The Bible podcast has been downloaded over 4 million times in two weeks.
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Corey Perrine / AP / SIPA
An American Catholic priest is a hit across the Atlantic.
His podcast
Bible in a Year
has been the number one download in the United States for several days and has, in the space of two weeks, 4.3 million downloads.
The voice of
Bible in a Year
is charismatic father Mike Schmitz, a 40-year-old Hollywood actor best known for his videos on the Ascension Presents YouTube channel, which has 471,000 subscribers.
365 episodes
The podcast, which will run for 365 episodes, consists of a revamped full Bible reading.
The story is refocused around 14 books, which gives it greater narrative coherence.
It also provides a more accessible entry point for people interested in the Bible but who were hitherto "intimidated" by the Old and New Testaments, according to Lauren Joyce, spokesperson for Ascension, Catholic House of publishing and educational materials.
A coronavirus effect
Chaplain for the University of Minnesota at Duluth campus, Father Schmitz had the idea for the podcast last spring, in the midst of the first wave of Covid-19.
For Lauren Joyce, the success of
Bible in a Year
can be explained in particular by the pandemic and the sometimes limited capacity of places of worship.
Many older people, in particular, "cannot go to church because of the virus," she says.
While not new, religious podcasts have so far only represented a niche in this rapidly developing universe.
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Miscellaneous
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Bible
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