Selling Catholicism

by Lynch, Christopher Owen

• ISBN13: 9780813120676
• ISBN10: 0813120675
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-09-17
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Kentucky

Summary

" When the popularity of Milton Berle's television show began to slip, Berle quipped, ""At least I'm losing my ratings to God!"" He was referring to the popularity of ""Life Is Worth Living"" and its host, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. The show aired from 1952 to 1957, and Sheen won an Emmy, beating competition that included Lucille Ball, Jimmy Durante, and Edward R. Murrow. What was the secret to Sheen's on-air success? Christopher Lynch examines how he reached a diverse audience by using television to synthesize traditional American Protestantism with a reassuring vision of Catholicism as patriotic and traditional. Sheen provided his viewers with a sense of stability by sentimentalizing the medieval world and holding it out as a model for contemporary society. Offering clear-cut moral direction in order to eliminate the anxiety of cultural change, he discussed topics ranging from the role of women to the perils of Communism. Sheen's rhetoric united both Protestant and Catholic audiences, reflecting -and forming- a vision of mainstream, postwar America. Lynch argues that Sheen's persuasive television presentations helped Catholics gain social acceptance and paved the way for religious ecumenism in America. Yet, Sheen's work also sowed the seeds for the crisis of competing ideologies in the modern American Catholic Church.

Table of Contents

Foreword	vii	(2)
Preface	ix	(2)
Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	1	(14)
1 The Shaping of a Medieval Knight for a Modern World	15	(17)
2 Quest for Stability in the Midst of Change	32	(27)
3 The Medieval City and the Crusade for the American Ideal	59	(28)
4 A Television Troubadour Sings His Medieval Lady's Praise	87	(33)
5 Bishop Sheen's Role Negotiation from Ascetic Bishop to Television Celebrity	120	(31)
6 Bishop Sheen as Harbinger of an American Camelot	151	(10)
Notes	161	(17)
Bibliography	178	(18)
Index	196