For Rev. Francis “Fr. Rocky” Hoffman, executive director and CEO of Relevant Radio, the spiritual life starts small, like building a fire with twigs and paper before adding the logs. In today’s culture, crowded with noise, vanity, and division, he sees an opportunity for Catholics to shine through simple acts of kindness.
Leading a global Catholic media organization is no easy task, but Fr. Rocky believes the answer lies in unwavering faith, a deep commitment to prayer, and a joyful witness to the Gospel in daily life. From the role of saints as intercessors to the importance of anthropological markers like meatless Fridays, Fr. Rocky shares insights on keeping Relevant Radio’s mission alive while inspiring Catholics to integrate their faith into every corner of life.
Connor McEleney: What has been the most challenging aspect of leading a Catholic media organization in today’s cultural climate?
Fr. Rocky: The biggest challenge is also the biggest opportunity, and that opportunity would be to have confidence in the clarity and hopefulness of the Gospel, which seeks to give people hope by giving them truth, and building unity and peace when we are surrounded by disunity, dissatisfaction, suspicion, and violence. We live in a contemporary culture that is crowded with noise and vanity and anger, and yet Christ brings a message of hope and peace and unity based on humility, not on pride. I know that’s kind of a philosophical answer, but that really goes to the core of what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to bring Christ to the world through the media. We deliberately try to have a tone of joyful piety. We are aware that there are all sorts of divisions, but we don’t focus on the divisions; we focus on teaching the truth and wanting the best for every single person. And sometimes when you speak the truth, people don’t want to receive it or can’t receive it because maybe it’s put out there with the wrong tone. If it’s not put out there with kindness, it often gets rejected because people feel judged. So, it’s not about technology and it’s not about money, it’s about how do we engage contemporary culture? We live in the culture of – as Benedict XVI would call it – a dictatorship of relativism, where each person is supreme, and they forget that they’re not [supreme] because we are radically contingent beings.
Connor: I’ve never heard of the “dictatorship of relativism.” Can you explain that?
Fr. Rocky: That was the phrase Benedict XVI used the night before he got elected as pope. Are you familiar with the movie “The Matrix?”
Connor: Yes.
Fr. Rocky: All right, do you take the blue pill or the red pill? In the matrix, there are no limits. You can be and do whatever you want. Except that’s not true. There are limits, right? Gravity is a limit. You can’t overcome gravity unless you have an airplane. There are limits. And if we want to live in a world where there are no limits, we wind up hurting ourselves.
Connor: What do you see as the mission of Relevant Radio and how do you ensure it stays true to Catholic teachings?
Fr. Rocky: We have a mission statement: Bringing Christ to the world through the media. It’s Christ-centered, and we can unpack it. As Catholics, we know the fullness of the revelation of truth from Christ is expressed through the Catholic Church. It doesn’t have that fullness in other ecclesial communities, but there can be some very good stuff there. The fullness of the faith is expressed through the Catholic Church. So, bringing Christ to the world … we’re talking about planet Earth because that’s where humans are, and we’re also talking about mass media. That could be AM stations, FM stations, satellite, Internet, billboards, print media. It’s a broad mission statement that allows us to use all mass media platforms.
We have three guiding principles. The first is being faithful to the magisterium and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. That doesn’t mean you have to be Catholic to be on air, but if you say something that contradicts the Catholic faith, we have to correct that. You should be knowledgeable about your subject on air. The second guiding principle is being united with the bishops, which means we don’t criticize them. And the third guiding principle is that we’re under the protection of Our Lady. And I think those [principles] are the three legs of the stool of what it means to be truly Catholic.
The people in leadership [at Relevant Radio] have to be struggling to be authentic in their faith. We would like the people on our board and other leaders in the organization to attend Mass daily. We would like them to visit the Blessed Sacrament daily. We would like them to spend some time in adoration every week. We encourage them to go to Confession on a regular basis. Because if you start to drift away from Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist and the teachings of the Church, you really will drift away from it.
Second point, we now have Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament [at Relevant Radio’s office], Monday through Friday. We’ve been, in worldly terms, very successful, and a lot of money comes through the organization, and we have a big audience. We could be tempted to be proud and vain and complacent and start chasing false gods. This is what happened to the Israelites throughout the Old Testament. They kept going back to false gods, and the false gods today in America are success and money. We have to be careful about that at Relevant Radio.
The best way to protect yourself from idolatry is the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, which inevitably leads to living the Corporal Works of Mercy and the Spiritual Works of Mercy.
So that that’s how we try to protect [Relevant Radio] against mission drift.
Connor: Looking back on your career, is there a particular moment or project at Relevant Radio that stands out as especially meaningful or faith-affirming?
