Ch. 16 UHF TV - St. Michael Broadcasting, Inc.

New programs this month include De-Christianization of Culture and the Catholic Counter-Revolution by Raymond DeSouza; St. Augustine: His life and Spirituality by Fr. Groeschel; Depression: the Silent Epidemic, by Our Lady’s Tears in Mankato; Carmel of Allentown, a documentary about this holy order of nuns.

Compliments   We volunteers thank all of you who call and leave compliments on our answering machine and in notes enclosed with your contributions.  These encourage us very much. 

God bless you in this New Year,                          Michael Bird, President and Chief Volunteer

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Excerpts for January 2012: New This Month; International Catholic University; Financial Needs; Fundraising Ideas Needed; Catholic Programming Needed; Latin Mass on Ch. 16.1, Movide Schedule.

New This Month:  This month we will begin our evening programming at 6 pm.  There are many new programs: Christ in the City (Fr. Rutler) at 6 pm, and Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense (Dale Ahlquist) at 6:30 pm. We begin showing International Catholic University classes in philosophy, natural law, art history, sexual ethics, etc.  These classes can be taken for master’s degree credit.  Special programming includes Dr. Charles Rice’s Christendom College Commencement Address. Programs related to abortion and its effects include Life Unexpected (produced in our studio), In the Wake of Choice, Suffering in Silence and Crossroads of the Heart.

Financial Needs   We need a new computer for filming off-site.  Cost with software is $3800.  We would like to broadcast a Spanish language Catholic station from Mexico, Maria Vision.  Cost for related equipment  and labor is $12,383.  If you can fund either of these please contact the station.

Fundraising Ideas Needed   Despite having no paid staff we continue to operate at a loss.  If you have fundraising ideas, such as a fundraiser event, or sponsorships, or leasing a channel, please call, email or write the station.

     Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam,                               Michael Bird, President and Chief Volunteer

Weekend Movies  See the top of the back page of our printed newsletter for a listing of weekend movies.

 “The main tenet of socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected.”  “Paternal authority can be neither abolished nor absorbed by the state…socialists… in setting aside the parent and setting up a State supervision, act against natural justice, and destroy the structure of the home.”  Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, 1891

“…no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.” Pope Pius XI Quadragesimo Anno, 1931

Latin Mass Fund   If you would like your contribution to go to our efforts to broadcast the Mass in Latin (Tridentine form), please include a note with your contribution.

Large Donation needed.  We have the opportunity to broadcast Maria Vision, a 
Catholic Spanish language station from Mexico on one of our sub-channels.  We could 
help those who for whom English is a second language know their faith better and in turn 
help the United States become a better country.  Equipment and installation charges for this
 would cost $12,383.  If you can fund this project, please contact the station.

Weekend Movies   See the top of the back page of our October newsletter for a listing of weekend movies.  Our newsletter can be downloaded in PDF format. Click here.

New This Month: Professor Carol’s Discovering Music: 300 Years of Interaction in Western Music, Arts, History, and Culture.  This delightful series shows how music and art reflect Western culture.  We thank Professor Carol for allowing us to show this on our station.  We also have some programs on vocations: Completely Christ’s: The Consecrated Life, and Answering the Master’s Call.  A sadder story is The Tragedy of Thomas Merton.

Excerpt for August - Fr. John Hardon; Volunteers Needed; Large Donaton Needed; Latin Mass Fund. 

“Jesus needs us to supply, as St. Paul says, what is wanting in the sufferings of Christ.  What are we being told?  Did not Christ’s death redeem the world?  Yes, but conditionally.  What is the condition?  The condition is that we unite our sufferings with His, our blood in body and spirit with His.  Martyrdom is not an appendix to Christianity.  It belongs to its essence.  If we unite our sufferings for the faith with the Precious Blood of Christ, we shall be cooperating with Him in the redemption of the world.  The secret is to love the cross.  Why?  Because our Love was crucified and we wish to be crucified with Him.  Why?  Because then we shall be glorified with Him.”  Fr. John Hardon, S. J.

“Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you on my account.          Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in Heaven.”  Matthew 5:11

Volunteers Needed!  We volunteers are overwhelmed with work! If you have skills in 
“digitizing media,” we desperately need your help.  We have a huge backlog of programs on 
VHS and DVD and older media that we need to convert into video files. Candidates should 
possess knowledge of digitizing, editing and encoding; familiarity with digital audio editing
 techniques; knowledge of Final Cut Pro, web skills (ex., familiarity with video files and codecs);
 knowledge of MS office, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, on-line editing and color corrections.  If 
you have all or some of these skills, please email the station: info@stmichaelbrodcasting.com.
    For a more complete list of the volunteer tasks and the skills needed, please see the back 
of this schedule.

Large Donation needed.  We have the opportunity to broadcast Maria Vision, a Catholic 
Spanish language station from Mexico.  We could help those who don’t yet know English well
enough to know their faith better and in turn help the United States become a better country. 
 Equipment and installation charges for this would cost $12,383.  If you can fund this project, 
please contact the station.

 Latin Mass Fund   If you would like our contribution to go toward our goal of broadcasting 
the Mass in Latin (Tridentine), please indicate this when you contribute. 

Michael Bird, President and Chief Volunteer

Fr. Barron has in production a 10 part series called the Catholicism.  In this gorgeously filmed work, Fr. Barron travels the lands of the Bible, to the great shrines of Europe, to America, Asia, Latin America, to Africa (Uganda) - and beyond, to witness the passion and glory of the faith that claims over a billion of the earth’s people as its own.  St. Michael Broadcasting will host a screening of two of these 50 minute episodes at St. Charles Borromeo Church, St. Anthony, on Sunday, July 31, at 7 pm.  A “screening” is a rough draft of a film about which viewers offer criticisms, so that editors can make the final cut.  If you would like to attend this free screening, please call the studio at 612-724-2265 and leave a message stating the names of those who will attend and a call back number, or register online by emailing us at info@stmichaelbroadcasting.com.  Seating is limited to 200.  Please call and register today!

Saturday Specials this month include Christianity’s Message to the Middle East by Monsignor Sharbel, July 2; Theology of Human Suffering, July 9; In the Wake of Choice, July 16; Archdiocesan Ordination Mass, July 23; and Beginning Homeschooling, July 30.

New shows this month include: Michael Voris, Armor of God II; Catholic Underground, a show geared for a younger audience; Fr. Baker’s Theology of the Old Testament; Fr. Corapi, Come Home to the Catholic Church and Heaven and Hell; Fr. Groeschel, The Sacraments and the Catechism.  Because of the continuing dispute about marriage, we will once again show Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse’s four part series Same Sex marriage Affects Everyone.

Fr. Barron has in production a 10 part series called the Catholicism.  In the series, Fr. Barron travels the lands of the Bible, to the great shrines of Europe, to America, Asia, Latin America, to Africa - and beyond, to witness the passion and glory of the faith that claims over a billion of the earth’s people as its own.  St. Michael Broadcasting will host a screening of two of these 50 minute episodes at St. Charles Borromeo Church, St. Anthony, on Sunday, July 31, at 7 pm.  A “screening” is a rough draft of a film in which viewers critique what they like, what was unclear etc., so that editors can make the final cut.  If you would like to attend this screening, please call the studio and leave a message and call back number, or register on the Word on Fire website: wordonfire.org.

May Specials   Specials for this month include a four part series by Fr. Corapi on the Blessed Mother called The Moon Under Her Feet.  Another is a 5 part series by Fr. Pacwa called Islam and Christianity which is helpful for Christians wishing to understand Islam, and Muslims wanting to understand Christianity.   In addition we are presenting some programs by Bishop Sheen on Alcoholism, a program by Fr. Corapi titled Socialism, and an interesting program by E. Michael Jones called How Contraception Causes Drive-by Shootings.

Latin Mass Fund   If you would like your contribution to go toward our efforts to broadcast a weekly Mass in Latin, (Tridentine form), please include a note with your contribution.

Sincerely in Christ,                                       Michael Bird, President and Chief volunteer 

Excerpt for April 2011- Quotation from Pope Benedict XVI, Dec. 20, 2010

“Alexis de Tocqueville, in his day, observed that democracy in America had become possible and had worked because there existed a fundamental moral consensus which, transcending individual denominations, united everyone. Only if there is such a consensus on the essentials can constitutions and law function. This fundamental consensus derived from the Christian heritage is at risk wherever its place, the place of moral reasoning, is taken by the purely instrumental rationality… To resist this eclipse of reason and to preserve its capacity for seeing the essential, for seeing God and man, for seeing what is good and what is true, is the common interest that must unite all people of good will. The very future of the world is at stake.”  Pope Benedict XVI, December 20, 2010

April Specials   Since many weren’t able to receive our March programming due to our transmitter problems, we are repeating some of those programs this month.  Specials for April include two shorts: Mystical Revelations of the Sacred Heart to St. Margaret-Mary Alacoque and Germaine: Requiem of a Soul.  Both of these were produced by Our Lady’s Tears Productions in Mankato and are very good.  Other specials include: A Lenten Retreat for Women by Bishop LeVoir; Portraits in Courage, a documentary about those struggling with same-sex attraction; Demographic Winter/Bomb, two films that predict the dire economic and social consequences of low birth rates; and a rare six part series by Fr. John Hardon, S.J.

Latin Mass Fund  If you would like your contribution to go to our efforts to broadcast the Mass in Latin (Tridentine form), please include a note with your contribution.

Lent begins Wednesday, March 9.  Specials for Lent include Conversion, by Fr. Barron; Lenten Power Pack by Fr. Corapi; Lenten Retreat for Women by Abp. John LeVoir.  Other March specials include Portraits in Courage, a documentary about those struggling with same-sex attraction, and Demographic Winter (or Bomb), two films that predict the dire social and economic consequences of falling birth rates.

Latin Mass Fund  If you would like your contribution to go to our efforts to broadcast the Mass in Latin (Tridentine form), please include a note with your contribution.

We need your support!  Last year it cost about $141,000 to keep St. Michael Broadcasting on the air (not including needed new equipment).  That is about $368/day.  Some weeks we don’t get $368.00!  So help out financially if you can.  If you can’t, well, don’t worry.  Keep those prayers coming and telling others about the station! 

      Whereas other stations are busy producing “reality shows,” our programming focuses on the 

ultimate reality show, which is Life, soon to be followed by Death, Judgment, Heaven or Hell.  The 

stakes are eternal.  Please help your station continue to bring its unique content to others by praying 

for its success, telling others, and if possible, supporting it with a financial contribution.  Your station 

can increase your and other viewers’ understanding so that we may all one day “be happy with Him 

forever in Heaven.”

