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Loud and clear
archived from: 2005-11-10
by: Chuck Moody

Father Ron Lengwin this year is celebrating his 30th anniversary as host of “Amplify,” a weekly Sunday night call-in talk show on KDKA, 1020-AM, that “looks at life from a religious perspective.”

“‘Amplify’ started in April 1974 on KDKA,” Father Lengwin recalled. “There were two Lutheran ministers who were the head of communications for Christian Associates at that time, Harry Souders and Roy Lloyd. They produced the program, which was a half-hour. I became director of communications of Christian Associates in 1975 and first appeared on KDKA on April 13, 1975. I’ve been on KDKA’s air for 30 years.”

Father Lengwin began his radio career in 1973 on KQV, 1410-AM, when it was a Top-40 music station and before it went to its current all-news format.

“I did a program called ‘The Place,’” he said. “It was an interview program with high school students. Usually three or four high school students, an hour long, where we talked about some issue of the day, and applying Top-40 music in between. We took the music and drew themes from it and talked then about the culture of the day.”

“Amplify” became a call-in talk show in September 1978.

“The prerecorded program, it was a half-hour, had been so successful in KDKA’s eyes that they wanted to extend the program from 30 minutes to an hour,” Father Lengwin said. “But a program like that takes hours to prepare.”

Father Lengwin’s first show as host of “Amplify” included then-Aux. Bishop Anthony Bosco talking about whether there was a vocation crisis in the church, a question that remains to this day. Other topics included World Food Day and “Income Tax: Our Responsibility to Government.” There was a movie review, a book review, scripting in between all segments and music.

“It was a highly edited program, the old days when you did it with a razor,” Father Lengwin said. “You cut each piece of tape, and you taped it back together again. So I said to the management, ‘Why don’t you do a talk show? And instead of doing this for an hour, let’s do it for an hour and a half.’

“I had to go back to the council of Christian Associates and speak to them about allowing, as it were, ‘people to talk back to the church’ by getting involved in live interviews and call-ins. KDKA management asked me, ‘What could you possibly do in an hour and a half? Would you have religious services? Are you going to preach? What would the church do?’ I said, ‘Let me put some thoughts together.’ I gave them 10 pages, single-spaced, of topics that could be looked at from a religious perspective. It took awhile for the program to get on, some months, but it started at an hour and a half.”

“Amplify” eventually expanded to two hours, and at one time to three hours, when the program director of KDKA determined the show, because it was first in the ratings in its time slot, would help to boost the station’s overall ratings. The program has been two hours for a long time, moving sometimes to different time slots, but having for years been from 9-11 p.m. It once was cut to an hour and ran from 11-midnight, but it soon was moved back to its current time slot.

“I have a book that lists all the programs, all the guests and topics ever since I began,” Father Lengwin said.

He begins each show by welcoming listeners to “a program that looks at life from a religious perspective.” He then tells a story called “faith and imagination.” The stories are written by Connie Ann Valenti, a parishioner at St. Scholastica in Aspinwall and with whom Father Lengwin wrote a column in the Pittsburgh Catholic for many years.

The main part of “Amplify” is Father Lengwin interviewing the author of a book that has something to do with religion.

“It’s been mostly that,” he said. “It’s been open discussion, too. People will say, ‘Why don’t you try open discussion?’ And I’ll try it for two or three weeks. Depending on what’s happening at the time, there may be a lot of phone calls.”

Father Lengwin usually has one author for the entire show because he wants to have the time to fully explain the topic of the book. He reads the various books during the week leading up to the broadcast, sometimes, depending on his schedule, starting Friday night.

“I like to read them during the week, but typically I’m so busy I’m usually here until early Saturday morning preparing for the program, reading the books and formulating how it is that I want to approach it,” he said.

Father Lengwin often is complimented by the book’s author and publicist for his thorough knowledge of the content.

“They’ll sometimes say that I know the book better than they do now because it takes a couple of years by the time they’ve written it, it gets edited and for the whole process to be completed before it gets to a bookstore,” he said. “I enjoy that. I just feel that I owe that to people, that if I’m going to ask them to be a guest on the program, I should be prepared.

