Saturday, June 17, 2006

Crazy drunk for Jesus ...

A Hard Core, Hip-Hop Spiritual Journey - New York Times -[Via Amy] -- fascinating piece on Fr. Ricardo Bailey, a priest of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, with a hip talk show on radio.
Sandwiched between songs by the likes of Trick Daddy and the Pussycat Dolls, Father Bailey has a weekly gig on one of the most popular morning shows in Atlanta, "The Bert Show," where he has been introduced to listeners as "Father Crunk."

That an ordained Catholic priest might call himself "Crunk," a hip-hop fusion of the words "crazy" and "drunk," might seem outrageous enough, but what is really making Atlantans choke on their morning coffee are his radio riffs, which take their cues as much from the pages of People magazine as the Book of Proverbs.
[snip]
He insists that he is for real and that his street-smart sermonizing is not for show.

"That's just who I am," he said. "It's not an act. The parishioners are used to it."

Apparently so. He has become so sought out that the Archdiocese of Atlanta had to give him a dedicated link on its Web site.

His popularity is a great relief to Catholic leaders here, who were not sure that having one of their priests on a radio show that made a name for itself with a gag that outed cheating spouses was such a good idea.

"We were very, very reluctant," said Gareth N. Genner, president of Holy Spirit Preparatory School, the school associated with Father Bailey's church. "There was so much about the show that wasn't a good fit with our mission in terms of the content."

(The school, in fact, does not let students listen to the whole show. Instead, they get a digital copy of the program and play the 10-minutes of Father Bailey's segment over the loudspeaker on Monday mornings.)
Well. All power to him. [And, let the heads start exploding.]

2 comments:

St. Elizabeth of Cayce said...

A Catholic priest known for sermonizing? Will wonders never cease! ::grin::

Maybe he can take his scripture readings/translations from this guy.

Fr. Gaurav Shroff said...

Hehe --- interesting link. Not quite hip-hop, but do remember the Rev. J. Glenn Murray from the conference last year! :)