Mr. Rogers and your priest

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I like Mr Rogers a lot, but he’s not above criticism and he’s not perfect.
 
Greek Makebelievean

Edit: I realize he is not, and never will be, a Saint. He was a very good man and can still be an inspiration.
 
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LOL. It was not my intention to discuss the relative merits of Mr. Rogers and his influence on society. Alas, the influence is great indeed.
 
I’m not from the states and so never grew up with him but I totally get what you mean. I have never heard anything untoward about him, quite the opposite but sometimes as kids you get a bad vibe. That’s ok. Take away the message and not the delivery maybe. I was always a ‘Sesame Street’ girl
 
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halogirl said:
. I have never heard anything untoward about him, quite the opposite but sometimes as kids you get a bad vibe.
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Yeah, he was by all accounts a wonderful man. I can see how some people might find his delivery a little monotone though.
 
Priests do receive some training in seminary on homiletics. However, that does not mean priests must be naturally good public speakers. I would say the content of a priest’s homily would be more important than the manner in which he delivers it.
 
I had no idea who Mr Rogers was until this post. He sounds just fine to me. Not soothing necessarily but neither annoying. He speaks like a normal guy.
It is oratory skills that make me suspect manipulation.
For a priest not being manipulating is fine imho. His charisma is hidden, the charisma is not his persona. The charisma is unseen.
A good priest is a bad actor and just … very honest. Like David. Honesty is the standard not poetical license. God forbid, but a talented acting priest may be a sign that he is selling a good story. When it is not a story but the Truth.
I do appreciate a priest who sings well. But if he doesn’t it is still okay, he is not a singer.
A good priest does not lure people into having faith. He is just honest.
I appreciate your Mr Rogers priest because he is calm. The priests I last listened to spoke directly, honestly, and with so much emotion and speed I missed a few words in their homilies. But that was fine too. No pretence, just human to human.
 
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Not all priests were gifted to have the preaching charism of St. Anthony of Padua or St. Dominic. Wouldn’t it be nice if they were.

Even St. Paul had his moments of going too long in a homily. It’s very very dangerous for people attending from elevated seating.

I think our batman priest is likely a great homilist, but I can’t say from personal experience. 😃
 
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Fred Rogers’ calm, deliberate style was genuine, not just affected for kids.

Here is Mr. Rogers speaking on behalf of PBS in court:

He also was very significant in keeping commercial VCRs legal in the 1980s.
 
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humbleseeker said:
I can’t believe anyone would talk bad about Mr. Rogers
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I can’t either. When I was young I loved the guy and wanted him to be my real-life neighbor or friend. I found his voice extremely calming, especially since he never got agitated or angry, unlike my parents and all the real-life parents and adults I knew. I also liked that unlike most of the children’s show hosts, teachers, and other adults of that era, he did not “talk down” to kids - a pet peeve of mine like when you’d go to the children’s theater or the storyteller hour or even to school, and there would be somebody presenting - might even be your own teacher - whose manner was so exaggerated and fake in trying to relate to/ communicate with children (supposedly, children liked that sort of thing? I didn’t) when I just wanted to be talked to like I was a person with thoughts and feelings that were just as valuable as an adult’s.

I guess there’s no accounting for tastes, but from all accounts he was a very nice man and he was pretty much the same on-screen as off-screen.

As for the puppets, I liked some of them such as Daniel Tiger and didn’t like others such as Lady Elaine, but that was due to their personalities, not the fact that they were puppets or that Mr. Rogers was providing their voices. I know there are some people in this world who think puppets and/or dolls are creepy or unappealing in general, and others are really strongly drawn to them even more so than me, so I reckon this is another “personal taste” thing. I did like the documentary of Mr. Rogers where it explained that Daniel Tiger was basically Fred Rogers expressing how he himself felt as a child. I found that very enlightening as I had not realized it back when I watched the show.

I know from being on so many Internet forums that there is going to be somebody who has a problem or issue or dislike for anything in the world, but Fred Rogers is pretty much up on the pedestal for me too. I actually have him on my list of Protestant heroes who I think are in heaven and ask them to pray for us when I do my prayers.

