Once, “Catholic media” meant just your parish bulletin and the diocesan paper. No more. Here’s a story that shows how much things have changed (and it happens to be right up my alley), about a growing Catholic television station that exists only online:

Balling his right hand into a fist, producer Michael Voris leans into a TV camera inside a Ferndale studio to slam home his point:

“Why do young adults stay from mass in droves?” Voris asked while delivering a taped commentary. “What’s missing is bold preaching that challenges young adults. … The beauty and truth of the Catholic faith has been denied this generation by an older generation … of hedonistic, immoral egomaniacs with no moral compass.”

Strong words, but ones that the producers of a new Catholic TV station — billed as the first one to air solely online — hope will connect with an audience they say is starved for fresh religious programming with an edge. Called Real Catholic TV, the new station is based in Ferndale and aims to reach a global audience with news, features and commentary that pushes a decidedly traditional viewpoint.

There already are religious media outlets aimed at southeastern Michigan’s 1.5 million Catholics — a couple of radio stations and a TV station produced with the cooperation of the Archdiocese of Detroit — but Real Catholic TV says it will fill a void because of its independence.

Launched last month, the station comes at a time of intense debate within the Catholic church about how to stem the growing numbers leaving the faith. A major survey by the Pew Forum released earlier this year found that one of every three Americans who were raised Catholic have left the church.

That has concerned many Catholics, but there are disagreements about how to best stem that loss and attract newcomers to the faith. To some, the problem is that the church may be too rigid on certain issues: contraception, divorce, abortion, male-only priests.

But Voris — a veteran TV reporter who’s the main producer behind Real Catholic TV — believes the opposite is true. To conservatives like him, the church has been watered down over the past 40 years by liberal reforms that started with Vatican II. And it lacks, he says, dynamic teachers who preach the faith with passion.

“People respond to the truth, not pablum,” Voris said, banging his pencil on the desk. “And for decades, that’s all young adults have been given.

“They’ve been fed gallons of innocuous, ethereal, kumbaya, arts-and-craft making, God is a rainbow, let’s-hold-hands spiritually vacuous nonsense. “Don’t believe me? Start counting young adults at mass the next time you’re there.”

Another point of contention is presentation: compared to the showmanship of some Protestant TV preachers and megachurches — which have soared in popularity in recent years — Catholic services and clerics can come off to some as too dowdy or reserved. In a media-saturated world of video games and YouTube clips, Sunday mass just doesn’t cut it anymore.

“Why on earth are they going to listen to Father-Bore-You-to-Death prattle on?” Voris said.

Take a look at the link for more. And you can catch the channel itself right here.