                    Sincerely yours in Christ,                                               Michael Bird, President

The Holy Eucharist, the Presence Sacrament

  (Excerpted from Chapter 1 of With Us today: On the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, 

by Fr. John Hardon, S.J.)

     “This should be etched in bronze: We need to have the Word of God not only in our hearts, but 

also in our minds… The Catholic faith cannot just be believed to be retained, it must be understood… 

The one virtue upon which all the other virtues depend is faith.  It is so important to remember this: We 

believe with the intellect.  Either our minds are thoroughly convinced and our conviction keeps growing

 with increased intelligibility, or the inevitable happens---not only will the other virtues be weakened 

and lost, but faith itself will disappear.  That is why the strength of the Catholic Church in any period 

of her history depends on the depth with which professed Catholics understand their faith…

     Is there one basic mystery whose weakening has been at the root of this crisis of faith?  Yes there 

is.  The single most fundamental mystery of Christianity that… needs to be strengthened and 

deepened if we are to preserve the Catholic Church in our day is “The Mystery of Faith” itself.  It is the 

mystery of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ on earth today in the fullness of His divinity and the

 fullness of His humanity in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the altar…  We believe Christ instituted the

 Church so that through the Church the graces of salvation might be communicated to a sin-laden world.

  The main source of these salvific graces is Christ Himself in the Holy Eucharist, and the foundation 

of the Eucharist is the Real Presence.” 

Since February is the month of Valentine’s Day, we will continue to broadcast programs that strengthen

 the understanding of marriage.  See the series “Same-Sex Marriage Affects Everyone.”  

Complementing this is programming that focuses on the love of God and man in the Eucharist.  

See the programs by Michael Voris, Fr. Barron and Fr. Corapi.

You too can “earmark”!  We are continuing to raise money so that we can buy the equipment to 

broadcast the Latin Mass (Tridentine form).  If you would like your contribution used for this purpose, 

please let us know.  Also, we thank you viewers who have responded to our survey.  If you haven’t 

yet sent yours in, please do so.  This will help us improve our programming and attract sponsors.

Note: If you send in a contribution by mail, and you have an e-mail address, please include this if 

you don’t mind.  This way we can send you an acknowledgement by e-mail and save on postage.  

We do not share contributors’ names or e-mail addresses with anyone.

     God bless you and yours this coming year.    Michael Bird, President and Chief Volunteer

     “Hail Mary full of grace…”                                                                                                            by Fr. John Hardon, S.J.

Michael Bird, President and Chief Volunteer

Volunteer Needed   We need someone to look up copyrights on various productions so that we can write the copyright holder for permission to broadcast, or know for certain that the material is in the public domain.  This is computer and phone detective work that can be done from home.  Please call or email the station if you would like to do this.

Charity

                                                                            The Gentle Voice in the Night

November 2010 - Letter from Michael Bird, President and Chief Volunteer at St. Michael Broadcasting

Dear Friends and Family of St. Michael Broadcasting,

   Last month, Abp. Nienstedt sent out a DVD on marriage to all Catholic households in this archdiocese.  Many people complained in the local papers, including a disrespectful local priest.  I sent the letter below to the StarTribune in defense of Abp. Nienstedt.  This issue, in microcosm, exemplifies the need for our station.

The Archbishop’s Defense of Marriage

    The December 23, 1940 issue of Time magazine quotes Albert Einstein saying, “Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth.  I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom.  I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised, I now praise unreservedly.”  Archbishop John Nienstedt, by speaking the truth about marriage through DVDs mailed to Catholics in this archdiocese, is attempting to warn of the dangers we face if the campaign to redefine marriage prevails.  To cite one danger: Children thrive best when brought up by their biological parents in a life-long marriage.  With same-sex “marriage” a child is guaranteed at most one biological parent, and would in all cases be deprived of either a mother or a father.  How unfair.  Just as in the case of abortion, the rights and needs of children are ignored.  In defending marriage, the Church is defending the vulnerable and fostering a more civilized society.

     Why do so many who proclaim their “tolerance” gladly suppress arguments for preserving marriage?  People who haven’t even viewed the Archbishop’s 18 minute educational DVD send it to an “artist” who destroys them.  How different is this than “book-burning”?  And last year, after TPT2 broadcast an hour long program that was a de facto commercial for same-sex marriage, I wrote them, critical that my tax dollars were used for this purpose.  They wrote back:  “…we are committed to presenting a wide spectrum of view points and opinions… part of our mission is to serve as a place where ideas can be explored, discussed and debated through informative programming.”  I wrote back, asking if they would put on programming that defended marriage.  No reply.  I wrote asking if they planned to broadcast Archbishop Nienstedt’s DVD.  Answer: No.  This is bias and the suppression of “viewpoints and debate.”

     It’s also disturbing to see those who want to protect marriage maligned as “hate-filled” bigots “imposing their religion” and violating the “separation of church and state.”  The First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” and Thomas Jefferson said this built a “wall of separation between church and state.”  Yet as Governor of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson proposed that sodomy should be punished by castration.  How likely is it that he would support “same sex marriage”?  And in 1996, the late senator Paul Wellstone told his gay and lesbian supporters "...marriage was reserved for the union of one man and one woman." He then voted for the Defense of Marriage Act and explained his vote: "I don't think we should change the definition of marriage.  It is the central institution of American life."  Is the late Paul Wellstone now too, an “intolerant, hate-filled bigot,” or did he, like the great pagan Cicero, make a wise judgment based on his understanding of the natural law?  

     Marriage is the central institution of American life.  Historian Paul Johnson has written “To destroy marriage law is a step towards destroying the rule of law itself…Once the law is humbled, all else that is valuable in a civilized society will vanish, usually at a terrifying speed.”  In the interest of presenting the case, suppressed by TPT2, for preserving marriage, Channel 16.3 will broadcast several programs in defense of marriage, including the Archbishop’s censored DVD, beginning October 23. 

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Please support your station, by praying for its success, contributing, and helping to increase our viewership.

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October 2010 -  Letter from Michael Bird, President and Chief Volunteer at St. Michael Broadcasting

Dear Friends and Family of St. Michael Broadcasting,                                      October, 2010 A.D.                       

This month I would like to go over some housekeeping matters pertaining to your station.

Installation of the system that will allow us to broadcast unique programming on our sub-channels is now complete.  We are now learning how to operate this equipment and loading programs onto a server, or what I would call an “electronic library.”  This is more difficult and time consuming than we had anticipated.  Right now, we are hoping and planning on having a recurring prime-time (e.g., 7-10 pm) block available by All Saints’ Day, November 1, on one sub-channel.  You will receive an update on this in the next newsletter.

From time to time we receive understandable complaints that, during the Mass, at the moment of consecration, a banner goes across the top of the screen saying, “Please Send Donations to…”  Viewers can’t understand how we can have such poor taste as to send this banner across the screen at this time.  Please understand that no one is at the station doing this.  The station is operated by volunteers, and the vast majority of the time, no one is here.  The banner is pre-set to go across the screen on the half-hour.  Sometimes the consecration occurs at this precise moment, and sometimes the timing mechanism misbehaves.  We have not been able to resolve this problem without removing the banner completely.  Know that we are aware of it, don’t like it, and want to resolve it.

We are looking into bringing in a Spanish language Catholic channel from outside the country via satellite, and dedicating one sub-channel to this use.  One we are investigating right now is Maria  Vision from Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico.  If you have thoughts or suggestions on this, please call, email, or write the station. 

We would like to record and rebroadcast the Sunday Latin Mass from the Church of St. Augustine in South St. Paul.  To do this, we need funds to buy three cameras, a board for operating the cameras, and to pay for installation expenses.  We would like to have all the necessary cash on hand to do this before initiating this project.  We are therefore setting up a separate fund, The Latin Mass Fund, dedicated to this purpose.  If you would like your contribution to go toward this effort, please specify this at the time of your donation.

If you are a viewer who uses a computer, you might want to set your home page to “Good Search.”  When you designate St. Michael Broadcasting as the organization you “Good Search” for, a small amount of money goes to the station.  If you shop through the site, as much as 4% of your purchase price could go to the station. 

We do not send acknowledgements for contributions of less than $20.  Those who send in less than $20 a time should in no way interpret this as a lack of appreciation or sign of disrespect.  Since the station operates at a loss, this is simply another way of saving money.  We send receipts for the sum total of all contributions, including those of less than $20, at the end of each year.

If anyone knows of a graphic artist that could volunteer to help develop a logo and other graphics, please put us in contact with him or her.  We could look good on someone’s resume!

The station needs your contributions to grow and thrive.  By way of comparison, our contributions for one year are less than the expenses of Minnesota Public Radio for one day! There are several ways we can increase revenue.  One is for those who are not now contributing, but are able, to contribute something now.  Another is for those who are contributing to contribute a little more if able.  Another way is tell others about the station.  More viewers should translate into more contributors: “Many hands make light work.”   We at the station will look into ways of securing sponsorships.  If you have experience selling TV advertising or sponsorships, we would welcome your advice.  If you have any other suggestions for increasing revenue, please let us know.

The other thing we need is prayer.  Our human efforts alone cannot build this station.  Recall how in the Old Testament, when Moses’ uplifted arms grew tired and he lowered them, the battle went against him.  Attendants were called to hold them up, and the battle turned his (the Israelites) way again.  Those attendants are your prayers, because “Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build.” (Psalm 127:1)

Sincerely yours in Christ,                 Michael Bird, President

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An Army Like Gideon’s

   The Lord is testing His Church.  This testing is like the story of Gideon.  Here’s this great leader of the army of Israel, with an army of thirty thousand soldiers to do battle with an army of fifty thousand.  What does God say to him?  He said, “Your army is too great.  Tell the cowards to leave.”  How many cowards were there?  Twenty thousand: two out of three.  God thins His ranks.  Then He said to Gideon: “Your army is still too great, for if you win it would seem it was through your own power.  Send them over to the river and watch them drink.”  Some of them threw themselves prone on their stomachs and drank leisurely, comfortably, and to the full.  Others ran along the bank, lapping up the water with their hands, and drinking in the fashion of dogs.  And God said, “That’s your army, three hundred, and I’ll be with you.”  So God is thinning our ranks now as then, because we are preparing for a stronger and more holy Church.

September 2010 -  Letter from Michael Bird, President and Chief Volunteer at St. Michael Broadcasting

Dear Friends and Family of St. Michael Broadcasting,                   

   Margaret Sanger (1879-1966), the founder of Planned Parenthood, often opportunistically changed her message and strategy in hopes of achieving her goals.  For example, in1932 Sanger recommended “a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is tainted, or whose… objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.”  She proposed giving to 15-20 million “dysgenic” Americans “their choice of segregation or sterilization… apportioning farm lands… for these segregated persons where they would be taught to work under competent instructors for… their entire lives.”  One can’t help but notice an eerie similarity between these “farms” and the “camps” established by the Nazis in 1933. 

