Television and the Catholic World

Extract

Unda is not the latest of the initial-words that reflect the multitude of international organizations that have come into being to serve the hopes and fears of the post-war world. It is simply the Latin word for ‘wave’ and is the convenient name for the co-ordinating body for Catholic radio and television throughout the world, with its headquarters at Fribourg in Switzerland. Last February, the television section of unda organized the first international Conference for Catholic television in Paris. It was attended by representatives from most western European countries, as well as Canada, the United States and Cuba, together with observers from UNESCO and the Council of Europe.

In a first gathering, with terms of reference so necessarily wide, the work of the Conference was largely exploratory, but it was soon evident that in many countries the potentialities of so powerful a medium of mass communication as television were already acutely realized by the Church. Indeed the Conference was prefaced by the ordinary Sunday morning religious programme from the French television studios, and the delegates were able to see for themselves how the French Dominicans (to whose charge the programme has been committed) have met the demand for Catholic worship and instruction through the new medium. It was a touching detail that the infant son of the producer of religious television features should have been baptized in the studio before the Mass began—perhaps a symbol of how actual is the inspiration of French religious television, now in its sixth year of active production.