Probleme der Hörfunkpredigt (II)

Abstract

Auf dem Hintergrund der vorausgegangenen Überlegungen soll jetzt von den besonderen Aufgaben des Hörfunkpredigers gesprochen werden; dabei ist nach Möglichkeiten zu suchen, wie die genannten Schwierigkeiten überwunden werden können. Es scheint, daß vier Regeln von jedem beachtet werden müssen, der über den Rundfunk eine große Hörergemeinde ansprechen will und der versucht, über dieses
Medium die Frohbotschaft in den Raum der Welt zu tragen. (...)

English

Despite its advantage in being able to contact a decidedly lagger audience who are left to listen in anonymity and in their very own specific milieu, the radio talk because of its uniqueness confronts the speaker with a whole series of new problems. There is the distance in space - and often also in time - between speaker and audience. Because circumstances do not allow of even a virtual dialogue or of the possibility of reactional feedback from the audience, the speaker must beware of delivering a formal lecture. He must remember that he is addressing a public which in occupation, education and especially religious sensibilities is much more highly differentiated than the audience he usually speaks to in church. Add to that the handicap of lack of gestures and that of being cramped by the time factor. Such conditions force the speaker to adjust himself to the actual situation of his listener - e. g. being at the breakfast table, -- and to pick an appropriate topic. He must be ablc to penetrate his hearer's consciousness, arouse his attention and then hold it by means of colorful language that does not detreact from the main theme; above all eise he must get the feel of his anonymous audience and for this nothing can substitutc for mail from his listeners. This will open to him all sorts of pastoral possibilities. The most deeply meaningful form of Catholic radio program is a broadcast of the mass