   But in another article, Sanger argued against force, positing that a more effective approach would be to convince people that childlessness was in their self-interest: a material benefit and an enhancement of their freedom.  This is the insidious genius of Sanger, and how she differs from Hitler.  Sanger’s strategy has prevented the birth of far more “unwanted” people than Hitler’s.  One wonders how many people should exist, but don’t, because of the popular delusion that equates contraceptive use and abortion with freedom.

   At this same time, in 1932, Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) published Brave New World, his book about a future totalitarian state in which the people are controlled not by force, but by pleasure.  The regime induces compliance by encouraging promiscuous sterile sex and by providing uplifting drugs and non-stop entertainment in exchange for economic security.  Seditious “pornographic” books, such as the Bible, and the Imitation of Christ, are hidden away.  Huxley’s book has proven strangely prophetic.   

   One can see the “soft censorship” of books and ideas in our public (and even some nominally Catholic) schools.  For example, if a public school disallows a Catholic speaker, or a book that posits that “we were created by God and that our rights come from God” from its curriculum, this is portrayed as a sign of “tolerance,” of their respect for “separation of church and state,” and sensitivity to need for “diversity.”  But by removing God, schools like this produce amoral “ethicists” like Peter Singer at Princeton who in 1993 suggested that no newborn should be considered a person until 30 days after birth and that the attending physician should kill some disabled babies immediately.

   Catholic schools that really are Catholic shine a “light in the darkness.”  About 1/3 of your property taxes and nearly 50% of every sales tax dollar goes to public schools.  Catholic schools receive no forced funding.  They can’t survive on the proceeds of candy bar sales and silent auctions.  Please support them.

   Through our programs, St. Michael Broadcasting supplies, or supplements, the education that many lack or were denied.  Perhaps we can one day help the Archdiocese garner more support for Catholic education.  But to do that, we need to exist!  If you have the means, please send a contribution today, and pray for the success of the station.

God bless you,                   Michael Bird, President

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 “…the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." Aldous Huxley
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                                     From The True Crisis of Our Time, by Malcolm Muggeridge (1985)

  Available on our website: www.stmichaelbroadcasting.com

   “So the final conclusion would surely be that whereas other civilizations have been brought down by attacks of barbarians from without, ours had the unique distinction of training its own destroyers at its own educational institutions, and then providing them with facilities for propagating their destructive ideology far and wide, all at the public expense…

    “Christianity, I want to say, is indeed essentially a religion of hope.  A new, stupendous hope, born of the Incarnation, and creating a tidal wave of creativity and joy to revivify a world as tired, bored, and decadent as ours.  If now its impetus seems momentarily to be spent, we need not despair; history – a continuing parable whereby God's purposes are revealed for those with eyes to see – will continue to surprise us.”

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Note: St. Michael Broadcasting and EWTN are not the same entity.  St. Michael Broadcasting rebroadcasts EWTN’s signal.  We will add more Catholic programming to our sub-channels over the coming year.  We need the support of our viewers to continue, and to continue to improve, this service.

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August 2010 - Letter from Michael Bird, President and Chief Volunteer at St. Michael Broadcasting

Dear Friends and Family of St. Michael Broadcasting:

   When George Washington was sworn in as first President of the United States in 1789, he asked for a Bible, had it opened, and placed his hand on Deuteronomy, chapter 28.  Why there?  The words of this chapter, edited below, reveal Washington’s thoughts, and were both an exhortation and admonition for future generations.

   “… if you continue to heed the voice of the Lord, your God, and are careful to observe all His commandments… the Lord, your God, will raise you high above the nations of the Earth… these blessings will come upon you and overwhelm you:

   “The Lord will beat down before you the enemies that rise up against you… The Lord will increase in more than goodly measure the fruit of your womb, the offspring of your livestock, the produce of your soil… The Lord will open up for you the rich treasure house in the Heavens, to give your land rain in due season, blessing all your undertakings, so that you will lend to many nations and borrow from none.

   “But if you do not harken to the voice of the Lord, your God, and you are not careful to observe all His commandments, these curses shall come upon you and overwhelm you:

   “The Lord will bring… pestilence… plague… the sky over your head will be like bronze, and the earth under your feet like iron… The Lord will let you be beaten down before your enemies… You will be oppressed and robbed continually with no one to come to your aid… You will eat the fruit of your womb… The alien will lend to you, and not you to him.  He will become the head and you the tail.”

   We as a nation are not “heeding the voice of the Lord and observing all His commandments.”  Already the curse of debt is upon us.  If we are to avert the other curses, we must repent and reform like the citizens of Nineveh.  If we fail to do so, much suffering lies ahead, and we need to know the Catholic faith better so that we can endure, and be a light in the darkness. 

   Either way, Channel 16 can help.  We try to broadcast programs that help our viewers grow in the love and knowledge of God--- the Truth that makes men free in this life--- and our destiny of eternal joy in the next. 

   As I write this, technicians are installing the system that will allow us to broadcast more Catholic programs, including local Catholic programs, on our sub-channels, and by mid- August you should begin to see some of these.  So if you want to watch something other than what is on EWTN (16.2), try some of the other channels.

   This station, your station, continues to lose money despite a no-fat budget and for the present, no paid staff.  Meanwhile, communication companies covet our frequency and the FCC would love to auction it to them.  We must make this station not just survive, but thrive!  We can’t realize the full potential of this valuable resource without sufficient capital.  Please help the station grow: by telling others, by saying a prayer for its success, and if possible, by sending in a donation today.

Sincerely yours in Christ,   Michael Bird, President      

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The Battleground of the Church

                                                                  by Archbishop Fulton Sheen (1974)

   The world in which we live is the battleground of the Church.  I believe that we are now living at the end of Christendom.  It is the end of Christendom, but not of Christianity.  What is Christendom?  Christendom is the political, economic, moral, social, legal life of a nation as inspired by the gospel ethic.  That is finished.  Abortion, the breakdown of the family life, dishonesty, even the natural virtues upon which the supernatural virtues were based, are being discredited.  Christianity is not at the end.  But we are at the end of Christendom.  And I believe the sooner we face up to this fact, the sooner we will be able to solve many of our problems.

   Thirty or forty years ago, it was very easy to be a Christian.  The very air we breathed was Christian.  Bicycles could be left on the front lawns; doors could be left unlocked.  Suddenly, all this has changed; now we have to affirm our faith.  We live in a world that challenges us.  And many fall away.  Dead bodies float downstream; it takes live bodies to resist the current.  And this is our summons.

   We will have to begin a different church.  We are for a moment on a trapeze.  We are in between the death of an old civilization and culture and the swing to the beginning of the new.  These are the times in which we live.  They are therefore wonderful days; marvelous; we should thank God that we live in times like this.

                                         From the book Through the Year with Fulton Sheen, pages 27 & 28

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July 2010 - Letter from Michael Bird, President and Chief Volunteer at St. Michael Broadcasting

Dear Friends and Family of Channel 16,                                               

     The equipment that will enable us to put unique programming on each sub-channel has not yet arrived, and now looks like it will be installed the second week of July.  After this occurs we will immediately begin to put different programs on 16.1.  The first programs will be the Ordination Mass that took place at the Cathedral in May and the Conference on Marriage and the Family that took place at the University of St. Thomas  in April.  To begin with, programs will repeat frequently, until we get more programs loaded on to the system.

     We can now more easily accept credit card contributions.  You can go to the St. Michael Broadcasting website and contribute online via Paypal.  Or if you want, you can call us at the station and leave a message.  We will call you back and take your credit card contribution over the phone.

     We need contributions!  Minnesota Public Radio last year received about $75 million in sponsorships, corporate and private contributions, and your tax dollars.   St. Michael Broadcasting received less than $80,000 in contributions.  At this rate, it will take us 938 years to equal what MPR grosses in one year!   So please help the station financially if you can, or by telling others about the station, or with your prayers.  Already your prayers are bearing fruit: several dedicated volunteers have come forward to help with filming.

     At this time of the year, let us thank God for the freedoms of our country.  These blessings are due to our nation’s religious heritage.  Whether the irreligious recognize it or not, recognition of the truth that all of our rights and liberties come from God is the best protection of their and our freedom.

God bless you this 4^th of July,

Michael Bird, President

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Excerpts for July 2010

“Loss of Standards”

                    From Thoughts for Daily Living, by Fulton J. Sheen, pages 79 and 176.

   “By shutting out God and morality as standards, there are those who think they are enlarging the sphere of the mind, whereas they are actually contracting it.  By contracting the spiritual boundaries, one is imprisoning himself in a universe that is too small for the human heart.  As God dissolves into the blue sky the shades of the prison house begin to fall and man begins to be his own jailer.

   “Man can either, with enthusiasm and patience participate in the God-life, and thus produce a measure of human happiness, or he can revolt against God and divinize himself.  At this stage the world produces dictators…”

 “Totalitarian”

                Historian Paul Johnson, in The Quotable Paul Johnson, page 362.

   “While writing Modern Times (a history of the world from 1917 through the 1980’s), I formed the unshakeable conviction that man without God is a doomed creature.  The history of the 20^th century proves the view that as the vision of God fades, we first become clever monkeys, then we exterminate one another.”

 "Freedom"

From the Parish Bulletin, Church of St. Charles Borromeo Parish  June 27, 2010

"What is freedom? For 'freedom Christ has set us free'.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines freedom as "the power to act or not to act, and so to perform deliberate acts of one's own.  Freedom attains perfection in its acts when directed toward God, the sovereign Good" (CCC 1744).  To be truly free, to not submit to the yoke of slavery, we are called to choose the good, that which brings us closer to Christ as we serve one another through love.  Is not this what we celebrate, those who have served our families, our neighborhood, our country, throught love?

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June 2010 Letter from Michael Bird, President and Chief Volunteer at St. Michael Broadcasting

Dear Friends and Family of St. Michael Broadcasting,                          

   Often in the newspaper, or on television, someone claims that increased use of contraceptives will decrease the number of out-of-wedlock births and abortions.  And often this individual is associated with Planned Parenthood (PP).  Yet their own research contradicts this claim.

   For example, in 1936, PP board member Dr. Raymond Pearl wrote “…the number of induced abortions… are three to four times greater among contraceptors….”   In 1955, Dr. Alfred Kinsey, speaking at a PP conference, said “…we have found the highest frequency of induced abortion in the group which… used contraceptives.”   In 1981, PP researcher Dr. Christopher Tietze wrote, “…women who have had abortions are more likely to have been contraceptors than women without a history of abortion.”

