sirius, a subscription-only radio network made possible largely by the immense drawing power of Mr. Stern\u2019s profane and pornography-friendly programming, to help propagate a 2,000-year-old institution that preaches against more or less every bodily impulse Mr. Stern has ever named, demonstrated or otherwise celebrated on his show.<\/p>\n

Today, in studios down the hall from Mr. Stern\u2019s in Sirius\u2019s Midtown Manhattan headquarters \u2014 where Sirius generates a gigantic menu of radio catering to dozens of niche tastes including sports, gay politics, hip-hop and Martha Stewart \u2014 the Catholic Channel, No. 159 on the dial, produces a 24-hour stream of radio that reaches most of North America. The Catholic programming runs the gamut from offerings of the stained-glass kind, like Sunday Mass at St. Patrick\u2019s Cathedral and a weekly interview with Cardinal Edward M. Egan, to the offbeat musings of \u201cThe Catholic Guy,\u201d which runs five days a week in the showcase 4-to-7 p.m. slot. <\/p>\n

Mr. Rulli\u2019s show can sometimes sound like catechism class (\u201cWhat is the sixth Station of the Cross? Anybody?\u201d) but more often achieves the queasy unpredictability of the Stern show itself \u2014 if Mr. Stern were an avowedly guilt-ridden, confession-going 36-year-old prone to sexual double-entendres and self-mocking complaints about not being able to find a girlfriend.<\/p>\n

The mix, perhaps risky for the church, is aimed not only at Catholics who attend church but also at a large and growing segment of 20- and 30-something Catholics who do not, said Mr. Zwilling, who as the general manager of the channel hired Mr. Rulli.<\/p>\n

Sounding a little like Mr. Stern is exactly the point.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone who listens to Howard Stern happens to turn to the Catholic Channel one day and doesn\u2019t realize for a couple of minutes that what he\u2019s listening to is the Catholic Channel, well, I\u2019m not going to be upset about that,\u201d Mr. Zwilling said. \u201cWe recognize that Catholics are listening to Howard Stern. What we want people to know is that they can talk about all the same things he does, but in a Catholic context.\u201d <\/p>\n

When Mike the Adulterer called the other day to try winning the day\u2019s \u201csemi-valuable prize\u201d \u2014 a bottle opener soldered to a medal of Pope John Paul II, the \u201cLet\u2019s Make a Catholic Deal\u201d question was about St. Teresa of Avila. <\/p>\n

At other times, callers are asked less historical questions: Is it possible for men and women to be just friends? (Catholic Guy: No. \u201cGuys are pigs.\u201d) Does using the word \u201cchaste\u201d put people off? (Guy: \u201cChaste just sounds so Amish-Catholic. Why not just say, \u2018I\u2019m going to remain a virgin till I get married\u2019?\u201d) <\/p>\n

Mike did not win and was unceremoniously dispatched with a loud buzzer, followed by a suggestion by Mr. Rulli that he \u201cget that annulment\u201d as soon as possible, \u201ceven if it\u2019s a big pain.\u201d <\/p>\n

The breezy informality sometimes references, and tweaks, Catholic bromides. When a caller complained that he had not received the prize he won playing another of the show\u2019s games, \u201cThe Inquizition,\u201d the Catholic Guy counseled the man to forget about it. \u201cThat was past,\u201d he said. \u201cLook to the future. God has a plan for your life.\u201d <\/p>\n

Almost nothing about religious broadcasting is new. Christian radio is as old as radio itself, and the Vatican has produced a vast network of radio and TV programming since the 1950s. <\/p>\n

Still, not many radio hosts use the Imus\/Stern model \u2014 with on-air sidekicks, comic sound effects and the ad-libbing host who trades in the provocative \u2014 while hewing to a message of virginity until marriage and the unquestionable authority of the Catholic Magisterium.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to be careful in areas that Howard doesn\u2019t,\u201d Mr. Rulli deadpanned in an interview.<\/p>\n

David Gibson, a Catholic writer whose book \u201cThe Coming Catholic Church\u201d describes a newly powerful grass-roots pressure for reform in the aftermath of the priest sexual abuse scandal, said the archdiocesan foray into talk radio may reflect some official acknowledgment of the need for a new, more interactive relationship with believers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe church really has no choice,\u201d he said. \u201cThe old Catholic world, where you were born and married in the church and stayed because you were part of a \u2018Catholic world\u2019 \u2014 that\u2019s gone. The church has to find people and make them want to be Catholic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young people are the major target of several efforts, official and otherwise. \u201cTheology on Tap,\u201d an informal project adopted in hundreds of parishes around the country, attracts young Catholics to lectures booked in bars or restaurants.<\/p>\n

The Order of Paulist Fathers has started an initiative aimed at people in their 20s and 30s with an Internet ministry known as Busted Halo, whose mission is basically in sync with a recent series of youth-market books called \u201cThe Bad Catholic\u2019s Guide to…\u201d In the introduction to their first book, \u201cThe Bad Catholic\u2019s Guide to Good Living,\u201d John Zmirak and Denise Matychowiak summarize the creed: Believe in Catholicism, do what you can, admit that you are flawed \u201cand turn to the font of infinite mercy as humbly and as often as you can.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rev. Dave Dwyer, the Paulist priest behind the Busted Halo project, is the host of a program of that name on the Catholic Channel. It is cheerful but less quirky than \u201cThe Catholic Guy,\u201d more likely to attract callers with questions about the faith. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe people we want to reach say they are \u2018spiritual\u2019 rather than Catholic, though they refer to themselves as \u2018born Catholic,\u2019 \u201d he said. \u201cWe tr
\ny to get them thinking about what it means to be Catholic.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Check out the rest<\/a>. And, in the interest of full disclosure: I’ve been a guest on Dave Dwyer’s show. I had a great time. I hope his listeners did, too. <\/p>\n

Photo: Lino Rulli, left, of \u201cThe Catholic Guy,\u201d a program on Sirius Satellite Radio\u2019s Catholic Channel. Photo by Nicole Bengiveno\/The New York Times<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was great to see this article in the New York Times: a profile of Catholic radio in New York City, with a special focus on a budding enterprise known as the Catholic Channel. 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