Reception Index
By Richard Bruce BA, MA, and PhC in Economics
Former Instructor St. John's University, New York City

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Catholic Radio Stations on the Internet

There are a number of Catholic radio services that can be heard through the Internet. They only require about 15 thousand bits of information a second so you should be able to hear them over a 56k modem. If you have broadband then there really is no problem at all. Here are four Catholic services. They have many of the same programs, but some of the programs are different so it is worth it to know about all of them. As far as I know all of these are loyal to the magisterium, more below on this.

EWTN Radio Schedule - Listen Live to EWTN
EWTN is the trusted source of orthodox programming run by Mother Angelica, a cloistered nun broadcasting from Alabama. She is the central figure in Catholic media in America, perhaps the world.

Relevant Radio Schedule may well be available on the Internet. I have lost the link. Most of the programming is different from EWTN. Relevant Radio is from the northern Midwest, and seems to be more oriented toward talk shows hosted by lay people. The name suggests that they will be helping lay people live out a Catholic life.

The Relevant Radio web site received an excellent for fidelity from the Catholic Culture web site. The CatholiCity web site gave it a link which means they passed their investigation also.

Ave Maria Radio is probably available on the Internet, I do not have the link. But I do not have much time right now, I will try to get back to this. I am just cleaning up my dead links. Ave Maria Radio has a lot of programming in common with EWTN and Relevant Radio in addition to some of their own. They are not listed on Catholic Culture, but if there was a problem with orthodoxy Catholic Culture would say that they would not just leave them out. Ave Maria received a link from CatholiCity which means they passed their examination.

KLUX
This is an "easy listening" station owned by a Catholic diocese in Texas. I have read that this is the most popular Catholic station in the nation, but it is light on Catholic content. "Easy listening" means it has mostly instrumental version of popular songs from the last several decades. There are short Catholic messages sprinkled in with the songs.

An important Catholic pointed to this station as an alternative to the type of programming on our local station, which mostly runs EWTN. I noted their listener comments contained no stories of conversions, vocations to the priesthood or religious life, and no stories of changed lives. For KLUX evangelism consists of telling people who want to join the Catholic church to contact their local parish. I have better stories from my own work. Compare their testimonials with those for Immaculate Heart Radio below.

I would also note that KLUX has a powerful FM signal. It probably would not work with a weak AM signal that Immaculate Heart Radio has on most of its stations. Finally let me note that this station uses about 30 thousand bits per second to broadcast on the Internet. You need more bits to broadcast music as opposed to voices. Just as it helps to have a good FM signal for music, but a weak AM signal will do for voice. So even if music programs on powerful FM stations can gain large audiences, voice programs like those on EWTN are still best for AM. Sure you are preaching to choir, but only the choir may be willing to put up with the weak signal, and besides we want some of the choir to become priests and nuns and all of the choir to become more dedicated Catholics. Jesus spent a good deal of his time telling the choir to repent.

Immaculate Heart Radio Schedule - Listen live to Immaculate Heart Radio
Immaculate Heart Radio has a lot of material from EWTN. The program they produce is "The Bishop's Radio Hour." It is hosted by Bob Dunning, a friend of mine. I often phone in. One of the two Bishop's from the Sacramento Diocese are guests once a week.

Note the night and day difference between these and KLUX.

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Reception Index