   Minnesota health statistics concur with this research. Over 95% of abortion “clients”

 say they either were using, or previously used, contraceptives.  In 1960, before the contraceptive driven “sexual revolution,” and before abortion was legal, 2.9 % of the babies born in Minnesota were “illegitimate,” versus 33.3% today.  There are now nearly two abortions for every ten live births.

   One reason for this failure is a phenomenon called risk compensation, or a person's greater willingness to engage in potentially risky behavior when he believes his risk has been reduced through technology.   For example, in 2009, Pope Benedict was lambasted by the media when he said that reliance on condoms would not decrease, but increase the AIDS epidemic in Africa.  But the head of the AIDS Research Project at Harvard, Dr. Edward C. Green, defended the pope, saying, “The protective effect…could… be offset by aggregate increases in risky sexual behavior.”

    Another reason for this failure is that reliance on contraception changes the user.  In the words of French “family planning” pioneer Dr. Pierre Simon: “This struggle is not merely technical, but philosophical.  Life as a piece of material, there is the beginning of our struggle.”  Contraception, he wrote, will “…change the people themselves and the nature of their relationships… This does violence to the Christian ethic, which sees the body as a gift from God… society will be completely changed.”  Dr. Simon understood that the mentality fostered by contraception undermines and replaces Christian sexual morality with a materialistic ethic.  This ethic undermines marriage and the family. 

   Maybe someday St. Michael Broadcasting can do a program exposing the damage wrought by contraception and the fraud of the organizations that promote it.  To do this, we need your help.  First, pray for the station, for our battle is against “principalities and powers.” (Eph. 6:12)  Second, tell others about the station and offer to help them find it on their TV’s.  Third, please send a contribution if you can, but if you can’t, offer up that suffering for the success of the station.

Dominus vobiscum!

Michael Bird, President and Chief Volunteer

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The National Council of Catholic Women on Birth Control (circa 1922)

   “The immorality of Birth Control as it is practiced and commonly understood consists in the evils of the particular method employed.  These are all contrary to the moral law because they are unnatural, being a perversion of a natural function.  Human faculties are used in such a way as to frustrate the natural end for which these faculties were created.  This is always intrinsically wrong--- as wrong as lying or blasphemy.  No supposed beneficial consequence can make good a practice which is, in itself, immoral…

   “The evil results of the practice of Birth Control are numerous.  Attention will be called here to only three.  The first is the degradation of the marital relation itself, since the husband and wife who indulge in any form of this practice come to have a lower idea of married life.  They cannot help but come to regard each other to a great extent as mutual instruments of sensual gratification, rather than cooperators with the Creator in bringing children into the world.  This consideration may be subtle, but it undoubtedly represents the facts.   

 “In the second place, the deliberate restriction of the family through the use of these immoral practices deliberately weakens self-control and the capacity for self denial, and increases the love of ease and luxury… A practice which tends to produce such exaggerated notions of what constitutes hardship, which leads men and women to cherish such a degree of ease, makes inevitably for inefficiency, a decline in the capacity to endure and to achieve, and for general social decadence.

   “Finally, Birth Control leads sooner or later to a decline in population (e.g. Europe, ed.)…. The further effect… will inevitably be the lowering of both public and private morals… Not only the married but also the unmarried will be thus affected; the ideals of the young contaminated and lowered.  The morals of the entire nation will suffer.”

          Quoted in Pivot of Civilization, by Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, 1922.

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May 2010 Letter from Michael Bird, President and Chief Volunteer at St. Michael Broadcasting

Dear Friends and Family of St. Michael Broadcasting,

One evening in June 2009, I was sitting, as Wordsworth said in his poem The Daffodils, “on my couch… in vacant or in pensive mood,” and reached for the channel-changer.  After watching channel TPT 2/PBS for a while, I realized I was viewing what was in effect, if not in fact, an hour-long infomercial for same-sex marriage.
           I wrote TPT 2 at the time and protested this tendentious program, especially since I and other objecting Minnesotans were funding it (over $5.2 million last year) through our tax dollars. They wrote back: “As the Twin Cities public broadcaster, we are committed to presenting a wide spectrum of view points and opinions. An important part of our mission is to serve as a place where ideas can be explored, discussed and debated through informative programming.”
           “Please let me know when programs with an opposing viewpoint will air,” I replied, and volunteered to help locate such a program.  TPT 2 never answered.  Their “commitment to presenting a “wide spectrum of viewpoints” did not extend to intelligent and reasonable arguments against same-sex marriage.  This brought to mind the following quote from Fulton Sheen:
           “There are some people who love to boast of their tolerance, but actually it is inspired by egotism; they want to be left alone in their own ideas, however wrong they may be, so they plead for tolerance of other people’s ideas.  But this kind of tolerance is very dangerous, for it becomes intolerance as soon as the ego is disturbed or menaced.  That is why a civilization which is tolerant about false ideas instead of being charitable to persons is on the eve of a great wave of intolerance and persecution.”
           In April, St. Michael Broadcasting moved from Channel 19 to Channel 16.  We now have five “sub-channels.”  These will allow us greater opportunities to, with love and respect, present the compelling Catholic arguments for the family and against contraception, abortion, divorce, euthanasia, cloning, embryonic stem cell research, pornography, and the redefining marriage.  Since many of these arguments are based on natural law, and not solely Catholic Church teaching, we hope to provide a service to both Catholics and non-Catholics who know these things are wrong, but can’t say why, and to those who are open to questioning their beliefs.
          Our signal should now reach far outside the Twin Cities area, possibly 40-70 miles depending on the terrain and location of the UHF antenna (indoor or rooftop).  If you know others who use broadcast television, but haven’t been able to receive the signal before, ask them to “re-scan” or “auto-program” their television or converter box now.  Please support this apostolate through your prayers, financial contributions, by sending in programming ideas, and by telling others.  If you can afford a financial contribution, that would help, as the changeover cost alone will come to about $300,000.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Michael Bird, President

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Marriage and Law - May 2010

           If marriage as a legal contract conveys no more privileges, and no more duties, than concubinage--- or any other social and sexual arrangement which human ingenuity may devise, from homosexual unions to polygamy to sex communes--- then we have a legal vacuum right at the heart of our social arrangements.  Where the law leaves a legal vacuum, there is an inevitable tendency that force and anarchy will fill it.  No system of law can long endure which implies that informal arrangements are no more or no less binding than formal and legal ones.  To destroy marriage law is a step towards destroying the rule of law itself….  Once the law is humbled, all else that is valuable in a civilized society will vanish, usually with terrifying speed.”

          Paul Johnson, historian, in The Quotable Paul Johnson, pages 218 and 198.
          “Unless we have a moral principle about such delicate matters as marriage and murder, the whole world will become a welter of exceptions with no rules.” GK Chesterton
         “I don't think we should change the definition of marriage.  It is the central institution of American life.”  Senator Paul Wellstone, 1996 StarTribune“
         If we don’t get this right on assisted suicide with the elderly, and if we really cave-in on same sex marriage, my personal opinion is that we’re finished as a society.  If we end up killing the little children and the older folks, and we can’t figure out the difference between marriage and an aberration, our days are numbered as a civilized society.”
         Moral theologian Monsignor William Smith to Mother Angelica, date unknown.

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April -2010 Letter from Michael  Bird, President and Chief Volunteer at St. Michael Broadcasting

Dear Friends and Family of St. Michael Broadcasting,

In late 1999 or early 2000, both the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press ran articles titled something like, “100 Great Minnesotans of the Last Hundred Years.”  Most names mentioned were not well known, but the Mayo brothers, as in “Mayo Clinic,” were on both lists.  There was no mention of the Sisters of St. Francis.  This was a grave omission, for without the Sisters of St. Francis, it’s doubtful the Mayo brothers would have become renowned.  This example illustrates a problem with the news media, Hollywood, and schools: a tendency to sensationalize stories that show the Church in a bad light, and a counter-tendency to ignore or omit edifying stories of accomplishment and heroism.

When the Sisters of St. Francis came to Rochester in 1877, they were a teaching order,   ultimately establishing 53 Catholic schools, including in 1894, the College of St. Theresa.  After a tornado in Rochester in 1883, the Mother Superior of the sisters, Sr. Mary Alfred Moes, determined that Rochester needed a hospital.  She asked Dr. Mayo if he would be the physician if her sisters built, staffed and administered a hospital.  He agreed, and the sisters raised the funds.  St. Mary’s Hospital was established in 1889 with Dr. Mayo joined soon by his two sons as physicians.  In those early days, sisters slept on the floor in the patients’ rooms.  In St. Mary’s, there is a marvelous chapel with pews only long enough for two people, so that if any of the sisters’ patients needed them while they were at Mass or prayer, they wouldn’t have to clamber over other sisters.

As the hospital grew, many sisters that had degrees in teaching were asked if they wanted to go back to school for nursing degrees.  My family knew one of these sisters, Sr. Amadeus Klein.  She went back to school and received a master’s degree in nursing.    She set up the Department of Neurology at St. Mary’s.  She told us of how in those early days, after witnessing the same surgery hundreds of times, veteran nursing sisters would show young doctors how to perform a surgery.  Once, when I asked her how she came to have the name “Sr. Amadeus.”  She said the bishop gave it to her when she took final vows.  I asked her if she liked the name.  She said that she didn’t at first, but then after she found out what it meant, she did. “What does it mean, Sister? I asked.  “Love God.” (amor + deus) She said.  After she could no longer work, she spent much time in prayer and lived a life of cheerful holiness. 

Stories such as this are not told by the secular media.  Instead, these heroic women are often portrayed as flighty airheads.  We owe much to these women who gave their lives in the service of Christ and His Church.

At St. Michael Broadcasting we hope to bring edifying stories, such as that of these sisters, to our viewers.  Through true alternative news, education and entertainment, we seek to “shine a light in the darkness” and leaven a culture rapidly losing its understanding of its Divine origin and destiny.  Please support this apostolate financially, through your prayers, and by telling others.  Your station needs you.

God bless you this Easter season,

Michael Bird, President     

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Important Note to Viewers - April  2010

In April, Channel 19 will change to Channel 16.  We will be off the air for two days when this work occurs.  As this goes to the printer, we do not know the exact days, but it is very possible this will conflict with our scheduled programming.  When we return to the air, you will have to re-scan your TV or converter box.  After you have done this, you will have five channels, all showing EWTN.  As we collect sufficient programming, we will put this programming on channels 16.1, 16.3 and 16.4, leaving 16.2 the sole EWTN channel. 16.5 will become a bulletin board channel listing events of interest to Catholics.  As we learn more, we will post updates on the screen and on our website (www.stmichaelbroadcasting.com).  Or, you may call the studio at 612-724-2265.  