Fr. Rocky: Oh, there’s a lot of them. I would say a real breakthrough moment was February 11, 2010, when five of us made a pilgrimage to the Oratory of St. Joseph in Montreal with Bishop Ricken to pray for a miraculous financial solution, and we got it within a year. So that stands out. The other thing that stands out is miracles. You don’t establish a business plan based on a miracle, but if you inherit a situation that needs a miracle, you should pray for a miracle, right? We’re not planning on miracles happening – that would be to tempt God, that would be lazy – but in the past, we needed one and we got one.
And then another big moment was the merger and acquisition of Immaculate Heart Radio on the west coast, which allowed us to double our [audience] size from 60 million to 120 million, and today we’ve reached 275 million.
We’ve been very blessed with our sponsors like Catholic Order of Foresters, with our board of directors, and with the encouragement of bishops and the extraordinary generosity of our listeners and supporters. We’ve been lucky, too, or it’s God’s providence that’s been in the right place at the right time to take advantage of revisions to policies for the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) that allowed us to become very efficient.
Oh, and here’s another one. Another great big breakthrough was COVID. We stayed on air and brought Mass every day to people and the rosary every day to people. Our audience increased by 40% in 10 days without any advertising.
What we learned from that is people are hungry for community, they’re hungry for God, and they’re hungry for live, interactive prayer with live prayer intentions. We do that twice a day during the rosary and during the chaplet. And those are the biggest shows. People are hungry for that.
Connor: What’s the live, interactive prayer show?
Fr. Rocky: Oh, people love it. Maggie Carosa and I lead the Rosary every night at 7:00 p.m. It’s called Family Rosary Across America, and we broadcast it on 221 AM and FM stations and the Relevant Radio app, the number one free Catholic app out there. “Free” is the key word. And [we broadcast on] Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and on our website, where people can see pictures of families that families have sent in, and they can see pictures of, say, a Nativity scene in front of a house.
People also call in and the lines are jam-packed 15 minutes before the show. We used to take two prayer intentions on the air for every decade [of the Rosary]. And [the audience] is from the east coast, the west coast, the Midwest, the North and South, [they’re] young, old, and in between.
And then we get people calling back saying their prayers were answered. We call them praise reports. Sometimes they’re big things like a hurricane that got diverted and nobody got killed, or someone who was lost but then found, or someone who had stage four cancer and now it’s all gone.
Connor: Some of our members seek ways to integrate the Catholic faith into their daily lives. What advice would you offer them for living out their Catholic values?
Fr. Rocky: I would say it all begins with prayer, and start small. It could be as little as saying one Hail Mary a day or grace before meals, or having a little picture of the Blessed Mother in your living room, or having a crucifix over your bed. The spiritual life begins with little things. It’s like when you’re building a fire outside, you start with twigs and paper and dry stuff. Little by little, you build the fire and later you put the logs on.
In the home, there should be a picture of Our Lady, and there should be a crucifix. You should also say grace before meals and go to church on Sundays as a family. That’s huge, right? And in the workplace? You don’t have to put a big “C” on your forehead saying you’re Catholic, but it should be obvious to people that you’re Christian by how you treat others. And it’s OK to bless yourself and say grace before meals. And then on Fridays when you’re out for lunch with your friends and everybody else is having meat, you can have cheese pizza or fish. And they ask, “Why are you doing that?” Because I’m Catholic, it’s a Friday. Nobody would question this.
Catholics need [what] Cardinal Francis George called “anthropological markers.” How’s that for a big phrase? He thought it was not good that we got away from meatless Fridays, and it’s like we’ve lost one of the few things that identified us as Catholics.
But above all, Catholics in the workplace have to be the people who are peacemakers and joyful and helpful and hopeful.
Connor: Speaking of prayer, what role does prayer or spiritual reflection play in your decision-making process as a leader?
Fr. Rocky: I would say, regarding my experience at Relevant Radio, I’ve never worked so hard, never prayed so much, never had so much fun, never suffered so much in my life. So, you got to work like a maniac and pray like crazy and never give up. The more you pray, the better things go.
Connor: Are there any saints or teachings of the Catholic Church that particularly inspire or guide your work as CEO?
Fr. Rocky: The last words of Jesus and Gospel of Matthew. Those are really our marching orders.
We were having a meeting the other day with a possible sponsor, and I was asking them what their goal is. Then they asked us, well, what’s our dream goal at Relevant Radio? I said we will not rest until every single living human being on the face of the earth is a baptized, practicing Catholic. That’s a lot of work, right? But that’s the goal.
And then in terms of saints, you can learn something powerful from every single thing one. I think our Blessed Mother is a great example. She’s a powerful intercessor. I think Joseph is a very powerful intercessor, and not a single word of his has been recorded, but he gave that example of caring for Mary. I think St. André Bessette has been a great example to us, and we go to him for his intercession. We go to the intercession of so many of the other saints, Mother Teresa and St. Padre Pio and St. Damien of Molokai. In fact, in our chapel up in Green Bay, we’ve got sort of a litany of saints up there.
Saints are our friends and helpers, and they get assists on the play.
Article by Connor McEleney