Reflections for the first Sunday (Week) of Lent, from Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia . . .
Author: Jimmy Akin
Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."
View all posts by Jimmy Akin
12 thoughts on “They Call Him . . . Cardinal YouTube (Part 1)”
Beautiful, except for the comment about attending a Bible study group wherever you can find one if there is none at your parish.
They call him…ummm, Flipper, Flipper, lives in a world full of wonder, swimming there under, under the sea.
Nah.
I hope Joe D’Hippolito saw this.
When Cardinal Rigali was the Archbishop of St. Louis (and my Archbishop) he instituted Diocese wide Adoration (he promoted it heavily) either perpetual or at least weekly.
So, here’s another way for him to evangelize, good for him. Preach it Your Eminence!
We Catholics are usually way behind in the use of new media and technology. Good job by the Cardinal on being out front on this one.
Dwight, “Beautiful, except for the comment about attending a Bible study group wherever you can find one if there is none at your parish.”
As I understood him, he meant that one could check out another parish, not another denomination.
I took it to mean another Catholic Bible Study, like forming one at home with friends or attending one of Jeff Cavin’s seminars, etc.
With all the anticatholic stuff on youtube, it’s good to see we are getting our share of the good stuff there.
It’s good to see a positive story about a bishop!
We haven’t always been way behind in the media. consider Archbishop Fulton Sheen:
“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. During the middle of this era, he conducted the first religious service broadcast on the new medium of television, putting in motion a new avenue for his religious pursuits.
Sheen was also credited with helping convert a number of notable figures to the Catholic faith. One of his first converts was writer Heywood Broun, who had been critical of Sheen’s stance on evolution, but after countless discussions with the priest, changed his mind. Others who followed in Broun’s footsteps included politician Clare Boothe Luce and automaker Henry Ford II.
Sheen served as Auxiliary Bishop of New York from 1951 to 1965. 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”. In 1952, Sheen won an Emmy Award for his efforts, accepting the acknowledgement by saying, “I feel it is time I pay tribute to my four writers. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”
The program consisted of Sheen simply speaking in front of a live audience, often speaking on the theology of current topics such as the evils of communism or the usage of psychology, and occasionally using a chalkboard. One of his best remembered presentations came in February 1953, when he forcefully denounced the Soviet regime of Joseph Stalin. Sheen gave a dramatic reading of the burial scene from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, substituting the names of Caesar, Cassius, Marc Antony, and Brutus with those of prominent Soviet leaders: Stalin, Beria, Malenkov, and Vishinsky. From the bishop’s lips came the pronouncement, “Stalin must one day meet his judgment.” On March 5, 1953, Stalin died.
The show would run until 1957, drawing as many as 30 million people on a weekly basis. In 1958, he became national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, serving for eight years before being appointed Bishop of Rochester on October 26, 1966. Sheen also hosted a nationally-syndicated series, The Fulton Sheen Program, from 1961 to 1968 (first in black and white and then in color). The format of this series was basically the same as Life is Worth Living.”
Pseudomodo:
Don’t forget about Family Theater from Father Patrick Peyton!
Family Theater in the 1940s and 1950s produced radio and film programing for family entertainment which many were explicitly Catholic and featured in their programs many of the big names in Hollywood like Lucille Ball, Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Don Ameche, Rosalind Russell, Gregory Peck, Shirley Temple, Jimmy Durante, Natalie Wood, Gene Kelly, Charlton Heston and, of course, Bing Crosby.
Family Theater aired from 1947 to 1957.
More than 58 films and TV specials have featured Frank Sinatra, Loretta Young, William Shatner, Bob Newhart, Bing Crosby, Raymond Burr, and Helen Hayes. James Dean’s first film role, George Lucas’ first film credit (assistant cameraman) and Princess Grace’s (Kelly) last three films were at Family Theater Productions. Family Theater Productions
“We Catholics are usually way behind in the use of new media and technology.”
Really? Not with radio: http://www.oecumene.radiovaticana.org/en1/enstoria.asp
And not even with the World Wide Wibble itself — the Vatican website went live around Christmas 1995: http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesArticle/id-4458.html
Even so, I do believe that without the Church, none of this sort of high technology would have happened at all.
