How many Roman Catholic preachers preach on TV in the USA?

[Boojatta]

If there aren't any well-known national ones, then are there some who are broadcast locally in some areas?

[rosesaylavee]

1. There used to be a mass for shut-ins when I was growing

up on one of the Chicago stations but don't think they have that anymore.

And btw, Roman Catholics have priests and bishops - no preachers. :)

[Boojatta]

3. I didn't mean it as an official job title.

If you preach, then people should be able to get away with calling you a preacher.

Does the Pope have something to say about the matter or is preaching on TV or not preaching on TV a local decision?

[rosesaylavee]

8. Not RC anymore so I don't know if the Pope calls the

shots on this or not.

And not that the definition of preacher doesn't apply to priests as they do interpret the scriptures for their congregations - but RCs would just not think of their priests as preachers. IMO, its a culture thing that more often describes Protestant pastors.

[WinkyDink]

2. I'm not familiar with the term "preacher" for us Catholics!

However, one of the first---if not the first---and best religious television figures was Bishop Sheen. He was awesome.

[napi21]

6. Yes he was! See my post under yours. Do you remember him still

having his show after he was made a cardinal? I swear I remember seeing him in the red cassock.

[Boojatta]

10. Wikipedia says

Sheen earned a doctorate in philosophy at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium in 1923. While there, he became the first American ever to win the Cardinal Mercier award for the best philosophical treatise. Two years later, he also earned a doctorate in theology in Rome.

A popular instructor, Sheen wrote the first of some 90 books in 1925, and in 1930 began a weekly Sunday night radio broadcast, The Catholic Hour. Two decades later, the broadcast had a weekly listening audience of four million people.

In 1951 he also began a weekly television program on the DuMont network, Life is Worth Living. The show, scheduled for Tuesday nights at 8:00 p.m., was not expected to offer much of a challenge against ratings giants Milton Berle and Frank Sinatra, but surprisingly held its own, causing Berle to joke, "He uses old material, too".

[mitchtv]

12. I served a Nuptial Mass for him once

It was a big thing for Blessed Sacrament to be visited by any bishop.I still have his autograph in my book.

[napi21]

4. None that I'm aware of. Many years ago, Bishop Sheen had a TV program

It was a 30 minute show, I think, and he was a good speaker. Nothing like the Falwell's or Dobson's of today. He was more like Bernie Ward. He'd talk about one subject for that week, and actually make you think.

I haven't heard a Catholic priest speak on the radio or TV since then. Maybe it's because there just aren't very many like Sheen who could actually hold an audience?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. And I remember that he was funny, too, although

I can't remember any specific jokes. But I do remember him standing up in front of the TV cameras and making witty remarks and the audience laughing.

[CatholicEdHead]

21. I think his old shows are replayed on EWTN

over and over at off-times. EWTN follows the new "Traditionalist Catholic" identity movement. It is the "pray and pay" model taken to the extreme with rule following and not looking beyond the church.

[ugarte]

5. There's a channel...'EWTN'...that is mostly if not all Catholic...nt

[LeftyMom]

7. There's a mass for shut-ins on TV here

With a number to call if you need somebody to bring you the host and administer communion. It's just a typical mass though, mostly readings and very little that could be called preaching.

[indygrl]

9. How many Roman Catholic preachers preach on TV in the USA?

I can get the Mass for shut-ins and I think it is from Chicago. I think it's on EWTN. One big difference between the Catholic Mass on TV and the Tele-preachers is I've never heard a Catholic mass ask for money.

[WCGreen]

11. You know you are a real Catholic....

When you turn the mass for shut ins off after communion.....

[globalvillage]

14. LOL.

That's funny if you're Catholic.

Bishop Wuerl, who was recently installed as the Archbishop of Washington DC, had a show here in Pittsburgh called The Teaching of Christ. He was pretty good.

http://www.diopitt.org/38qtext.htm

[Sapphocrat]

18. Yes, but the acid test is...

...do you back out of your TV room, slowly, making sure nobody notices?

Sign me,

Former Catholic kiddie who thought the response to "The Mass is ended; go in peace" ("Thanks be to God!") meant we were thanking God that it was finally over.

[WCGreen]

19. That is so right....

Thanks be to god....

My dad perfected the walk out of church nonchalantly...

So we could get to the dinner before the crowd...

[Boojatta]

13. Do all the tele-preachers you've heard ask for money?

Ordinary TV shows are produced by companies that pay their writers, actors, technicians, management, etc. and still earn a profit for shareholders, but don't need to ask the viewers to send in donations.

I assume that advertising revenue, cable subscription fees, and pay-per-view cover the costs.

[nealmhughes]

16. Mother Angelica at ETWN outside of Birmingham, but she had a stroke

about 2 years ago and a lot of her preaching is repeats. But ETWN has a lot of interesing Catholic and even Byzntine Rite Catholic programming.

What we need is a good Protestant mainstream show with Reform Rabbis guest spotting and Episcopal and ECLA clergy and theologians on the air, and to add some variety, add in a UMC, UU, and other once in a while! And an imam once a month! That would rock!

People sometimes forget how large a part in one's life religion plays, even if it is merely a cultural relic... It is about the only time we discuss metaphysics unless its aesthetics or really far out astrophysics...

[Sapphocrat]

17. Define "preach".

If you mean like the money-grubbin' fire-'n'-brimstone fundies with the bouffant hairdos (Paul & Jan Crouch, are you listening?), then no.

But we've had a few local "celebrity" priests in the San Francisco Bay Area since I was a kid... Most memorably, "Father Harry of the God Squad" (I think he's become an archbishop or something), and this one fuh-laaaaming priest who gives long, touchy-feely, Richard Simmons-reminiscent sermons, and serves televised Mass early Sunday mornings. (He's officially NOT gay! But much-older gay friends who know him say otherwise.) Wish I could remember his name.

So, yeah, there are priests on TV, doing their usual priest thing, regularly. Have been since the days of Bishop Sheen. But they don't get in your face -- or your wallet -- the way the talibornifundamentalcases do.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

20. Eternal Word Network

All Catholic; all the time. Started up by Mother Angelica.

[CatholicEdHead]

22. There are many Catholic Radio networks out there

they of course do nothing but parrot the GOP party line and seem to be a wing of the GOP Catholic Outreach movement. I am referring to (ir)Relevant Radio, Ave Maria Radio, etc... If the topic goes beyond abortion "pro-life" or anti-gay marriage "pro-family", then it is not talked about. Follow the church line and no more is what is preached by these two networks. RR is approved by some bishops (often radical conservative ones), and Ave Maria is Tom Monaghan's network, the same guy behind the new Ave Maria gated community in Florida. He is abandoning Michigan on his own personal whims.

[SPKrazy]

23. We Have A Catholic Channel

I never watch it so I can't tell you who's on it

in Arkansas- Cox Communications Cable

[kwassa]

24. Eternal Word Television Network

The Catholic cable network carried in many areas

http://www.ewtn.com/

http://www.ewtn.com/tv/index.asp

[hunter]

25. The Diocese of Fresno, California owns & operates a television station.

http://www.dioceseoffresno.org/knxt/index.html

Pretty much all Catholic, all of the time...