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Selected quotes from God Love You, by Fulton J. Sheen

“Have you noticed that as men lose faith in God, they become selfish, immoral and cruel?  On a cosmic scale, as religion decreases, tyranny increases; as men lose faith in Divinity, they lose faith in humanity.  Where God is outlawed, there man is subjugated.”

“When democracies lose their spirit of religion they have no fulcrum for self-sacrifice; once the Cross passes out of their vision, selfishness enthrones itself.  Then the plea for self-sacrifice becomes identified with persecution, Fascism, Communism, or what-have-you.

“The preservation of America is conditioned upon discipline and self-sacrifice, but since these are inseparable from religion and morality, the future of America depends on Americans’ attitude toward God and the Cross of His Divine Son.”

“A nation always gets the kind of politicians it deserves.  When our moral standards are different, our legislation will be different.  As long as the decent people refuse to believe that morality must manifest itself in every sphere of human activity, including the political, they will not meet the challenge of Marxism”

“Elders must not be too critical of the teen-agers… From one point of view, they are not in rebellion against restraint, but against their elders for not giving them a goal and purpose in life…  Teenagers must have an ideal.  In many instances today, they have no greater object of worship than to wrap their emotional lives around a movie hero, a movie star, a band leader, or a crooner.  This sign of decaying civilizations will pass when the catastrophe comes.  Then youth will look for a different type to imitate, namely, either heroes or saints.”

Pages 169, 77, 95 and 17.

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March -2010 Letter from Michael  Bird, President and Chief Volunteer at St. Michael Broadcasting

Dear Friends and Family of St. Michael Broadcasting,

One year ago, on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, ownership of one of Catholic Views Broadcasts’ stations, Channel 19, officially transferred to St. Michael Broadcasting.  Since we will soon change to Channel 16 and go digital, this seemed a proper time to provide you with an update on the station: what has happened, what is happening, and future plans--- a sort of “State of the Station” report.

First, some history: In the late 1980’s, the initial $90,000 contribution to Fr. Baker’s Catholic Views Broadcasts, for starting the station, came from out-of-state.  In recent years, the station has cost about $110,000 annually to run, and contributions have come to about $60-$70 thousand, for a shortfall of about $40 thousand.  This shortfall was made up primarily by Fr. Baker fundraising nationally for Catholic Views Broadcasts, and giving that money to Channel 19. If you have wondered how the station can always need money but somehow manage to stay in operation, this is how.  Short term, I am providing working capital.  The main point is that the station can no longer depend on Fr. Baker.  We must become self-supporting! 

One shortcoming of the station has been its broadcast “footprint,” which is the area effectively covered by our signal.  The station sends a reasonably strong signal to the southwest, but a very weak signal to the northeast.  People only a few miles from our antenna on top of the IDS: in northeast Minneapolis, St. Anthony, and New Brighton, cannot receive the signal.  The FCC would not permit us to send a strong signal to the northeast because there is a channel 19 in Duluth.  But the mandated change from analog to digital created opportunities. As some frequencies were vacated, openings appeared for smaller stations.  Our consultant advised us to use this opportunity to apply for Channel 16, as he thought this channel would allow us to have the broadcast footprint we desired.  We applied and received permission.  This was a glorious and happy day for your station.

The small circle on the map above shows the footprint of our station as Channel 19 and the larger circle our new footprint as Channel 16.  As you can see, our new channel encompasses a much larger area.  The larger circle isn’t the outer range of our signal; it is the range in which 90% of the households can expect to receive our signal.  Depending on terrain and obstructions, people as far away as St. Cloud, or Owatonna, or Menomonie, might receive the channel.  Within the Channel 19 footprint live about 1.16 million people.  Within the Channel 16 footprint, live about 2.73 million people.  This is an increase of 135%!

Moving to Channel 16 has cost more than staying on Channel 19:  We needed a new antenna, a new transmitter and other costly electronics.  These costs run to about $300 thousand, about $200 thousand higher than had we stayed on 19.  But our fixed costs: rent, electricity, insurance, maintenance contracts, etc., will not increase very much.  If our contributions increase in proportion to our larger demographic footprint, this would imply we should exceed our $110-$120,000 survival expenses.  Most importantly, our signal will cover a much larger part of this archdiocese.  Bringing so many more people into our broadcast range for so little is a great bargain in the world of broadcasting.

There are other advantages to this move.  Going digital will allow us to provide, in addition to EWTN, up to four more “sub-channels,” such as 16.1, 16.2, etc., which would allow us to broadcast much more Catholic programming.  We could show more programs by Bishop Sheen, Fr. Corapi, Dale Ahlquist, etc., and locally produced programming.  These could include the Latin Mass (from St. Augustine Church), programs on manners, literature, virtues, local history, talks, home-schooling, children’s shows, entertainment, discussions of local issues--- there are many, many, possibilities.  We plan to use one channel as a bulletin board.  We might lease out one sub-channel.  If you have ideas, let us know.

As we add local programming, we should be able to get sponsors for those programs, which would improve our financial condition. When we have enough local content, we can ask the cable companies to carry the station, as the cable companies are supposed to accommodate a certain amount of local programming.  If the cable networks carry us, we would have excellent coverage in the metro area.  We also might begin to stream this local programming over the internet.

Assuming our finances improve as a result of more contributors and sponsors, we could begin to pay some staff.  The station needs some paid staff, as it would run more efficiently.  There is much to do: preview programs, create programs, pay bills, operate cameras, keep track of contributions, update the mailing list, advertise local events, cover local events, and comply with FCC requirements.  This is a lot for an all-volunteer staff to do.  Also, we should pay those who independently produce programs that we want to broadcast.  Programs such as those on apologetics by Michael Voris and St. Michael’s Media, or on issues like same-sex “marriage” by the Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, take a lot of thought and money to produce.  These people deserve compensation for their efforts.

If finances permit, we would like to set up what are called “translator stations” across the state.  This means establishing stations near the outer limits of our broadcast range that would pick up our signal and send it on farther.  For example, a station in Faribault might pick up our signal and send it farther south, toward Rochester or Austin.  However, if our finances do not improve, we will downsize the station.  If our revenue hasn’t increased sufficiently by 2012, we will move off the IDS to a tower, which would bring the station very close to break-even at the current contribution level.  But this would also decrease the size of our broadcast footprint. 

This year we are trying to raise $500,000.  New equipment and fixed expenses will cost about $420,000.  The remaining $80,000 would allow us to purchase new programming, and provide a slight cushion for unanticipated expenses.

Why is this station important?

Malcolm Muggeridge said that the West is suffering from “the loss of a sense of a moral order without which no order whatsoever--- social, political, economic--- is possible.”  This station, your station, is trying to help our country recover this sense of moral order by bringing the Truth of the Catholic Faith to Catholics and non-Catholics alike.  We show how by responding to God’s love, by imitating Christ, we find the most sanity and joy in this life, and that part of that joy is the confident hope that, through God’s help and mercy, we will one day find eternal happiness in the presence of the Holy Trinity.

This station receives calls from those who want a newsletter even though they’re not Catholic.  A young convert has volunteered to help record local events.  We hear stories of older home-bound Catholics who like to watch our station almost exclusively.  So the station fulfills our mission, which is “to serve as an evangelization tool for the Roman Catholic Church in order to be an influential, educational and moral voice in our society.” 

Pope John Paul II exhorted us to evangelize using new media--- meaning broadcasting, and the internet.  This station is your apostolate.  Please support it financially if you are able, pray for its success, and tell people about it.  If you know people who have experience in television or radio, ask them if they could volunteer some time with the station to show us how to operate it more effectively.   We welcome your ideas for programming and otherwise improving the station.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Michael Bird, President

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 The Paradox of Christian Freedom

 From the Homiletic and Pastoral Review by our founder Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J.

 

“For freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1). St. Paul tells us that faith in Christ makes us free. In the contemporary world there is a universal demand for more freedom—personal, political and economic. Freedom, however, is a slogan word that has many different meanings. Today freedom is often understood in the sense of a lack of restraint, so that one is free to do whatever one wishes to do. That is a form of licentiousness, not true freedom.
Freedom understood as licentiousness is a false freedom. Actually, it is not freedom at all, but rather it is slavery to one’s selfishness, passions and pride.
Christian freedom is something totally different. The Christian who submits himself to the law of love in Christ Jesus is the one who is truly free. Only God has absolute freedom because his will is identified with his being or substance. So God is essential freedom—he can do whatever he wills because he has absolute power over all things. But since God is also absolute truth and goodness, he can do only what is in accordance with his essence—everything he does is good. So God cannot deceive and he cannot do anything that is evil since that is contrary to his nature.

On the other hand, created freedom is limited and relative. But the more a created person (man or angel) approaches the goodness of God, the more he shares in the freedom of God. We have here what seems to be a paradox. Man wishes to be free, but the only way he can become truly free is by submitting himself to Christ by faith, hope and charity. St. Paul calls it the “obedience of faith” (Rom. 1:5). The saints who strive mightily to serve God in all things, whose whole being is centered on God, are human persons who are supremely free. Submission to the truth is what makes one free.

Sin is slavery because it is rooted in falsity, while the obedience of faith in love is based on truth and results in freedom. Sin is rebellion against God and glorification of self. Jesus expresses this truth in St. John’s Gospel (8:31-32), a text often quoted by Pope John Paul II: “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” So the saint is free and the sinner is a slave.

There you have it from the mouth of God himself: it is the truth that makes one truly free. The ultimate reason for this is that we are creatures made in the image and likeness of God. Why did God make us? What is our destiny? God made us to know him, to love him and to serve him in this life and to be happy with him forever in the next life. So since we were made for God and for truth and for goodness, nothing short of God will really satisfy us. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). That is also why the eye is not filled with seeing and the ear is not filled with hearing. In other words, no created thing can satisfy the human heart. St. Augustine put his finger on it when he said that our hearts are restless until they rest in God.

I am reminding you of the nature of Christian freedom because we are bombarded daily with the false notion of freedom in matters such as “freedom of choice” regarding abortion, contraception, same-sex marriage, assisted suicide and other moral issues. The assumptions of the secular humanists, who deny the existence of God and see man as descended from the apes with no immortal soul, have taken a commanding position in our culture and are proclaimed incessantly in the media and in the public schools and universities.

In order not to be infected with these false ideas, it is essential that we know our faith well, that we know the truth, and that we recognize and reject error and falsehoods when we encounter them. This is another reason why every family should have handy a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It offers a detailed index, and there you will find the truth if you spend a little time looking for it.

