Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 9 — The Georgia Bulletin, October 29, 1987
»Papal Visit
Dioceses To Sell Vi
WASHINGTON (NC) —- Videocassette
remembrances of Pope John Paul IPs trip
to the United States have been produced by
several commercial and church television
outlets.
A video company in Dallas reported
receiving orders for almost 10,000 copies of
its video on the pope’s stop in San Antonio,
Texas.
The archdioceses of New Orleans and
San Francisco are producing videos on a
small scale without expectation of profit.
In Dallas, Ron Sekerak, president of
Rogo Publishing Co., expected to put his
60-minute video of the pope’s stop in San
Antonio on the market before the end of
October. His initial run will be 15,000 tapes,
he said.
Orders already are "approaching
10,000,” he said, and he expects to make a
profit on the venture even after paying
royalties to anyone whose music is on the
tape and giving a cut to diocesan officials
to help defray the costs of the San Antonio
stop, which the Texas dioceses agreed to
share.
The video is being sold for $29.95 and has
the endorsement of Texas church officials.
Donna Schneider of WLAE-TV. a public
television station founded by the New
Orleans Archdiocese in 1984. said the arch
diocese has sold about 400 of the four
videotapes it produced, with orders com
ing “from all over the country.” The most
popular video is an hourlong tape of
highlights of the visit, she said.
Father Miles O’Brien Riley, com
munications director for the Archdiocese
of San Francisco, said the archdiocese is
making five videos and is still clearing
copyrights before putting tapes on sale.
The tapes include one collage of the
22-hour visit to San Francisco and
separate tapes of the pope’s meetings with
men and women Religious, laity, AIDS pa
tients and the elderly, and the Mass at
Candlestick Park. Tapes are being sold for
$29.57 each.
Videocassettes also were prepared on
the pope’s visits to the Diocese of
Monterey, Calif., and the Archdiocese of
Detroit.
The Monterey Diocese prepared a one-
hour videocassette in English and Spanish
versions of the pope’s visit to Monterey
and neighboring Carmel. It is being sold
for $25 for the first video and $20 for each
additional video.
The Detroit Archdiocese is selling a set
of four videocassettes of the pope’s visit to
Detroit for $80 and a single videocassette
giving an overall view of the Detroit stop
for $25.
Texas videocassettes may be ordered
from Papal Video, P.O. Box 558, Dallas, TX
75251. New Orleans videocassettes may be
ordered from WLAE-TV, Channel 32, 2929
S. Carrollton Ave., New Orleans, LA.
70125. San Francisco videocassettes may
be ordered from Catholic
Communications Center,
441 Church Street, San
Francisco, CA 94114. NBC
videocassettes may be
ordered by calling
1-800-351-7100
The Monterey video in
either VHS or Beta format
can be ordered from the
Diocese of Monterey, P.O.
Box 2048, Monterey, Calif.
93942. Detroit videos can be
ordered through Arch
diocese of Detroit, Office
of Television, 305 Michigan
Ave., Detroit, Mich. 48226.
The Detroit Archdiocese
will not accept cash or per
sonal checks, only Visa,
Mastercard, certified
checks or money orders.
Mass Televised
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1
Passionist Communications of Pelham, N.Y., pro
duces the televised Mass which will air Sunday, Nov.
1 at the following times:
8:30 a.m. on WOR-TV Channel 47 on Prime Cable,
9 a.m. on WGN-TV Channel 42 on Prime Cable.
10 a.m. on WVEU-TV Channel 69.
The Rev. Francis Burns of St. Ursula’s Church, Mt.
Vernon, N.Y., will be the celebrant. The Faculty
Chorus of Sacred Heart Academy, Hempstead, N.Y.,
will provide the music which will include the hymns,
“Countless Grains of Wheat,” “Panis Angelicus, "
and “Joy In The Morning.”
*****
A missalette is available free of charge from the
Paulist Fathers by writing to: Share the Word. 3031
4th St. N.E., Washington, D.C. 20017.
NEW RECORD VENTURE — Pope John Paul II greets Irish singer
Dana following her performance at the New Orleans youth rally in the
Louisiana Superdome during the pope’s recent U.S. tour. A Boston-
based order of nuns, the Daughters of St. Paul, have released their first
record album under the label Krystal Records. The record, “No
Greater Love,” features the voice of Dana. (NC photo by Joe Rimkus
Jr.)
