By Andrew Ware
Some might question if using heavy metal music and jokes about sex abuse were proper outreach messages for a Catholic institution: But not Father Michael Graham, president of Cincinnati's Xavier University. In fact, he is quite proud of such efforts.
While Mother Angelica built a global network to spread Catholic teaching, Xavier University undertook its own electronic missionary work. Except that while the Poor Clare Nuns of Perpetual Adoration were building EWTN to spread the Gospel of Christ, Xavier University was building its own X-Star Network of eight radio stations to spread the “Gospel” of National Public Radio.
Jesuit missionaries
During the protestant schism, St. Ignatius's Jesuits were the great defenders of the Church. Indeed, the Jesuit motto is: “to strive especially for the defense and propagation of the faith and for the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine.”
And yet the modern day Jesuits at Xavier University have rebuffed repeated requests to disavow the anti-Catholic content of their own radio network. Their focus has been on airing vintage classic radio programs such as Groucho Marx's You Bet Your Life which supplements NPR programs like All Things Considered and Morning Edition. Add X-Star's own programming which includes shows on how to build wealth and appreciate new age mysticism, and it is certainly an eclectic mix.
Over the course of the past year here's a small sampling of what you might have heard:
Devaluing the Sanctity and Sacrament of Marriage
In one program, Morning Edition chose to explore alternatives to marriage. As promoted on NPR's web site: “NPR correspondent Susan Stamberg continues her June series on “Living Single.” Today, Susan speaks with Marshall Miller and Dorian Solot, who began the Alternatives to Marriage Project. Miller and Solot have been together for nearly a decade, but aren't married. They have co-authored a book, Unmarried to Each Other: The Essential Guide to Living Together and Staying Together due out this fall.”
The story explained that living a single life, especially a single, co-habitating life, is growing in acceptance and included testimonials for this lifestyle choice.
NPR's “balanced” reporting shared the downsides of such a choice being the legal aspects of that decision: Such as finding it harder to rent a car or share insurance benefits. Not a single word defending marriage as a Sacrament, much less mention of it as a multi-millennium tradition based in Judeo-Christian culture. Nor that study after study supports healthy marriages as being best for children.
NPR Uses a Comedian to Mock Catholic Sex Abuse Scandal
Here's how Marketplace's web site lists the following story broadcast on the Jesuit-owned stations.
“Bishop's PR — The situation in the Catholic Church has become so desperate that the Los Angeles archdiocese, has hired a “big gun” public relations firm, known for its success in helping companies overcome their serious image problems. Commentator Tim Bedore gives us his take on celibacy, public relations, commercials, and the crisis in the Catholic Church.”
Bedore, who works as a comedian, goes on to warn how hiring a bad PR firm would cause even more problems for the Church and “cautioned” that the wrong firm might want to promote Catholicism with the following statement: “In a recent survey, up to 82 percent of Catholic priests report that they are not pedophiles.”
WVXU's Original programming “Saturday Night Loud” with host Gary Horn, used Xavier University's support to promote himself as the “Host from Hell” to the accompaniment of simulated demon noises and promotions for current MTV sensation Ozzy Osbourne's “OZ FEST.” Apparently even the Xavier Jesuits have some limits; the program was dropped last July.
One person can make the needed changes to drop the NPR format or to add orthodox Catholic programming. That's Xavier University President Fr. Graham. One might think listening to a speech that Fr. Graham gave just last year at the Answer the Call conference that he might be receptive to such an effort.
During an impassioned speech Fr. Graham's exhorted his 6,000-plus guests that day with the following words:
“The question before each and everyone of us today is not really simply will we be in relationship with the Lord, because we cannot choose NOT to be in relationship with the Lord. The question for us all, is what will we DO about that relationship? Will we allow it to be the kind of hidden-away, uncomfortable principle that we try sometimes to organize our lives around? Will that relationship that we have with the Lord, that He has poured Himself and everything He has into, will that relationship be something that embarrasses us or that we don't feel comfortable talking about enough on Sundays, maybe, or reflecting on from time to time when the going gets tough? Or will each and everyone of us take up the responsibility that we have been given, with the gifts we have been given, in the middle of the lives that we have been given, in the middle of this world which has been given to us all? And will we then decide to do what we can, to do that which He gives us to do, in the midst of these lives, in this world we have so freely been given at the hand of our Creator? Will we do that or will we not?”
Apparently Fr. Graham's answer to his own question; on using his gifts, his world, his life, as a university president with eight radio stations in three states, is: not.
When provided examples of anti-Catholicism aired on the X-Star Network, Fr. Graham's response has been to deny requests for meetings and to ignore letters from concerned Catholics.
In fact, in a letter to this writer, Father Graham wrote: “The larger point I would like to make, however, is that Xavier University is quite proud of the programming choices that WVXU and its network of stations make.”
When offered an opportunity to operate a network of radio stations whose success could be measured in value not by Arbitron ratings or “prestige points” but in conversions to the Lord, Father Graham appears to prefer his Peabody Award.
Andy Ware lives in Mt. Gilead, Ohio where he and his family are members ofthe Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary Church.
