Almost genetically a Christopher

Father Thomas McSweeney, the new director of the Christophers, is ready to start lighting some candles.

The Christophers is a New York City-based organization famous for its slogan, "It's better to light one candle than to curse the darkness." The non-profit organization, founded by Rev. James Keller, uses the mass media to spread two ideas: the uniqueness of each human being and the fact that everyone can make a difference in the world. One of their means is a weekly syndicated TV show called "Christopher Closeup".

The priest comes to his new role almost genetically wired for it. His mother was a big Christophers fan who used the group's material when she counseled her son about his problems. She also instilled in him the discernment to take what's good from the popular culture and discard the rest.

"My mom encouraged me to embrace culture, suggesting that the stuff that's lousy will bury itself while the good stuff survives," Father McSweeney told me during a phone conversation.

His mother accomplished that by taking him "to see all kinds of movies other kids wouldn't see," he remembers. "She took me to the community playhouse. I was being exposed to really good theater. We would talk about what we saw afterward."

With a background that emphasized faith and culture, it seemed inevitable that he entered the seminary and eventually became a communications professor at Gannon University in Erie. He has also hosted TV shows.

Among his goals as director are reaching out to the Asian population, putting Christopher material on the World Wide Web, and continuing to find ways to reach young people, something the group already does through video and poster contests.

The Christophers have been using modern means of communication for half a century to reach believers and non- believers, something that the entire Church has been slow to imitate, the priest said.

"Our Church has consistently run about 25 or 30 years behind [other denominations that] have gotten involved in the media," he explained. "Bishop Sheen made Catholics very proud, yet in a way that maintained religious continuity with our Protestant brothers and sisters, and particularly with our Jewish friends. He could assert the place of American Catholicism in the republic, both politically and culturally, but he did it in such a way that transcended denominations. That had consequences for the way Catholics were perceived as fellow pilgrims with all the rest in America.

"Unfortunately," he continued, "some people who use the media today believe this is the time for Catholics to show their fundamentalist sinews and to say, 'We're the Catholic Church, and we're certain and set apart.' It's that old idea that we have a corner on the truth. That is not the Fulton Sheen message, and it's not the Christopher message."

As he surveys modern culture, Father McSweeney feels there is cause for hope -- if people are careful about the choices they make.

"I want to encourage people to choose only the best," he explained. "The impact of millions of people on the trends of movies and magazines and records and books and CDs and clothing styles is much bigger than most people realize. I hope that people realize that every book they buy, every radio station they listen to, every television show or film they watch, every performer they applaud, and every CD or article of clothing they purchase is really a vote for -- or against -- the basic standards of good taste, sound human values and divine law.

"I would hope that by wading into that marketplace of ideas, we can light a candle that illuminates what's good out there in our culture and sustain that. And in the darkness, the stuff that's bad will bury itself."

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