| OCR Text |
Show Mitty used Hunt himself as a br idge between the Mor mon and Catholic communities through a ser ies of weekly radio broadcasts, called the “Utah Catholic Hour,” that aired almost continually on KSL, the LDS-affiliated radio station, from 1927 to 1949. Named for Father Charles Coughlin’s popular “Catholic Hour,” the program remained scrupulously noncontroversial and was devoted, instead, to explaining Catholic doctrines to Catholics and to discussing relig ious and ethical issues that had no sectar ian content. Hunt brought to the broadcasts rhetor ical skills finely honed from years of teaching at the University of Utah, and the prog rams became popular. Two years later, KSL created a national feed to the CBS network, allowing Hunt to reach an estimated one million listeners each week. Although the diocese Duane G. Hunt, who hosted paid KSL for the air time, the station reaped “Catholic Hour” broadcasts on the further benefit of getting a million radio KSL. dials tuned to its frequency each week.37 By the time Hunt became bishop of the Diocese of Salt Lake City in 1937, the Catholic and LDS churches had already developed deep historical 37 Francis J. Weber, “Duane Hunt, Apostle of Airwaves,” The Tidings (Archdiocese of Los Angeles), February 24, 1984. There were less happy encounters as well: after Hunt became bishop in 1937, he enlisted other priests to substitute for him occasionally. One was Msgr. Jerome Stoffel, who reminisced to Gregory Prince that once during a remodeling of the station, KSL assigned to him the more commodious studio that J. Reuben Clark used for broadcasts on Mormon subjects. As Stoffel left the studio, he encountered Clark, “who glowered at him as if to say, ‘What in the hell are you doing in my studio?’” Jerome Stoffel, interview by Gregory Prince, October 6, 1995, quoted in Prince, e-mail to Gary Topping, September 3, 2002, p. 6. 247 DIOCESAN ARCHIVES MORMON-CATHOLIC RELATIONS |
