ARTICLES

Truth on the Radio

BISHOP WEIGAND'S HOUR IN THE BALANCE

By Paulette Brady

Immaculate Heart Radio's KSMH (1620 AM) officially launched in the Sacramento area (broadcast from Auburn) on October 4, and began airing a local Monday through Friday hour-long program through the offices of Bishop William Weigand. KSMH founders gave Bishop Weigand carte blanche control of a daily hour-long broadcast. Weigand turned it over to the diocese council of priests, which is chaired by Father Vincent O'Reilly. While the show is called "the Bishop's hour," Bishop Wiegand has never been on the show. The format is that of a live interview and call-in talk show, hosted by Bob Dunning, a night-time talk show host for KBHK, another station broadcasting from Auburn. Father Michael Walsh, originally from Ireland, but for the past ten years producing a similar program for a station in San Francisco, is Dunning's producer.

In late October, financial backers of KSMH complained about the dissenting content of the Bishop's Hour. Since then, more orthodox views have been aired on the show. On Monday, October 11, host Bob Dunning interviewed Father O'Reilly on the show. Statements from Father O'Reilly included: priests should be allowed to marry; he liked Pope John XXIII better than Pope John Paul II because the former was more "open" than the latter; the U.S. bishops conference should have more autonomy; there is too much focus on the hierarchy and authority; the Church in California should be different from the Church in Nebraska. Father O'Reilly described another KSMH source, EWTN, as "too far right -- there are more theologies than just theirs."

On October 15, Dunning's guests on the Bishop's Hour were Father Charles McDermott, theologian of the diocese; Richard Gaillardetz, a layman brought in to lead the diocese priest's study-days event; and Monsignor Lane, an Irish priest who attended the recent European bishops synod (on the phone from Rome). Monsignor Lane, Father McDermot and Father Michael Walsh (producer) were seminary classmates in Ireland. On the air Lane expressed support for Cardinal Martini of Milan, who advocated a female deaconate, days after John Paul II prohibited further debate on the issue of women priests.

The guests also agreed with each other that Pope Pius XII's Mediator Dei proclaims that the priesthood of the people is equal to the ministerial priesthood. (But Pius XII states in Mediator Dei, "the priest acts in the name of the people precisely and only because he represents the person of Our Lord Jesus Christ.") The lay guest of the program, Gaillardetz, complained in the October 23 Catholic Herald about the proliferation of documents that come from Rome, "perhaps the hierarchy needs greater restraint in issuing so many statements," he wrote, "Let the burden of church teaching come from the church leaders closest to a particular pastoral situation."

On October 27, Father Joseph Fessio of Ignatius Press, a founder of Catholic Family Radio, had an exchange on KSMH with Father McDermott on the Church's position on the death penalty. Father Fessio held to the Church's position that the state has the right to take the life of a criminal. "If you don't believe capital punishment is just, you're not a Catholic," he said. Father McDermott countered, "You can hold two different viewpoints on the death penalty in the Church in light of the Pope's recent pronouncements." Father Fessio replied, "as a prudential judgment, yes -- not as an intrinsic immorality." Father Fessio said that Catholic Family Radio has a monitor, who listens to the programming to make sure it agrees with the teachings of the Church. According to a high placed employee of KSMH, there is no such monitor for either KSMH, or Immaculate Heart Radio, although most of the programming comes from EWTN, which does have a monitor. Dave Leatherby Sr., a KSMH station founder, said that Father McDermott is supposed to be monitoring the Bishop's Hour for orthodox content. Leatherby said, "the long-term goal of the Bishop's Hour is that of KSMH -- to get the dissenters to participate, to evangelize everybody."