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February 2010 - Letter from Michael  Bird, President and Chief Volunteer at St. Michael Broadcasting

  February, 2010 A.D.

 Dear Friends and Family of St. Michael Broadcasting,

 The first Western country to legalize abortion was The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1920 under Lenin.  The second was Germany in 1935 under the National Socialist Workers Party.  In our country, abortion was legalized in 1973 when socialist organizations such as Planned Parenthood and the ACLU prevailed in the ignominious Roe v. Wade decision from the U.S. Supreme Court.  In all three cases, these were undemocratic, top-down decisions.

 In our country, these socialist forces have repeatedly turned to the courts to impose what they could not win democratically.  Laws against contraception, pornography and sodomy have been struck down by activist judges.  Therefore, we must expect that they will similarly attempt to invalidate all laws against “same sex unions” by bringing a case before the Supreme Court.  Should such an attempt succeed, this will have disastrous consequences for Catholics and Catholic institutions across the country.

 Winston Churchill said, as he watched Nazi Germany snatch countries in Europe, “We must arm!”  So too, we must arm.  We must fight against these enslaving perversions of freedom.  Our arms are the Truth--- what John Paul II called Veritatis Splendor (the Splendor of the Truth) and laid out in the Catechism of the Catholic Church --- and our sustenance is grace.

This war is not just political, but supernatural--- against “principalities and powers.”

 Lent is a special time to grow in knowledge of the Truth, and to strengthen our wills through fasting and penance. Here we can learn from St. Thomas More.  It was learning and prayer and penitential practices that gave Thomas More the strength to be the “The King’s good Servant, but God’s first,” and suffer martyrdom.

 St. Michael Broadcasting can help spread this Truth, and encourage those striving to strengthen their wills.  To do this, we need your financial support.  Last year TPT 2 received over $5.2 million in taxpayer money in addition to viewer contributions and sponsorships.  We received less than $80,000 in contributions.  This year expenses will exceed $400,000.  So please help if you can, either by contributing, or by telling others about the station: “Many hands make light work.”

 We will add at least one “sub-channel” when we move to channel 16.  Please send us your programming suggestions for this channel in the enclosed envelope.  What would you like to see that isn’t there now?  What would you like to see more of?  We also welcome your ideas on how to increase funding for the station.

 God bless you this Lent,

 Michael Bird, president and chief volunteer

  

Penance and Reparation: A Lenten Meditation by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. (abridged)

In order to better understand the meaning of penance and reparation, we have to look for a moment at what happens whenever we sin. Two things happen:

•           First: we incur guilt before God for the self-will that caused us to sin. We become more or less separated or estranged from God, depending on the gravity of our sin.

•           Second: We deserve punishment for the disorder we cause by our sinful conduct. We become liable to suffering pain, again more or less pain, depending on how seriously we have done wrong.  Against this background, we can more easily see the meaning of penance and reparation.

•           Penance is the repentance we must make to remove the guilt, or to reinstate ourselves in God's friendship.

•           Reparation is the pain we must endure to make up for the harm we brought about by our self-indulgence when we sinned.

 

… We are our brother's keepers. We are mysteriously co-responsible for what other people do wrong. There is a profound sense in which all of us are somehow to do penance and make reparation, not only for our sinful misdeeds, but for the sins of our country and, indeed, for the sins of the whole human race. 
Indeed, the calamities that we have so far seen in this present (20th) century: two world wars with more casualties than in all the previous wars of history, and the threat of a nuclear holocaust that hangs over us like a tornado cloud. All of this is God's warning to do penance and reparation. Why? Because God is not mocked. The divine logic is simple, awfully simple, and all we have to do is learn what God is telling us. Either we do penance and reparation because we want to, or we shall suffer (against our will) the consequences of our sins in this life, and in the life to come.

… (W)e could talk for hours about the theology of penance and reparation and end up, wiser perhaps, but not holier. We must take the next and final step, and ask ourselves, practically, what am I to do about it? In order to come to the point immediately, let me give you what I call seven rules, three for penance and four for reparation. They can be expressed in seven words, where each word is a divine command as follows:

   Pray!  Share!  And forgive!  Work!  Endure!  Deprive!  And sacrifice!

 God is good. He gives us the privilege of not only expiating what we have done wrong, but actually becoming more pleasing to Him by our penance and reparation.

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January 2010 -Letter from Michael  Bird, President and Chief Volunteer at St. Michael Broadcasting

In 1943, then Monsignor Fulton Sheen told this story of a German soldier in occupied France:  The soldier, and his French wife who was expecting a baby, were in a hospital.  The soldier noticed a crucifix on the wall and asked a sister to take it down.  She refused.  He insisted, saying he “did not want his child ever to look upon the image of the Jewish Christ.”  Under threat, the sister relented.  The child was born blind.

 This story seems a metaphor for our own times.  Public Television refuses to carry religious programming.  Discussion of whether we were created by God is verboten in public schools, and crucifixes have been removed even from some nominally “Catholic” schools.  Consequently, our culture suffers from blindness, and our countrymen grope for answers--- about the meaning of life, suffering, what constitutes moral behavior, their destiny.

 In grade school in the 1950’s, my teacher, a Dominican sister, told us that child sacrifice was a characteristic of pagan cultures.  It seemed so unreal, so unthinkable, then, sacrificing to Moloch and Baal.  But here we are, this month, mourning the ignominious Roe v. Wade decision of January 22, 1973, when our Supreme Court once again allowed child sacrifice.  Blind to a higher law, and to our own Constitution, they enshrined the unthinkable into law.

 It’s our responsibility to turn this around, to be “signs of contradiction.” This month we will focus on abortion and what we can do about it.  We will show the heart-rending pictures that other stations refuse to show, and how abortion harms those involved.  As Catholics, we neither hate nor condemn: “There but for the grace of God go I.”  Nonetheless, we must speak the truth with love, and try to help those women and men who have experienced abortion--- who suffer from inconsolable grief and debilitating guilt--- find forgiveness, healing and joy.  This redemption is found through our Redeemer, who died on the cross.

 Jesus says that some demons only come out through prayer and fasting (Mark 9:29).  If all of us who are part of this apostolate fasted for just one meal or a few consecutive meals this month, and joined that with prayer, this would help end abortion. 

 Please support St. Michael Broadcasting.  Monthly contributions are not meeting our monthly expenses of over $9000, and the move to digital will cost another $235,000.  If you can’t financially contribute, that’s okay.  Please pray for the success of this apostolate.

God bless you this new year,

 Michael Bird, President and Volunteer

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Abortion as Pagan Sacrifice

(excerpts) by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

        …As believing Catholics, we know that behind the murder of unborn children is the superhuman mind and malevolent will of Satan and his minions. To know this is to also know that only divine power is a match for the demonic power behind abortion. This divine power is the power of the God who became man in order, as He told us, to conquer the devil as master of the world.

        How did Christ provide for the conquest of Satan and his agents? He did so by dying on the cross. The one who died on Calvary was man, but this man was the living God. On these premises, Calvary is the divine sacrifice because it was God who assumed a human body and a human soul which could separate in a human death on Good Friday. Except for this divine sacrifice of Jesus Christ there would be no hope for the human race…

       The graces which Christ pours out on a sinful world through the daily offering of Mass are the graces which a homicidal world needs to return to its worship of the one true God, and cease committing the crimes of abortion which are really acts of worship of the evil deities who we know are the evil spirits.

       The Sacrifice of the Mass, therefore, provides us with the light and strength we need to live sacrificial lives. But we must use these graces and really live lives of sacrifice. If we do, and in the measure that we do, we shall obtain for the agents of death the miraculous graces they need to abandon their idolatry and return to the worship of the one true God.

       Our faith tells us that the Sacrifice of the Mass is at once the sacrifice of Christ and our sacrifice, too. Christ has done all that He could by dying on the cross. We must do all that we can to follow in His footsteps and die to ourselves out of love for Him.

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December 2009 -Letter from Michael  Bird, President and Chief Volunteer at St. Michael Broadcasting

Dear Friends and Family of St. Michael Broadcasting,

 Moral theologian Monsignor William Smith, who died this year, was notable for his wonderful aphorisms.  One of these was “God always forgives; man sometimes forgives; nature never forgives.”  Meaning, for example, God will forgive the drunk driver; the parent whose son the drunk driver ran over might also forgive; but nature will not bring the son back to life.  We cannot transgress the natural law without suffering the consequences.

 The legalization and acceptance of contraception is a violation of the natural law.  The use of contraception, by separating sex from procreation and marriage, fosters the mentality that sex is more about self-gratification than self-giving, and the materialistic belief that my body is mine to do with as I please.  In Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI foresaw these ill effects: 

 --- Increased conjugal infidelity.

--- Debasing of all standards of human morality.

--- Lowering of respect for women and of woman’s dignity.

--- State legislation against human fertility.

--- Desecration of the holiness of marital intimacy.

--- Breakdown of personal responsibility.

--- Cultivation of selfish individuality.

--- Destruction of the family as the foundation of civilized society.

--- Promotion of an utterly materialistic understanding of human existence.

 We see the results: Abortion, using human embryos as research materials, euthanasia, increased out of wedlock birth, increased divorce, the difficulties of those brought up by just one parent, the acceptance of pornography, an aggressive homosexual movement seeking to redefine marriage, and a government growing ever larger as citizens trade liberty for security.  Our most fundamental institution, the family, is foundering.

 The current economic crisis is related to this mentality of selfish pleasure without responsibility.  We are missing the financial and intangible contributions of those millions who should have been born.  Citizens spend beyond their means.  Despite an already formidable national debt, our leaders increase spending and the money supply and incur more debt with no plan to ever pay it back, thereby raising the specter of hyper-inflation, and saddling those who can’t vote and haven't entered the workforce with the responsibility of servicing overwhelming debt.  None of this bodes well.

 But the cross is our hope.  The Word made Flesh is our hope.  The Light of the World, who has charged us to “let our light shine before men” is our hope.  Jesus, who said “Man lives not by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God,” has charged us to “go forth and teach all nations.”  This is the mission of St. Michael Broadcasting, to bring the Good News to others.

 You are part of this apostolate.  Please support it by telling others about the station and ask them if they would like to receive a newsletter.  If they would like to, please send their name and address to us in the enclosed envelope. The move to digital will cost approximately $235,000 in equipment and labor.  If you can financially support this apostolate, please do so.  If you cannot, please offer up this suffering for the success of the station.

 God bless you in this joyous and holy season.

