Spirit Catholic Radio to mark 20 years

Twenty years of spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Spirit Catholic Radio will mark that milestone with two priests who are regulars on the statewide radio network’s program schedule.

Featured speakers during a Feb. 18 celebration dinner at Embassy Suites in La Vista will be Fathers Larry Richards and Wade Menezes, both frequent hosts of EWTN’s Open Line program, also heard on affiliate Spirit Catholic Radio.

Father Richards also is a regular host of EWTN’s “Fathers Know Best” program and has appeared on numerous other EWTN programs.

An author of two books and founder of The Reason for Our Hope Foundation, an organization dedicated to spreading the Good News, his presentation at the dinner will encourage audience members to “Be a Saint.”

Father Menezes is a member of the Fathers of Mercy, a missionary preaching religious congregation, and contributing writer for the National Catholic Register and Our Sunday Visitor. He also has been chaplain-in-residence at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament of Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Hanceville, Ala., which is affiliated with EWTN.

His presentation is titled “In Defense of Faith and Truth: The Catholic Radio Apostolate.”

Spirit Catholic Radio’s original station, KVSS-FM in Omaha, was a relatively novel undertaking in 1999, and is only the fourth Catholic radio station in the United States to celebrate a 20th anniversary, said executive director Jim Carroll. There are now more than 500 Catholic stations across the U.S.

Five additional stations were added to create the Spirit Catholic Radio network that reaches much of Nebraska and some of western Iowa.

“We could not have grown so quickly without the prayers and support of the faithful in Nebraska,” he said. “Catholic Radio is very effective in drawing people to Christ and an important aspect of the New Evangelization.” 

“We have received countless stories of how it has deepened listeners’ prayer lives, sparked a vocation, saved marriages, brought them back to the sacraments and helped them encounter Jesus and his church in ways they never thought possible,” he said.