People today like to say that the Church has always to be dragged kicking into the latest stuff, or is running to catch up, because .. well, actually, I don’t know. I can’t explain this. It makes no sense whatever to me.
Beautiful, except for the comment about attending a Bible study group wherever you can find one if there is none at your parish.
They call him…ummm, Flipper, Flipper, lives in a world full of wonder, swimming there under, under the sea.
Nah.
I hope Joe D’Hippolito saw this.
When Cardinal Rigali was the Archbishop of St. Louis (and my Archbishop) he instituted Diocese wide Adoration (he promoted it heavily) either perpetual or at least weekly.
So, here’s another way for him to evangelize, good for him. Preach it Your Eminence!
We Catholics are usually way behind in the use of new media and technology. Good job by the Cardinal on being out front on this one.
Dwight, “Beautiful, except for the comment about attending a Bible study group wherever you can find one if there is none at your parish.”
As I understood him, he meant that one could check out another parish, not another denomination.
I took it to mean another Catholic Bible Study, like forming one at home with friends or attending one of Jeff Cavin’s seminars, etc.
With all the anticatholic stuff on youtube, it’s good to see we are getting our share of the good stuff there.
It’s good to see a positive story about a bishop!
We haven’t always been way behind in the media. consider Archbishop Fulton Sheen:
“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. During the middle of this era, he conducted the first religious service broadcast on the new medium of television, putting in motion a new avenue for his religious pursuits.
Sheen was also credited with helping convert a number of notable figures to the Catholic faith. One of his first converts was writer Heywood Broun, who had been critical of Sheen’s stance on evolution, but after countless discussions with the priest, changed his mind. Others who followed in Broun’s footsteps included politician Clare Boothe Luce and automaker Henry Ford II.
Sheen served as Auxiliary Bishop of New York from 1951 to 1965. 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”. In 1952, Sheen won an Emmy Award for his efforts, accepting the acknowledgement by saying, “I feel it is time I pay tribute to my four writers. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”
The program consisted of Sheen simply speaking in front of a live audience, often speaking on the theology of current topics such as the evils of communism or the usage of psychology, and occasionally using a chalkboard. One of his best remembered presentations came in February 1953, when he forcefully denounced the Soviet regime of Joseph Stalin. Sheen gave a dramatic reading of the burial scene from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, substituting the names of Caesar, Cassius, Marc Antony, and Brutus with those of prominent Soviet leaders: Stalin, Beria, Malenkov, and Vishinsky. From the bishop’s lips came the pronouncement, “Stalin must one day meet his judgment.” On March 5, 1953, Stalin died.
The show would run until 1957, drawing as many as 30 million people on a weekly basis. In 1958, he became national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, serving for eight years before being appointed Bishop of Rochester on October 26, 1966. Sheen also hosted a nationally-syndicated series, The Fulton Sheen Program, from 1961 to 1968 (first in black and white and then in color). The format of this series was basically the same as Life is Worth Living.”
Pseudomodo:
Don’t forget about Family Theater from Father Patrick Peyton!
Family Theater in the 1940s and 1950s produced radio and film programing for family entertainment which many were explicitly Catholic and featured in their programs many of the big names in Hollywood like Lucille Ball, Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Don Ameche, Rosalind Russell, Gregory Peck, Shirley Temple, Jimmy Durante, Natalie Wood, Gene Kelly, Charlton Heston and, of course, Bing Crosby.
Family Theater aired from 1947 to 1957.
More than 58 films and TV specials have featured Frank Sinatra, Loretta Young, William Shatner, Bob Newhart, Bing Crosby, Raymond Burr, and Helen Hayes. James Dean’s first film role, George Lucas’ first film credit (assistant cameraman) and Princess Grace’s (Kelly) last three films were at Family Theater Productions.
Family Theater Productions
“We Catholics are usually way behind in the use of new media and technology.”
Really? Not with radio:
http://www.oecumene.radiovaticana.org/en1/enstoria.asp
And not even with the World Wide Wibble itself — the Vatican website went live around Christmas 1995:
http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesArticle/id-4458.html
Even so, I do believe that without the Church, none of this sort of high technology would have happened at all.
People today like to say that the Church has always to be dragged kicking into the latest stuff, or is running to catch up, because .. well, actually, I don’t know. I can’t explain this. It makes no sense whatever to me.