Michael Bird, President

November 2009 -Letter from Michael  Bird, President and Chief Volunteer at St. Michael Broadcasting

Dear Friends and Family of Channel 19,

There are numerous events of interest to Catholics in the Twin Cities area that many of us never know occur.  For example, the Cathedral has a “Faith and Reason” series of lectures that recently featured Fr. Brian Mullady and Dr. James Hitchcock.  Frs. Groeschel and Corapi have also spoken locally in the past.  In October, Debra Braun, from Pro-Life Action Ministries, spoke at the University of Minnesota on sidewalk counseling. 

St. Michael Broadcasting could record and broadcast these events if we had the funds to do so.  But we do not.  If there is some event such as those above that you would like to sponsor, let us know.  The cost to professionally record and edit such an event comes to around $1000. 

We have received approval to move to Channel 16.  However, we cannot move at present because the station currently occupying this space has asked for and received an extension that expires in February.  So the changeover may not occur until May.  We will then have more “channels,” such as 16.1, 16.2, etc.  If you have ideas on how to use this increased broadcast spectrum, tell us your ideas.

If you are still having trouble receiving Channel 19, please give the station a call at 612-724-2265.  We will try to help you resolve reception problems.  With the right adjustments, and maybe a few inexpensive electronic accessories, anyone who received Channel 19 before the digital changeover (for the large stations) should still be able to receive Channel 19.  It is even possible to receive Channel 19 if you have cable TV by buying and hooking up an A-B switch and adjusting your TV reception from cable to standard. 

September was the first time we have “broken even,” or received more than $12,000 in monthly contributions, thanks to several generous donors. Still, we need contributions.  Thus far in October, we have received less than $2000. So contribute if you have the means.  If you don’t, don’t worry!  God will provide. Please tell others about the station.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Michael Bird

P.S. This month we begin a series that will counter the specious arguments for same-sex “marriage,” from both a Catholic and natural law perspective.  Tune in.

Without God All Is Meaningless

          “God made us and all things of nothing.  We may look, and feel, pretty substantial, so much flesh and blood and bone; but the matter of our body God made of nothing (as he made our soul), and it has nothing but what God has given it.  God holds us and all things in being… if he withdrew his will for our existence, we should be nothing.  I do not mean that we should die; I mean that we should be nothing at all.

      Not to know these two truths is to be wrong about everything.  If we omit God, we do not see anything as it is, but everything as it is not--- which is the very definition of insanity.

      God is the explanation of everything.  Leave out God, then, and you leave out the explanation of everything, you leave everything unexplainable.  Science studies the constitution of matter--- what things are made of.  But no science can study the two far more vital questions--- by whom they were made, for what were they made. 

    … truth means seeing reality as it is.  Men who do not know what God is, what man’s soul is, what the purpose of life is and what follows death, are simply not living in the real world.  They need to be shown the truths about God, the spiritual order, the world to come, for men cannot live according to a reality which they do not see--- nor dare we blame them for failing to live according to a reality which we have never shown them.

Above all they must come to see and know Christ Our Lord in whom all truths are contained and by whom they are announced to men.

      Who is to show them these truths?

There is only one voice that can be heard, the voice of one person speaking to another--- speaking to the people next door, the people he works with, plays with, travels with…. The laity must convey the message one by one, to unbelievers one by one.”

                    From Theology for Beginners, by Frank Sheed, (1958). pages 51 and 178.

 

First National Day of Thanksgiving Proclamation (1789)

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness."

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.

G. Washington.                  (You may wish to read this at your Thankgiving meal.)

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October 2009 -Letter from Michael  Bird, President and Chief Volunteer at St. Michael Broadcasting

Dear Friends and Family of St. Michael Broadcasting:                                                                     October, 2009

 In 1866, in Dakota County, Pierce Butler, the sixth of nine children, was born.  Though Catholic, he attended Carleton College, and for his graduating oration spoke on “the greatness of the Roman Catholic Church and its good influence upon the world.” He went into law, and brilliantly argued several high profile cases.  In 1915, in a speech to the National Catholic Educational Association titled “Educating for Citizenship,” he said:

 “The Catholic Church holds that religion cannot be separated from morality, that morals rest upon religion, and that without it character will not be secure against the attacks of selfishness and passion…  The educated man, whose character is not sound, whose conscience is not well instructed and whose conduct is not guided by religion and morality, is a danger to the state and to his fellowmen. ” 

 In 1922, Butler was nominated for the Supreme Court.  Columnists objected, calling Butler “reactionary” and “intolerant.”  The Socialist dominated Minneapolis City council passed a resolution calling his nomination a “crime against the people.”  Nonetheless, Butler was confirmed.

 In 1927, the Supreme Court was asked to rule whether a state could forcibly sterilize a “feeble-minded” girl, Carrie Buck, before releasing her to live independently.  Buck’s attorney argued: “If this Act be a valid enactment, then the limits of the power of the State to rid itself of those citizens deemed undesirable have not been set… even races may be brought within the scope of such regulation, and the worst form of tyranny practiced.”  Before the case was decided, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said regarding Butler, “I wonder whether he’ll have the courage to vote with us in spite of his religion?”  Holmes later wrote for the majority: “…the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives.  It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the state for lesser sacrifices…   It is better…, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime… society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind… Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”  Only Pierce Butler dissented.  Carrie Buck was sterilized.  

 In 1933, the Nazis modeled their “Hereditary Health Law” upon U.S. law, and began their program of sterilizing and even killing the “genetically defective.”  They expanded the “power of the state” to “races” as Carrie Buck’s attorney had warned.  After the War, the Nuremberg Trials began, and the Nazi doctors were accused of “crimes against humanity.”  Their defense counsel quoted Holmes’ words.  This incident is preserved in the movie Judgment at Nuremberg.   Buck v. Bell has never been overturned.

 Like St. Thomas More, Pierce Butler developed his God-given talents, allowed his faith to guide his conduct, and had the fortitude to stand up for what was right.  He died November 16, 1939, and is buried at Calvary Cemetery in St. Paul. 

 St. Michael Broadcasting is “Educating for Citizenship.”  Please continue to support this apostolate with your contributions, through prayer, and by telling others.

 Sincerely yours in Christ,

 Michael Bird, President

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From "Educating for Citizenship" by Pierce Butler (1916)

“Growing extravagance in appropriations for supposed public purposes, heavily burdens the property and industries of the country ... Contemporaneously with the ever increasing activities of government, there is a tendency toward a kind of State socialism, which is destructive of individual initiative and development… (T)hey urge that the government should protect every individual against all the trials and vicissitudes of life.  If doctrines such as these gain a substantial foothold, individual initiative will be dangerously impaired; the family, which is an essential unit of our society and the very cornerstone ...of the foundation of the republic, will cease to be the motive for morality, industry, thrift and independence; the State, transgressing the limits of its true functions, will undertake to stand in place of father and mother, husband and wife, brother and sister, and become one vast charitable machine to furnish employment and to dole out supplies to meet the needs of the people. Need we here suggest that any such  program would, more than war, work the ruin of the nation?

 It would weaken character and leave the individual man and woman without the motive or hope or inspiration necessary to freedom and morality.”

 … It is even suggested that if the parents are unwilling to support their children, this burden should be borne for them at the public expense, and that if in any instance the marriage relation shall be found to be irksome, the bonds are freely to be dissolved...

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September 2009 Letter from Michael Bird President and Chief Volunteer at St. Michael Broadcasting

Dear Friends and Family of St. Michael Broadcasting,                                      September, 2009                                                    

 In 1924, a “crime of the century” occurred in Chicago that riveted the attention of the nation.  Two brilliant Jewish teenagers, 19 year-old Nathan Leopold and 18 year-old Richard Loeb, both homosexual and from very wealthy families, brutally murdered 14 year-old Robert Franks, “for the thrill of it.”  Both were atheists.  Both had been influenced by Nietzsche.  Leopold had written to Loeb: "A superman ... is, on account of certain superior qualities inherent in him, exempted from the ordinary laws which govern men. He is not liable for anything he may do."  The famous attorney Clarence Darrow said this in the boys’ defense: “Is any blame attached because somebody took Nietzsche's philosophy seriously and fashioned his life upon it? … it is hardly fair to hang a 19-year-old boy for the philosophy that was taught him at the university."  The film Rope, by Alfred Hitchcock, is based on the “Leopold and Loeb” murder.

 At the same time, the National Socialist Workers (Nazi) Party was growing in power in Germany.  Nietzsche had influenced their “master race” philosophy.  The head of their thug-like military wing, known variously as “brown shirts,” the “storm troopers,” or the “SA,” was Ernst Roehm, a homosexual, whose militia, which was larger than the German army, intimidated and bullied Jews.   By 1934, Hitler recognized that his old friend Roehm had become a threat to his own power, and in an event called “Night of the Long Knives” murdered Roehm and the top SA officers, many of which were also homosexuals.  Nietzsche’s philosophy had influenced murder: by Jews and of Jews, by homosexuals, and of homosexuals, by atheists and of atheists.   

 The late William Marra, a philosophy professor at Fordham, once remarked that people tend to think of philosophers as quaint people whose work is inconsequential, but that in fact they can exert a profound influence, the effects of which aren’t apparent until about 50 years after they have published.  Such was the case with Nietzsche.

 Nietzsche’s philosophy is still taught and poorly refuted at our universities, as the acceptance of abortion and the utilitarian use of embryonic stem cells will attest.  And Catholic higher education, as a rule, has done a poor job of imparting the Catholic response to Nietzsche’s “God is dead” philosophy.  This job has fallen to individuals: preachers, philosophers and theologians, who try to reach others through the communications media.  Channel 19 can help them reach you and others with the Truth.  In the words of Fr. Corapi: “God isn’t dead, He isn’t even tired…” We are “made in the image and likeness of God.” 

 Contributions in July came to over $8000, much improved over the $3200 received in June.  Still, it costs about $12,500/month for this station just to break even and $17,000/month to grow a little.   Please continue to contribute regularly and tell others about the station.

 Sincerely yours in Christ,

 Michael Bird, President

The Pillar of Personality, by Abp. Fulton Sheen

“One could go through history and find a dozen historical instances to prove that, as men lose their belief in God, the State becomes an Absolute.  Men must have a god, and if it will not be the God of Hearts, it will be the State god….  What are the effects of the absoluteness of politics?  The most general is the dehumanization of man.  Once man became loosened from his divine moorings, he became “autonomous,” or an independent god…  But no state could survive if every man was a god and a law unto himself…

            In democracies, the dehumanization of man has taken an academic or quasi-scientific background.  The whole tendency of our thinking for the last seventy years has been to destroy man’s dignity by identifying him with nature, i.e., with the stones and the beasts.  Evolution, for example, made him one with the animal in his origin; Behaviorism made him one with the animal in his actions and in his nature; Freudianism identified him with the animal in his mental processes; Pragmatism identified him with the animal in his goals and purposes.  What follows?  If man is one with nature, then why should he not be treated as nature, i.e., as a thing, or as a means to an end?  Human rights and freedom lost their outside purchase in God, where the Declaration of Independence put them.  In fact all rights and liberties disappeared, for nature has no rights.  The result is that a new system of law, or political theory, has arisen which makes law merely a positive fact like a poker or a broom.

