EWTN to End Shortwave Radio Operations After 34 Years
EWTN will end its WEWN shortwave radio service on Oct. 31, after operating it since 1992. The network cited declining shortwave listenership, high operating costs, and the expense of repairing aging facilities. EWTN says its programming will continue to reach audiences worldwide through streaming, digital platforms, apps, podcasts, satellite, and more than 600 AM/FM stations. WEWN’s English-language broadcasts primarily served Africa and the Middle East, while its Spanish-language service reached Latin America.
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EWTN will end its WEWN shortwave service on Oct. 31, 2026, after 34 years, citing declining listenership, high operating costs and the expense of repairing aging equipment. The network says it will continue distributing its radio programming through digital and other channels.
EWTN Chairman and CEO Michael Warsaw announced the shutdown on Oct. 30, saying the board of governors had confirmed the decision. WEWN began broadcasting in 1992.
Warsaw pointed to shortwave’s declining use as streaming and digital platforms have expanded worldwide. He said the station’s costs were high relative to its shrinking audience, and that major repairs to the aging facility would not be a prudent use of resources.
EWTN’s English-language shortwave service had primarily reached audiences in Africa and the Middle East, while its Spanish-language broadcasts were aimed at Latin America. The network had already stopped direct shortwave broadcasts to North America in 2008.
EWTN says its radio content will remain available through online streaming, digital platforms, mobile apps, podcasts, satellite distribution and AM/FM affiliates. EWTN Radio currently airs on more than 600 AM/FM stations worldwide, as well as satellite and digital platforms.
Warsaw said shortwave broadcasting helped inspire the growth of EWTN Radio. He also credited Dutch Catholic entrepreneur Piet Derkson and his wife, Trudy, whose $26 million gift helped fund WEWN’s construction and support Mother Angelica’s mission for the network.
The Church’s mission of evangelization amid changing communication technologies
The Church’s mission of evangelization remains constant, but the ways people communicate—and the cultures shaped by those ways—change. Catholic teaching therefore calls the Church both to use communication technologies to proclaim the Gospel and to engage the cultures those technologies form, while preserving the Gospel’s content and seeking a genuinely personal response from those who hear it. Media can extend evangelization, but they cannot make it merely a matter of broadcasting messages.
The Church’s use of communication media is not simply a practical convenience. The Church is sent to proclaim Christ, and media can help that proclamation reach people who might otherwise not encounter it. Pope Paul VI taught that these means can greatly enlarge the audience for God’s word, and that the Church would neglect an important responsibility if she failed to use them. Yet he also insisted that reaching many people is not enough: the message should address each person in a way that can engage conscience, take root in the heart, and prompt a personal commitment.
“The Church would feel guilty before the Lord if she did not utilize these powerful means that human skill is daily rendering more perfect.”
The point of this strong statement is not that technology itself evangelizes. Rather, communication media are human means that may be placed at the service of the Church’s mission. John Paul II describes them as opportunities for more penetrating proclamation and for strengthening communion among local Churches. Their value depends on how they are used: with faith, discernment, and a purpose ordered to the Gospel and the unity of the Christian community.
Changing technologies do more than carry information. They influence the forms of communication people are accustomed to and help shape a broader cultural environment. For this reason, the Church’s task is not only to put Christian content into new channels. It must also learn to communicate intelligibly within the culture those channels help create, without altering the substance of the Gospel. John Paul II calls this an integral part of the Church’s mission and describes the need for pastoral renewal in response to contemporary communications.
Aetatis Novae makes the distinction especially clearly: media are both means of communication and a cultural world with its own language, values, and counter-values. The Church is called to enter that world so that it can make responsible use of it and bring the Good News there. That requires attention not only to the technology but also to the habits and assumptions it fosters.
“It is not enough to use the media simply to spread the Christian message and the Church’s authentic teaching. It is also necessary to integrate that message into the ‘new culture’ created by modern communications...”
“Integrating” the message does not mean tailoring Christian teaching until it conforms to whatever is popular. Benedict XVI explains the balance: the content is to remain unchanged, while its presentation may use methods and forms that make it comprehensible within contemporary culture. The challenge is to speak in a way people can understand without confusing adaptation of expression with alteration of the faith itself.
Mass communication can make the Gospel widely available, but evangelization is more than exposure to religious information. Paul VI’s emphasis on the individual conscience guards against treating audiences as an undifferentiated crowd: proclamation should invite each hearer to a personal response.
This does not make personal contact obsolete. In his 1996 address, John Paul II called personal encounter and patient dialogue the privileged way of announcing the Gospel, while recognizing that new communication technologies had become significant in society and could facilitate relations among people. Read together, these teachings suggest a complementary approach: media can initiate contact, make teaching accessible, and sustain communication, while evangelization still calls for attentive dialogue and personal witness.
Nor is the mission limited to online or newer media. John Paul II urged the Church to include communications in pastoral planning and recognized the continuing usefulness of newspapers, publications, Catholic radio, and television alongside the Internet and other newer means. The appropriate choice of medium depends on the people being served and the pastoral purpose; no single channel replaces the rest of a Church’s communicative life.
The same media that can carry the Gospel can also obscure or distort its reception. John Paul II warned that communications can either help proclaim the Gospel or silence it in people’s hearts. He therefore highlighted the responsibility of those who form children and young people, as well as the need to encourage and prepare Catholics with media skills to work wisely and professionally in this field.
Discernment is needed on both sides of communication. Those who proclaim the Gospel need to understand the forms of communication they use; listeners, readers, and viewers also need the ability to assess what they receive critically. Ecclesia in Africa presents media literacy as a necessity for both communicators and audiences, because media can shape people’s information, education, guidance, and behavior.
This is why technological competence alone is not enough. John Paul II calls for professional and pastoral formation for media workers, and for responsible attention to the moral dimension of information. He also encourages the Church to foster higher-quality communication that respects moral law and serves human and Christian values. The aim is neither uncritical enthusiasm for every new technology nor withdrawal from the communications world, but prudent participation shaped by truth, human dignity, and the common good.
The Church’s response is not only the task of specialists. John Paul II says the whole Christian community must take account of the media culture in which it lives, including in catechesis and liturgy, and assigns pastors a particular responsibility for helping the Gospel permeate society. He also identifies a special role for institutions and consecrated persons whose charisms involve the media.
The practical implication is a broad pastoral commitment: use communication technologies where they genuinely serve proclamation, formation, dialogue, and communion; learn how their languages and patterns shape the people being reached; and keep the aim of evangelization clear. The Church is not called merely to be present wherever messages circulate. It is called to bear witness to Christ there—in words and deeds—and to communicate in a way that can lead beyond information toward understanding, encounter, and faith.