Constructing a Catholic Church Out of Thin Air: "Catholic Hour's" Early Years on NBC Radio
This article traces the genesis and early development of Catholic Hour, a popular weekly radio program produced by the National Council of Catholic Men that first appeared on NBC radio in 1930. The show was part of a triumvirate of religious programs on free network airtime donated to fulfill govern...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
2007
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| In: |
American catholic studies
Year: 2007, Volume: 118, Issue: 4, Pages: 37-67 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article traces the genesis and early development of Catholic Hour, a popular weekly radio program produced by the National Council of Catholic Men that first appeared on NBC radio in 1930. The show was part of a triumvirate of religious programs on free network airtime donated to fulfill government-mandated public interest programming requirements. While Catholic Hour's serialized, thematic sermons featured a variety of speakers, this piece centers on the rhetoric and listener responses associated with the program's two most popular personalities, Fathers Fulton Sheen and James Gillis. The article contends that Catholic Hour went beyond the cautious boundaries conceived for it by network and church officials to disseminate an idealized, and yet polyvalent, vision of Catholicism that reached a large and responsive audience of both non-Catholics and Catholics. As such, it transcended the bounds of region and ethnicity that had traditionally encumbered the voice and image of Catholicism in American culture. In achieving respectability, Catholic Hour simultaneously critiqued widespread social attitudes on topics such as the role of scientific authority and race in interwar American culture, offering what its speakers presented as a timeless, yet thoroughly American, take on important issues of the day. The speakers' success in building a wide-ranging audience was due in no small part to the unique qualities of the radio medium itself, a medium that enabled listeners to imagine Catholic authorities inoffensively chatting with them in their living rooms. |
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| ISSN: | 2161-8534 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American catholic studies
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