            If the moral basis of politics is rejected, the nation falls, for unless the electorate votes from an informed conscience rather than on the basis of propaganda, a democracy can vote itself right out of democracy--- as Germany did.”       From Seven Pillars of Peace, (1944), excerpts, pages 67-70.

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August 2009 Letter from Michael Bird, President  and  Chief  Volunteer, at St. Michael Broadcasting.

Dear Viewers and Supporters of St. Michael Broadcasting,                   

 Some of you are still having trouble receiving our signal since hooking up your converter box.  Here are our suggestions for remedying this situation:

1 Check to see that your converter box has “analog pass-through.”   If you were able to receive Ch. 19 before hooking up your converter box, you should be able to receive it now.  We are still broadcasting in analog.  Make sure it is hooked up properly and perform an “auto-scan.”

2)  If this doesn’t work, you may need an “A-B switch.”  These are available at such places as Radio Shack.

3) You may need a better UHF antenna.  Another possibility is to just remove your converter box and leave your TV as before.  You will receive Ch. 19, but few other channels.

 If none of these work, call the customer service number that came with the directions for your converter box.  If you can’t find your instructions, call the studio and leave your phone number and the model and make of your converter box.  We will find the number for you and call you back.

4) You may also call Randy at Robin TV (763-533-1566).  He may be able to help you correct the problem over the phone (at no charge), or come to your house.  We believe he charges $60.00 for a service call.  If you use him, please call us at the studio and let us know if you were satisfied with his service.

Finally, if you have a digital TV you should receive us on Channel 19, not Channel 70.  If you are receiving us on Ch. 70, go through the menu on your channel changer and switch the cable option to “off” or “standard.”

 There is good news.  We have applied for a new channel.  After we hear back from the FCC, we will transition to digital.  Our best guess is that we will go digital late this year.  After this transition occurs, it will greatly expand our ability to provide programming.  We might have as many as five channels on our spectrum!  So if you’re not interested in what EWTN is showing at a particular time, you might switch to another channel and find Fr. Groeschel, Bishop Sheen, or programs featuring local speakers.  This will surely help us become a somewhat stronger voice in the desert.  

 Of course doing this will require us to buy some new equipment and new programming.  In June, our contributions came to about $3200.  This station needs $10,000/month just to subsist, and closer to $17,000/month to achieve our goal of modest growth.  Please send in a monthly contribution if you are able.  If money’s tight, don’t, and don’t feel guilty!  If on the other hand, you are in a position to contribute stocks, bonds, real estate, or even valuable items, please leave a message at the station: 612 724-2265, and we will call you back with directions.

 Sincerely yours in Christ,

 Volunteers Needed
Ch. 19 Studio #: 612-724-2265

We need volunteers for three projects:  First, we have a (1985?) Malcolm Muggeridge audio tape called The True Crisis of Our Time. Since the tape is still timely, we would like to make it available on our website in both the audio and transcribed form.  It is about 1 hour long. Please call the studio if you can transcribe, or post the audio.

Second, we need a volunteer to locate other Catholic TV stations in the country.  We have been told there are about 9.  If you have the time to locate them via an internet search, we might be able to use them, and they us, as resources.

Third, we need some one to investigate the business model of Minnesota Public Radio and/or Minnesota Public Television.  We need to know how they operate and how they generate revenue.  Knowing this might help us both lighten the burden on our individual contributors and improve the operation of St. Michael Broadcasting.

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A Plea for Intolerance, by Bishop Fulton Sheen

 “What is tolerance?  Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience towards evil, and a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment.  But what is more important than the definition is the field of its application.  The important point here is this: tolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth.  Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.  Tolerance applies to the erring; intolerance to the error.

…America is suffering not so much from intolerance, which is bigotry, as it is from tolerance, which is indifference to truth and error, and a philosophical nonchalance that has been interpreted as broad-mindedness.”

From Old Errors and New Labels (1931), page 105.

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•  July Letter from the President  and  Chief  Volunteer at St. Michael Broadcasting.

  Dear Friends and Family of Channel 19,

  At this time of the year, it is worth reflecting on these words from our Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by t heir Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

  This premise launched the independence of our country, The United States of America, 233 years ago. But today, at say, the University of Minnesota, which department, faculty members, or students could argue for it? It seems few could. They could question whether Truth exists. In fact, a few years ago the Director of the Office of Institutional Diversity at the University of St. Thomas wrote me, “Clearly, the University acknowledges there is no absolute on the notion of 'truth'.”

  How could they argue that our rights came from our Creator? Government schools don't promote this belief. They avoid life's most important questions: Does God exist? What is the purpose of my life? What happens after I die? These are theological questions. Since the “U,” the “marketplace of ideas,” has no Theology Department, it excludes this all important discussion from its “marketplace.”

  In Muslim countries, where dhimmi (Jews or Christians living under Islamic rule) are allowed, the dhimmi must pay a tax or tribute called a jizya, whose purpose is to weaken and humiliate the non-Muslims, and simultaneously strengthen the Muslim community. Dhimmi cannot evangelize. How different is this than here in the United States, where Catholics and Christians must pay property taxes to secular government schools, where their children are taught what is inimical to their faith, such as: “Make no judgments about sex outside of marriage; Homosexual acts are normal, and those who don't think so are bigots; Belief in God is a private matter that doesn't bear much on anything except for when it becomes “divisive” and believers try to “impose their values” on others.”?

   

  If Catholic parents object, fine, they can pay to have their children sent to a private school, but still must pay taxes that benefit government schools.

  The double standard “Piss Christ” incident of 1987 is a metaphor for this discrimination. Then, the taxpayer-funded National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) awarded a $15,000 prize for a photograph of a crucifix immersed in the “artist's” urine. When Christians complained, they were reviled for censoring “art.” Of course, the NEA would not have awarded a prize for a beautiful crucifix by this same “artist” on the grounds that they couldn't “promote a religion.” Does anyone believe that if the “artist” had immersed in his urine a picture of say, Martin Luther King, the NEA would have honored this work?

  By interpreting the First Amendment is such a way as to favor atheism and its concomitant philosophy--- man is the measure of all things--- over belief in a Creator who endows us with rights, our institutions insidiously undermine freedom. The Founding Fathers, in contrast, adjured us never to never forget the indissoluble link between religious Truth and Freedom. In the words of George Washington:

  “Let us with caution indulge the superstition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the inf luence of refined education on minds... reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

  And James Madison, “Chief Architect of the Constitution”:

  “We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves... according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

  And Thomas Jefferson:

  “And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis--- a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that His justice cannot sleep forever.”

  St. Michael Broadcasting is trying to bring people to the source of all freedom: Jesus Christ, “The Way, the Truth, and the Life,” through the Church He founded: the Catholic Church. But20viewer contributions are not paying the bills. Please support this apostolate by sending a check in the enclosed envelope, or contributing an asset such as stock, bond or real estate. For more info, call the station at 612-724-2265, or email us at info@stmichaelbroadcasting.com.

  Sincerely yours in Christ,

  Michael Bird, president and chief volunteer

  ---

•  Excerpt  from "Veritas Splendor", Pope John Paul II.
  
  

  Revelation teaches that the power to decide what is good and what is evil does not belong to man, but to God alone... God's law does not reduce, much less do away with human freedom; rather, it protects and promotes that freedom...

  Only God, the Supreme Good, constitutes the unshakable foundation and essential condition of morality, and thus of the commandments, particularly those negative commandments which always and in every case prohibit behaviour and actions incompatible with the personal dignity of every man. The Supreme Good and the moral good meet in truth: the truth of God, the Creator and Redeemer, and the truth of man, created and redeemed by him... ."Totalitarianism arises out of a denial of truth in the objective sense. If there is no transcendent truth, in obedience to which man achieves his full identity, then there is no sure principle for guaranteeing just relations between people. Their self-interest as a class, group or nation would inevitably set them in opposition to one another... Thus, the root of modern totalitarianism is to be found in the denial of the transcendent dignity of the human person who, as the visible image of the invisible God, is therefore by his very nature the subject of rights which no one may violate no individual, group, class, nation or State. Not even the majority of a social body may violate these rights, by going against the minority, by isolating, oppressing, or exploiting it, or by attempting to annihilate it".

  ... This is the risk of an alliance between democracy and ethical relativism, which would remove any sure moral reference point from political and social life, and on a deeper level make the acknowledgment of truth impossible. Indeed, "if there is no ultimate truth to guide and direct political activity, then ideas and convictions can easily be manipulated for reasons of power. As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism".

  By Pope John Paul II, par. 35, 99 and101.

  ---

• Ownership Transferred from Catholic Views Broadcast to St. Michael Broadcasting

  A letter from Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J.

  Dear Friends of Family TV 19,

  For the past twenty years, Catholic Views Broadcasts has brought Catholic TV to the Twin Cities. In 1989, we began broadcasting quality Catholic programs from both EWTN and our in-house studio 24/7. We have continued this important media apostolate thanks to our dedicated staff of volunteers and generous donors.

  Channel 19’s operations have expanded since its inception. We increased the power and added a more effective antenna to reach a broader audience, encompassing most of the Twin Cities and outlying areas. Minneapolis and St. Paul are among just a few cities in the United States that have a Catholic TV station broadcasting 24/7. This is indeed a treasure that contributes greatly to the intellectual and spiritual growth of Catholics and others as evidenced by letters and phone calls received from our viewers.

  It has been an honor for me to serve you over these past twenty years.
  Looking ...

  towards the future, Catholic Views Broadcasts transferred ownership to St. Michael Broadcasting in March. I am pleased to introduce to you Mr. Michael Bird, President of St. Michael Broadcasting. Mr. Bird has been a long-time supporter of Channel 19. Channel 19 will remain a non-profit Catholic TV station and continue broadcasting EWTN and local programming.

  In closing, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all of the volunteers and donors whose generosity has contributed to the success of Channel 19. Like his predecessor, the late Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI is urging Catholics to utilize the media for evangelization. Be assured of my prayers for you and your families, for Channel 19, and for its new ownership. May God bless you.

  

  Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J., President

  April, 2009

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