The role of media on Powers's Morete d'Urban

The tension, such as it is, in J.F. Powers's Morte d'Urban (1962) centers on the conflict that (some of) the priests feel between serving as parish priests (leading mass, hearing confession, et.) and development (currying potential donors, giving speeches to various community groups), w/ the eponymous Father Urban clearly in the latter camp - he enjoys the high life and the perks of socializing w/ big donors, even w/ a mobster donor and he's particularly good at speechifying - and is both troubled by and envious of the recent success of such televangelists as Billy Graham. But he's also a "man of the cloth" and recognizes the hierarchy and the need to obey those in authority over him, no matter how stupid and narrow-minded they may be. Powers gets a surprising amount of comedy out of these configurations and tensions; as noted previously, I'm surprised to be enjoying this novel and would never have read it based on the kinds of plot summaries that I've been offering over the past few days. Go figure. It's interesting to see how the arrival of a new medium - television - is changing the way the priests think about their work and go about their lives; Urban and the 3 others in the decrepit old mansion that they're supposedly renovating to supposedly attract those lay Catholics interesting in paying $ for a religious retreat, receive a TV (color!) from the mobster who has befriended Father Urban. W/out looking closely at the source of their beneficence, the men begin to build their entire social life around the TV screen (they even rely on the TV tube for light and for some heat!), and we watch the decay of their minds as the fixate on "what's on" each night. (We also meet an elderly, decrepit benefactor who lives in a room w/ 2 TVs, both on all the time - she'd get a 3rd if there were a 3rd station.) Obviously this dependence on an all-consuming and potentially destructive medium resonates today - as we see so many social relations changed by media, and as some w/ vision see the potential for media to reach beyond the scope of face-to-face communications and to spread the "gospel" over the air, for better or, in most cases, for worse.