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October 2007 Issue
A glimpse at our past
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In the early days of local
television Father Hugh Michael
Beahan began a program on
WOOD TV in Grand Rapids
called "Fifteen with Father." From
1953 to 1976 the program aired
every week, featuring Father Mike
analyzing and discussing matters
of current religious or moral
interest to the general public.
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Nationally, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen was attracting
attention from 195 1 to 1957 for his dramatic and even spell-binding
televised lectures during prime-time. While others could not
make a successful transition from faceless radio to the unforgiving
cameras of television, audiences in West Michigan saw in Father
Mike, as in Bishop Sheen, a gifted and compelling messenger
of the Gospel.
For each of his programs, moreover, Father
Mike was required by cautious church authorities to submit
his written text beforehand for approval of doctrinal and
moral content consistent with the official teachings of the
church. This practice, therefore, also meant that he had to
commit each program text to memory. As television stations
were required to provide a percentage of their air-time to
public service programming, Father Mike arranged with WOOD
TV to begin televising the Mass on Sundays from their studios
in Grand Rapids in 1955.
Father Mike became producer, director, and
narrator of the Mass, explaining to viewers quietly and authoritatively
(while he himself was unseen) the unfolding ritual. A guest
priest was the celebrant and the congregation came from parishes
or groups usually from neighboring parishes in Grand Rapids.
So successful was the televising of the Mass that the Grand
Rapids station arranged hookups with other affiliated stations
within the broadcast network. A preview of this phenomenon
had been the installation ceremonies of Bishop Babcock in
1954, when for the first time in the diocese such ceremonies
were televised and broadcast through a similar hookup.
Televising the installation of the diocesan
bishop has continued. By 1966, through the encouragement of
Monsignor Charles Popell, rector of the Cathedral of St. Andrew,
a large donation by Mrs. Catherine Rose equipped the cathedral
with its own TV studio and cameras, providing for the Mass
to air from the cathedral, among the first in the nation to
be able to do so, live and every Sunday. Father Mike arranged
the transition and helped the cathedral in training volunteers
from the parish to operate the cameras. When it became no
longer possible for the diocese to televise the Mass as a
public service program, the diocese began to purchase air
time as it continues to do so today.
The Mass airs live Sunday mornings at 10:00
a.m. on WXMI FOX 17 with coverage throughout most of the diocese.
Dedicated to this important ministry to the homebound, volunteers
continue to provide the technical and camera support needed
to bring the Mass into people's homes. Father Mike died of
cancer at the age of 60 in 1980, leaving a rich communication
legacy.
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