I’m not sure how kids would feel about a show like Mister Rogers in this day and age. The show moves pretty slowly, and we keep hearing how nowadays everything has to be fast and people, including kids, don’t have the attention span they once did. Perhaps they’d find him not very exciting. But who cares, he did a great thing in the era he was in. And Daniel Tiger is still with us.
 
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ontheway1 said:
As I listened to the sermon today I was struck by the sound of my priest’s voice. Yes. I heard Mr. Rogers delivering the sermon. The same monotone. The same lack of emotion. Don’t know if this is good or bad.
Any of you have a similar experience?
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Now, on the subject of priests:
Whether the priest comes off like Mr. Rogers or like Burt Lancaster as Elmer Gantry leading a revival or like something else entirely depends heavily on his own personality, his culture, his speaking skills and the audience he’s trying to reach.

In the past few days I have seen homlies by a priest from Africa, a priest from Mexico (preaching in Spanish at a Spanish Mass), and an elderly priest from Delaware. Obviously they didn’t all sound like each other, nor did they all sound like Fred Rogers. The elderly Delaware priest, who I suspect came from a similar socioeconomic background as Mr. Rogers and isn’t that much younger, sounded the most like him.

Over the past year I’ve also seen a priest from the American South who used to be Pentecostal, a priest who clearly came from a well-to-do background and sounds like a Philadelphia version of the Boston doctor on MAS*H, priests from Poland, a priest who had a previous long career in the US military, several new young priests just out of seminary, an Ordinariate priest who used to be an Anglican minister, priests who are members of various orders, priests who embrace the CCR, a priest who focuses his ministry on college students, a priest who has a college teaching career, etc. No, they didn’t all sound like each other, they didn’t all “lack emotion”, they didn’t all speak in monotone, and they didn’t all sound like Fred Rogers. The ones who had a background similar to Fred Rogers sounded like him and the ones who didn’t, didn’t.
 
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Allegra said:
As a child, I always thought Mr. Roger’s voice was creepy. I didn’t find it calming at all. I found it suspicious. I know that he had many very good things to say, but his delivery made me turn him off the moment I saw his sweater coming. When I got old enough to realize that he was the one who did the puppet voices, it creeped me out even more. Why should a person need to communicate through dead-eyed puppets? Why not just talk to people normally? Oddly enough, I never had a problem with Kermit or Big Bird, but I wanted nothing to do with that sunburned old witch or that ratty tiger. Don’t tell my husband though because he absolutely idolized Mr. Rogers and watched him every day. The only segments of the show I liked was when he went out into the “neighborhood” to see how stuff was done or made.
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To say that this is an immature and bizarre post, would be an understatement.
 
Regarding Kermit and Big Bird, since they’ve come up a few times, I had mixed feelings about Kermit, actively disliked Fozzie and Miss Piggy, and mostly watched “The Muppets” because of the two grumpy old men in the balcony, and also because my father who was in his late 50s at that time really loved “The Muppet Show” (I have no idea why) and watched it every night right after his intense viewing of John Chancellor’s NBC News.

I could not stand Sesame Street apart from the theme song and found almost every character on it annoying in the extreme, especially Big Bird who seemed to have so much trouble just doing normal things and having normal feelings.

Like I said, no accounting for tastes.
 
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Wow. That’s really disrespectful and somewhat ironic, since your idol seemed to think it was okay for children to have personal preferences and emotional responses to stimuli such as vocal tones and grown people having discussions with inanimate objects like they were actually alive.
 
I wasn’t really exposed to the Muppet Show that much, but I did like Kermit, Bert and Ernie, and Grover on Sesame Street. Big Bird wasn’t my favorite though. He was sort of a crybaby and I only really liked him when Oscar the Grouch was teasing him. I thought Cookie Monster was somewhat of a “one trick pony” and got old really fast. I preferred the human aspect of Sesame Street over the puppets. I’m not really a “puppet person”. I loved Maria and Music-Man Bob. I loved the songs. Again, I loved the sequences when you got to see inside factories and learn about how stuff was done and made.
 
LOL I’ve known kindergarten teachers who talk to everybody, adults included, as if they’re five or six.
 
Anyway, I always preferred Mr. Robinson’s neighborhood.
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