EWTN to end shortwave radio operations after 34 years
EWTN will shut down its WEWN shortwave radio service on Oct. 31, ending operations that began in 1992. EWTN cited declining shortwave listenership, high operating costs, and the expense of repairing aging facilities. The English-language service primarily reached Africa and the Middle East, while Spanish-language broadcasts served Latin America. EWTN says its programming will continue to reach audiences through streaming, digital platforms, satellite, podcasts, and AM/FM affiliates.
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EWTN will shut down WEWN, its shortwave radio service, on Oct. 31 after 34 years, citing falling listenership, high operating costs and the need for costly repairs to aging facilities. The network says its programming will continue through other broadcast and digital channels. 1
EWTN Chairman and CEO Michael Warsaw announced the decision on Oct. 30, saying the board of governors had confirmed it. He said shortwave use had declined as streaming and digital media expanded, while the costs of operating and repairing WEWN were no longer a prudent use of resources. 1
WEWN began broadcasting in 1992. A $26 million gift from Dutch Catholic entrepreneur Piet Derkson and his wife, Trudy, helped fund its construction. 1
EWTN ended direct shortwave broadcasts to North America in 2008. Its English-language service later focused mainly on Africa and the Middle East, while its Spanish-language broadcasts served Latin America. 1
EWTN says its programming will remain available through online streaming, mobile apps, podcasts, satellite distribution and digital platforms. Its radio network also broadcasts on more than 600 AM/FM stations worldwide. 1
The Church’s mission of evangelization amid changing communication technologies
The Church’s mission of evangelization does not change when communication technologies change: she is still called to proclaim Christ and invite people to personal faith. What does change is the setting, language, and means through which that mission is carried out. The reported end of EWTN’s WEWN shortwave service is therefore best understood not simply as the loss of one broadcasting method, but as a prompt to ask how the Church can continue reaching people as audiences and technologies shift. The Catholic sources affirm both the duty to use effective means of communication and the need to discern how they shape culture.
The Church’s use of communications media is not merely a matter of convenience or publicity. Paul VI taught that these means can extend the hearing of the Gospel to vast numbers of people, and that the Church would fail in her responsibility if she refused to use powerful means available to her. But the aim is more than a large audience: the message must reach each person in a way that can engage conscience and call forth personal commitment.
John Paul II develops this point by describing communication as woven into the Church’s life and mission. Media can help proclaim the Gospel, strengthen communion among local Churches, and support cooperation among Christians. Their value, then, is not measured only by how many people receive a signal or view a post; it also includes whether communication helps people encounter the Gospel and builds relationships within the Church.
This distinction matters when a particular channel becomes less effective or too costly to maintain. The closure of one service does not by itself mean that the Church’s evangelizing mission is retreating. The relevant pastoral question is whether the means still serve the people the Church seeks to reach, and whether other means can serve them better. The supplied account attributes WEWN’s closure to declining shortwave listenership, high operating costs, and repair expenses; it does not establish that shortwave broadcasting has become useless everywhere, or that all listeners can readily be reached by newer technologies.
Catholic teaching calls the Church not only to use media as instruments but also to understand the culture they help create. Aetatis Novae says media are essential to evangelization and catechesis, while warning that simply placing Christian content on a modern platform is not enough: the Gospel must also be communicated in ways intelligible within the new culture of communication. This requires presence within that culture, not merely sending messages into it from a distance.
John Paul II likewise describes contemporary communication technologies as shaping habits, expectations, and ways of interacting. The Internet, for example, offers information but also encourages interactive communication; it can support evangelization, education, and communication within the Church. At the same time, traditional media—including radio, newspapers, and television—remain useful parts of a comprehensive communications effort.
The implication is neither “always adopt the newest technology” nor “keep every older medium indefinitely.” Rather, the Church needs pastoral discernment: who is being reached, who may be left out, what kind of communication the medium enables, and whether the costs and effort are proportionate to its pastoral value. A technological shift may open new possibilities, but a newer platform does not automatically serve every audience or every purpose.
Mass communication can carry the Gospel far, but evangelization cannot be reduced to broadcasting or publishing religious material. Paul VI’s emphasis on reaching each person personally guards against treating people merely as audience totals. John Paul II similarly identifies personal contact and dialogue as especially valuable forms of proclamation, while recognizing that widely used communications media create new opportunities and responsibilities.
That balance is important in a media environment built around rapid, broad circulation. The Church should use media to make the Gospel accessible, while connecting communication to catechesis, liturgy, community life, and sustained pastoral relationships. John Paul II describes liturgy as the fullest and fundamental expression of communication with God and one another, and urges the Church to consider the media culture in which people live when carrying out catechesis and pastoral work. In this light, online or broadcast content can invite, teach, and accompany, but it should not be mistaken for the entirety of Christian life.
Communication technologies do not merely carry information; they can influence how people think and act. John Paul II therefore calls for prudent engagement and for formation of media professionals, especially those working in the Church, so that they can meet the ethical challenges of their work. He also notes the risk that media may either proclaim the Gospel or help silence it in people’s hearts.
The responsibility extends to audiences. In Ecclesia in Africa, John Paul II describes media as a cultural world with its own languages, values, and counter-values, and says that both those who communicate and those who receive media need formation and discernment. The Church’s response to technological change therefore includes more than choosing platforms: it involves helping people assess what they encounter and ensuring that Catholic communication respects human dignity and the common good.
The reported WEWN decision illustrates a practical tension: maintaining a familiar channel may preserve access for some listeners, while the costs of doing so may limit other forms of communication. The supplied information does not tell us which listeners will be most affected, what alternatives EWTN will provide, or how accessible those alternatives will be to people without reliable internet access. Those questions matter for judging the pastoral consequences of the change.
Catholic teaching supports an active, adaptable communications mission, but not change for its own sake. The Church is called to use available media, integrate the Gospel into the cultures those media shape, and preserve the personal and communal character of evangelization. In practical terms, a sound response to a medium’s decline would assess who still depends on it, whether other channels genuinely reach those people, and how different forms of communication can work together.
The end of a particular technology is not the end of the Church’s mission. It is a reminder that evangelization requires both constancy and adaptation: constancy in the Gospel proclaimed, and adaptation in the ways the Church makes that Gospel heard, understood, and encountered.