DETROIT — When listeners tell Teresa Tomeo they’ve learned a lot about their Catholic faith from listening to her program, she knows just what they mean — because she has learned a lot, too.
Her weekday program on Ave Maria Radio (WDEO 990 AM) has given her the opportunity to ask questions of priests and prelates, religious brothers and sisters, lay men and women, authors and experts — many of the major newsmakers in the Catholic world.
“I can’t tell you how much I love what I do. I get paid to learn about my faith,” said Tomeo, who is celebrating the 10th anniversary of her program on Dec. 12.
“And I hope to be able to keep on doing it for at least another 10 years,” she said.
The Dec. 12 on-air celebration will include special in-studio guests and listener comments.
Quite a lot has happened during the decade “Catholic Connection” has been on the air.
After a successful career as a newswoman on secular television, and after a couple of years on the evangelical Christian station WMUZ-FM, Tomeo began doing her two-hour morning program on WDEO in late 2002.
In those 10 years, EWTN Radio has picked up the second hour of her program, giving her a nationwide radio audience on more than 200 stations, and she has begun doing a weekly show on Wednesday nights on the EWTN cable TV channel.
In addition, she has become known as an author, with a new book just out in the United States, a Polish translation of a previous one just released in Poland, and another one coming out next year.
And on top of all that, Tomeo is in demand as a speaker at Catholic women’s conferences and other events all over the United States, keeping her busy most weekends this fall.
Because she has so many experts on her show, people sometimes approach her for advice, but Tomeo is quick with a reply: “I’m a journalist, not a psychologist. I can’t solve people’s problems.”
But what she can do, she said, is use her skills as a journalist to present news and interview experts about “how to apply the faith in our daily lives.”
And she likes to provide listeners with other sources of information to assist their efforts to lead a Christian life.
Tomeo can relate, “because I was a fallen-away Catholic myself.”
It was her husband’s renewed interest in the faith in the early 1990s, beginning with his participation in a Protestant Bible study group, that eventually drew him, and then her, back to the Catholic Church.
Tomeo was recruited to do a show on WMUZ by Sean Herriott, now of Wisconsin-based Relevant Radio, and then invited to join WDEO by the station’s afternoon host, Al Kresta.
And while her path led her to become one of Catholic broadcasting’s best-known personalities, that of her husband, Dominic Pastore, led him to study for the permanent diaconate and to ordination earlier this year to serve the Archdiocese of Detroit.
The Pastores continue to belong to St. Joan of Arc Parish in St. Clair Shores, but most Sundays they will be found at one of the parishes he serves as a deacon, St. Angela in Roseville and St. Isaac Jogues in St. Clair Shores.
Tomeo has no illusions about the magnitude of the challenges posed by the dominant forces in society. “The secular world, the culture, sees the Church as the last bastion they have to pull down,” she said.
But that just fuels her energy to advance knowledge of the Gospel.
“I’m sad, I’m heartbroken, that there are people who think they can live without God. I tried it; it just doesn’t work.”
