Column Faith not found in fear-driven radio station
By TIM UNSWORTH
Recently, we acquired a new car.
This time, were leasing. (Im only halfway through my chemo
treatments. So, Im not even buying green bananas.) The car has all the
bells and whistles one could want, including a radio that has more speakers
than the Burning Bush, which explains why I tuned in to Chicagos WYPA-AM.
The station carries Catholic Family Radio, a relatively new venture begun last
January, and now in eight cities with six more scheduled for this fall. The
all-talk network, which will be within reach of nearly 15 percent of
Americas 61.5 million Catholics, who form 23 percent of the American
population, proclaims that it is talk radio you can feel good
about.
I didnt feel very good about Catholic Family Radio. In fact,
I took the car to be washed and vacuumed ASAP lest the talk keep echoing in my
car.
Catholic Family Radio is a Rush Limbaugh sound-alike. It is a
vestige of the pre-Vatican II church and an extension of George W. Bushs
Republican party. Its compassionate conservatism is as rigid as the creed of
the National Rifle Association.
Catholic Family Radio is funded by a small group of wealthy
Catholic businessmen, including Thomas Monaghan, who made zillions in pizza,
David Weyrich, former owner of Martin media, a huge billboard company, and
Peter Lynch, well-known money manager. Theyve budgeted some $50 million
to get the venture off the ground. Thus far, theyve spent about $35
million. Their goal is 35 to 50 stations in key markets across the country.
The format is very different from Mother Angelicas heavily
devotional Eternal Word Television Network -- EWTN -- but the
ultra-conservative nun always gets good words when Catholic Family Radio takes
her name in vain. Catholic Family Radio is faster paced, much slicker, heavy on
ads and as compassionately conservative as George W. would want it to be.
Indeed, those who are awaiting word on any planks in George W.s still
vague platform need only tune in to CFR.
The idea for the chain of stations allegedly came from Jesuit Fr.
Joseph Fessio of the University of San Francisco and the St. Ignatius Press.
Fessio got help from Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver and Nicolas Healy,
former vice-president of Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. These
three men -- all carved from petrified wood -- monitor all programming.
Theologically, nothing is beamed unless these three men have vetted it.
Its all slightly to the right of the blue-covered Baltimore Catechism
III.
Politically, it is an echo chamber for the Republican Party. Its
primary targets are Bill and Hillary and any member of the Kennedy family as
well as any misguided liberal. The paranoid style is more evident in the
frightened words of the call-in Catholics than in the measured words of its
articulate talk show hosts. Catholic Family Radio listeners are good people but
they appear to be frightened beyond belief. It appears that only one of the old
Fruits of the Holy Ghost has taken root in their souls: fear of the Lord.
According to The New York Times, the networks
founders intended to provide some Catholic competition for the 1,616
Evangelical Christian stations across the country. Catholic Family Radio has
joined only six existing Catholic stations. It has been over 30 years since the
late Bishop Fulton J. Sheen and his Catholic Hour was edging out
Milton Berle. But when a jealous Cardinal Francis Spellman sent him off to
Rochester, Catholic radio started to sink. While professing to recognize the
impact of the media, bishops have been slow to fund radio or television
efforts, in part because they cannot turn off their beams at the borders of
each diocese, thus posing a threat to a neighboring don.
Some bishops are contributing two-minute booster shots to CFR,
although I havent heard any. Only one prelate, Archbishop Rembert
Weakland of Milwaukee has criticized CFR publicly, pointing out that CFR does
not represent the Catholic faith. He made it plain that it was not welcome in
his archdiocese. (But hed best be prudent. CFR backers could buy his
archdiocese.)
CFR broadcasts over Milwaukee, together with Denver, Kansas City,
Minneapolis/St. Paul, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. The
additional six stations will be in the New England area, beaming CFRs
message to an estimated 9 million Catholics.