“You don’t always know how good a writer is going to be as a guest on a call-in talk show. Almost all of them are good, but every once in awhile you are very glad that you prepared yourself very thoroughly because you could carry the program for two hours if you had to.” Father Lengwin is a Catholic priest, but that doesn’t mean “Amplify” is a strictly Catholic radio talk show.

“It began from Christian Associates,” he said. “It was intended to be an ecumenical program first of all, and even an interfaith program, that started out as a public service program, which it still remains to some degree. I’m not sure KDKA would call it that way. But we don’t pay for the time. I’m not paid for doing it. It’s the old public service concept. It just grew into a program and isn’t listed as such anymore.

“But at that point, when communications had been ‘discovered,’ as it were, by the church, its importance, when we’re talking back in the early ‘70s, there was competition among different faith communities, among different denominations for airtime to try to get their message out. A lot of people thought it was the ‘magic way’ to do evangelization. Pre-evangelization is really what it was, to prepare people to be evangelized. The members of Christian Associates came together and decided that they would develop programs that they all could support and on which everyone could participate. Largely because it was an ecumenical organization it was natural that it should happen that way. Growing out of that, of course, I’m in charge of interfaith and ecumenical relations in the diocese.”

Reflecting on his 30 years as host of “Amplify,” Father Lengwin said, “Certainly, I enjoy it.

“I would say that there’s a Sunday once in awhile where you wish you could kick up your feet because of what’s happened during the week when you’ve been very busy because of other responsibilities I have,” he said. “We’ve been through some difficult times in the church. But every Sunday I look forward to it, largely because each week I read a book or two. It helps my own continuing education. It’s kind of a popular theology, but it isn’t always that when you look at the list of books.

“I would think that part of the value is helping people to see what other people believe so that you may in contrast understand your own beliefs better. It can deepen your own faith. Although, I need to say some people fail to recognize the nature of the program as such.”

Such an instance occurred recently at Heinz Hall when KDKA celebrated its 85th anniversary as the world’s first commercial radio station.

“There were a number of people who came up to me and who said, ‘Father, I’m not Catholic, but I listen to your program every week,’ and made some complimentary remarks,” Father Lengwin said. “‘I’m Lutheran, or I’m Presbyterian.’ I always have to say, ‘Well, it’s not a Catholic program as such.’ To some degree, it would be because the host is. But anyone who listens to the program knows that I deal with all kinds of topics, all kinds of beliefs.

“My thought is, I respect other people. When I’ve invited them to be a guest, I do not debate with them over what they believe. I’ll allow them to explain what they believe, and, in turn, if it’s different, I’ll try to explain what I believe. The only time that there might be some debate — and I can’t remember too many times that this had to occur — is when someone would misrepresent what the Catholic Church believes. Then in my role as a host, I need to speak up at that point. That happens not so much from the guests, I think, but from the people who will call in, who are still ignorant, lack understanding with some preciseness of what the church believes, still holding onto some of the old criticisms that existed in the past. Some of them still exist today because there are groups who still misunderstand the church’s teaching.”

The listeners to Father Lengwin's show are diverse, both religiously and geographically, as KDKA’s 50,000-watt signal reaches parts of 38 states and half of Canada after sundown.

In addition to serving as host of “Amplify,” Father Lengwin serves as director of the diocesan Office for Public and Community Affairs, chief spokesman for the diocese and director of the diocesan Mission Office. He remembers when he first entered the communications field.

“I was just learning to edit and learning what radio and television were all about,” he said. “I spent a number of years on television also. At that point, I didn’t want to leave the office to have to go home and go to bed, and then I couldn’t wait to get up the next morning to come back to work.

“I wouldn’t say that I feel that way now. That hasn’t prevailed, but certainly a good part of that has. I still look forward to doing something like this. Because I think that it’s very valuable in terms of media today and their power, and also because of the truth that Christ has asked us to teach others. This is certainly one of the important ways to do that in a format that isn’t a catechism as such. But hopefully it can be taught in its application in terms of some particular issue, or topic or concern and show how our beliefs are a part of those issues. We try to bring some understanding, the moral and biblical dimension to issues.”

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