In Baltimore:
Films Used To Spread Faith
BY CLARICE L. SCRIBER
BALTIMORE (NC) — Jesuit Father
George Restrepo brings cinema to
Baltimore's Shrine of the Little Flower for
many reasons.
Yes, he wants to entertain the folks. Yes,
he wants to expose them to the films he
loves — movies from the silent era, a few
classics, the larger-than-life musicals.
But, most of all, he wants to teach people
they must become discerning consumers
of media — that if they’re not careful, they
can become victims of the media.
“Our purpose is to entertain, instruct
people and to bring people closer to God,”
said 53-year-old Father Restrepo.
“Living in the age of the future, we re
living in the age of television and films,”
said the priest, who shows films in a chapel
located in the basement of the shrine most
Friday nights from September through
July.
A screen has been inconspicuously-
mounted high above the front of the sanc
tuary of the chapel, which seats approx
imately 500.
“You have to have your antennae up,”
warns Father Restrepo. “Do not let
yourself become a victim of the mass
media. Don’t be duped away to something
that will lead you from God.”
It’s all in how you look at a film and then
what you take away from it, he instructs.
Sin is a part of life, but you’ve got to show
it in its proper light, he says.
While his purpose is to instruct, Father
Restrepo finds a great deal of delight in his
movie ministry.
The season consists of 26 films and they
run the gamut. The most popular showing
was “Snow White,” a sold-out feature he
ran several years ago. More than 500 peo
ple came out for it.
“It was thrilling,” he said.
In fact, children's films have been
among the most successful that Father
Restrepo has featured.
“Just watching the children is a show in
itself,” he said laughing. “They bring their
teddy bears and dolls to watch the movies.
We just put a carpet out there for them.”
Father Peter A. Dora
Catholic Images
TV Audiences Ready For Substance
The Catholic Church has a bright future in television.
Even though we have been slow to start, we are now ready
not only to make effective use of the medium, but to con
tribute to the advancement of the art form itself.
The previous column in this series discussed the subject
of objective truth as defended by the Church even in an age
which prefers to compromise all ideas.
, Until now television has relied on relativism to smooth
over differences and thus create a homogeneous audience
large enough to offset staggering production costs. Even
though the Church had no place in such a system, she never
theless remained faithful to the notion of objective truth
and waited for something to happen. Something has hap
pened: the conditions which had fostered relativism in
television programming have begun to fade.
» At last the development of video technology and tech
nique has made it possible to address a small but select au
dience in an affordable manner. This means there is now
room on TV for programming which does not routinely
compromise the truth.
Actually, television has always managed to present ob
jective truth in some areas, primarily involving the
physical sciences. The PBS programs Nova and Nature ad
dress such subjects as does the recently revived children’s
science series from the 1950’s Watch Mr. Wizard; but in
other areas TV has had little use for the objective. The
daytime soap operas are particularly dedicated to fostering
a subjective morality in which choices are made entirely on
the emotion of the moment without even the slightest con
sideration of right and wrong.
Meanwhile, attempts have been made to establish
“television religions” which employ a relativism similar to
that found in network productions. In this case it is less a
matter of all ideas or opinions being equal as the notion that
any religious expression is the same as any other. This pro
duces a religious style in which the individual is ostensibly
encouraged to search the Bible and come up unaided with
answers for life’s problems. At the same time, however,
television preachers hasten to offer instant biblical inter
pretation with the same authority as the divine word itself.
In short, they pontificate in a way that would make a pontiff
blush.
Into this arena steps the Catholic Church offering
something so old that it almost seems new: objective truth.
Critics will be quick to accuse us of trying to impose a nar
row dogma, but we counter with a simple invitation to con
sider just the possibility of a truth bigger than the needs of
the moment.
The Church can lead the way by experimenting with
television programs which proceed from the basic assump
tion that God’s truth is unchanging no matter how clouded
our perception may be. This need not be explicit or
ponderous, but rather should underlie everything else we
have to offer. In the process we just might find large
numbers of people who have had enough of “traditional”
television and who are ready for something more substan
tial. If so we will have made a worthy beginning both by
proclaiming a timeless message and by demonstrating to
the secular television industry that there is indeed an au
dience for excellence.
(Father Dora is director of communications for the arch
diocese of Atlanta.)