Commenting on the general climate, one archbishop remarked that
liberals are angry at the church because it is too conservative, while
conservatives are angry because its too liberal. He had a point, but
its interesting to note that bishops often break out in chicken skin over
conservative efforts, while turning a cold crosier toward those viewed as
liberal. The episcopal reactions are simply not balanced.
The wealthy entrepreneurs who are backing this for-profit effort
seek to put a conservative spin on politics, religion, news -- even spiritual
and personal problems. Raymond L. Flynn, former mayor of Boston and former
ambassador to the Vatican, hosts the morning hours. Flynn is likable and
cautious but professes to be proud of the fact that he is a loyal part of the
12 percent of Catholics who agree with the pope on everything. The station is
fierce in its opposition to abortion but tends not to get involved in related
issues such as birth control. It has little to say about divorce and
remarriage, annulments, a married priesthood or the ordination of women. Issues
such as the priest shortage are routinely introduced as the
so-called priest shortage.
One geezer-voiced caller stated that its no wonder that
Catholics are dropping out of the church when they sell that awful paper,
the National Catholic Reporter, in the back of the church. He
added: Why, they even make fun of the Holy Father. Flynn politely
cut him off.
Flynn is followed by family psychologist Ray Guarendi,
broadcasting from Ohio. Dr. Ray talks too much for a psychologist. On balance,
his advice is good, although hes painfully directive in the manner of
Judge Judy. He often prefaces his remarks by slinging arrows at his
marshmallow-minded liberal colleagues who are ruining todays children.
Like Judge Judys decisions, much of his advice would not stand up
long-term. It somehow reminds me of the garlic extracts, purgatives and Y2K
shelter food and other potions that CFR advertises. The poor pope often gets
linked with snake oil remedies and fear-driven solutions to lifes
problems.
The networks devotion to John Paul II borders on a cult. His
ordinary musings, while often filled with insights, are raised to the level of
the First Commandment. I think hed be embarrassed by the adulation,
especially when it is combined with let them be anathema statements
regarding the great-unwashed majority who do not always agree with him.
Poor Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, in his grave since
November 1996, keeps getting hammered for his Seamless Garment idea and peace
teachings or his pleas for establishing a Common Ground. If CFRs
frightened callers savage Bernardin, they are never corrected. Only opinions
that do not resonate with Council of Trent thinking are fine-tuned. No bishops
call in to clobber them.
Dan Lungren, former attorney general of California and once a
candidate for governor of the state, takes the afternoon hours. Lungren is an
articulate, friendly lawyer. He tends to deal with political and economic
issues. Dan regards capitalism as a sacrament and such issues as pollution and
pesticides as small problems. Capital punishment. Gun control. Foreign aid.
Intrinsically evil and objectively disordered gays.
Abortion. Well, you know. Just consult your local Republican platform or
fundamentalist pulpit.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the new Catholic radio is
the fear so evident in the voices of the call-in Catholics who, for example,
jammed the wires with questions about John F. Kennedy Jr.s ashes.
Although Catholics are reminded each Ash Wednesday that they will return to
ashes, the news that the ashes of JFK, Jr., his wife and sister-in-law were
dumped from the rear of a ship was more than callers could fit into their
undersized moral canisters. What had the old church done to give these callers
such narrow views? Why do they see sin if it casts only a shadow? Why is their
theology so hell-centered? John Kennedys salvation appeared to be tied to
the manner in which he was buried, not the state of his soul.
Catholic Family Radio has homogenized Republicanism and
Catholicism. What has emerged is a kind of Puritan Protestantism or Opus Dei
Catholicism. It is not my faith. I suspect it is only the creed of a small
group of privileged Republicans and a troubled group of good but brittle
Catholics.
Though professing fierce loyalty to John Paul II, the network does
not appear to subscribe to his emphasis on the common good -- in his words,
the good of all and of each individual. John Paul pleads that we
reach out across the boundaries of diverse communities and actually
lead to the development of larger and more inclusive communities.
Perhaps JP II would be banned from Catholic Family Radio.
Tim Unsworth writes from Chicago, where he is feeling
fine.
National Catholic Reporter, October 1,
1999
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