Reaching kids through rock music, Scully's a new kind of radio priest - Michael Scully - Interview

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 17, 1997 by John L. Allen, Jr.

HAYS, Kan. -- "I coulda been a contender," Marlon Brando says in that famous, anguished scene from On the Waterfront. "I coulda been somebody."

For many people, the remembrance of things past is a lot like that. Reflection on paths not taken can evoke regret -- sometimes sad, sometimes bitter and often both.

But not so Capuchin Fr. Michael Scully.

The 57-year-old Scully would have been a very public somebody, at least within Catholic circles. He's had offers, and continues to have them regularly, to become a media personality on a national scale.

Scully is the host of a radio show on an FM station in western Kansas. His show, called "Message at the Top," features the current top 10 pop songs, spun along with Scully's engaging, youth-friendly insights on life, relationships and God.

Scully has been approached several times about syndicating the show and making it into a full-time gig. He's also had requests to join the lecture circuit, hitting high-profile events such as the Religious Education Congress in the Los Angeles archdiocese.

He's turned them all down.

Instead, Scully's got two very demanding full-time jobs. He serves as the pastor of St. Joseph's Parish in Hays, Kan., a community which, despite its relatively small size -- 17,000 -- has a high concentration of active Catholics. Scully is also the president of Thomas More PrepMarian High School, also in Hays, a school that perched on the brink of financial disaster before Scully assembled a team to bring it back to life. This work is in addition to preparing his weekly radio show and appearing at regional youth leadership seminars.

In his spare time, Scully is the author of a series of reflections for young people on modern music called The Message of Rock, put out by Hi-Time Press, a Catholic publishing house in Milwaukee. He has also launched a Message of Film series.

Of his invitations to wider fame, Scully said, "I have chosen not even to think about doing it. I know that I said to the Capuchin Franciscans, `I am vowing my life to you.' There's no question, no regrets. I know they need me as a pastor."

But isn't there a tiny part of him that thinks it would be a kick to be a Catholic version of Casey Kasum, host of "American Top 40"?

"Absolutely," Scully said. "I think I would have more fun doing that. But given the circumstances that we're in right now, I'm needed where I am."

To some extent, then, the story of Mike Scully is what might have been. But for Scully himself, it's much more a story of what has been -- a life that, for all its other possibilities, continues to be richly rewarding in its own way.

Something to do

Scully has devoted much of his career to working with young people, as a teacher, pastor, youth minister and school administrator, in addition to reaching out to them through books and radio. He got started spinning records the same way a lot of teachers stumble onto their hobbies -- desperation for something to do in class.

"I was trying to teach religion to high school kids," Scully says of his first days as a teacher in the late 1960s. "I thought, what in God's name am I going to do?"

Then he took a good look at how his kids spent their spare time. "The kids were listening to music, modern rock music, and that interested me. The songs were talking to them, and I was talking religion to them, and many times the two did not jive. The thought came to me, let's try to tie them in."

There was, of course, another motive. "I also figured it might make the class more interesting," he said.

Something clicked. "I had their attention," he said. "using the medium of music as a point of departure, I was able to talk to them about life."

That is not to say that Scully's upbeat, inspiring approach popped into being full-blown. At first, Scully was more like Howard Beal from the movie "Network," an angry prophet who was mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.

"My approach was totally negative," Scully recalled. "I was appalled by a lot of these songs. I was very much against many of their lyrics and I went in it with that attitude, thinking this was bad and I was going to set things right."

How times have changed. Today, Scully takes the music as it comes.

"Now I don't condemn," Scully said. "I accept rock, rap, alternative, whatever -- some of which is actually very good -- as a statement of where kids are at and what they're thinking. Then I use it as a chance to talk about values."

That's the approach that has carried Scully onto the airwaves. In the early 1980s, he was approached by an FM station in the area to do a show -- a radio version of what he was already doing in the classroom.

He's been doing it ever since. The format has not changed much over the years: Scully up top with a few comments, then the Billboard "Top 10," interspersed with reflections that cull life lessons from the lyrics. The tone is fast, friendly, and Scully doesn't waste time making his point -- an approach consciously crafted for MTV-generation youth.