A time for Catholic radio

Catholics in many countries across Africa take it for granted that they have access to a radio station that communicates their faith. Indeed, some African countries have more than one Catholic radio station.

Such Catholics would doubtless be bemused to learn that there is no Catholic voice on the airwaves in the continent’s most prosperous country.

This is not for lack of trying by the Catholic Church. Since its inception in the 1990s, Radio Veritas has persistently applied for a licence to broadcast on a public frequency. For 11 years, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) has refused Catholic radio a presence on the airwaves by referring to statutes and bureaucracy.

At times, the bureaucratic experience has been frustrating and surreal. At first, Icasa denied Radio Veritas the status of a community station because its listenership was not concentrated in a geographic area. But once Icasa consented to the notion of the Catholic Church as a community of interest, it denied Radio Veritas’ application for a broadcast licence because it was not a commercial station.

In the interim, the legal processes that might have resolved the dilemma—by recategorising frequencies to be open to community stations—were left unresolved, without explanation. All the while, the medium wave frequency which Radio Veritas wishes to occupy and nobody else seems to want has remained dormant.

We welcome the news that, according to Radio Veritas station director Fr Emil Blaser, “it appears that Icasa would like to help” Radio Veritas, and now invest our hopes in the re-opening of the process, which is scheduled to conclude on July 13. We trust that Icasa will have no more reason to deny Radio Veritas a medium wave frequency.

Until then, however, Catholics must not be idle. Until July 13, Catholics must demonstrate to Icasa not only that they want access to Radio Veritas’ programmes on the air, but also that further delays in completing a torturous cycle of applications to accomplish this will not be tolerable to the Church. Fr Blaser suggests that Catholics might engage with the chairman of Icasa via e-mails on this matter.

This does not mean, of course, that Catholics must resort to invective or threats, nor should we presume that Icasa’s insistence on bureaucratic necessity and, at times, inept procrastination is an indication of anti-Catholicism (indeed, some of its functionaries have been Catholics sympathetic to Radio Veritas’ plight).

At the same time, there seems to persist a perception among South African officials that it is easier to disappoint Catholics than other, less timid social groups. Catholics are well advised to disabuse officialdom of such notions.

Catholics are within their rights to appeal broadly for Radio Veritas to be granted a home on the airways. Certainly, our members of parliament are entitled to know of their Catholic constituents’ concerns, and be motivated to take a keen interest in them.

A Catholic broadcaster is vital to the Church in South Africa, and beneficial to society in general. It is important that Radio Veritas should reach a wider audience than is possible under the imperfect present arrangement—the radio broadcasts on DStv and streams its programmes on the Internet—which by force excludes the poor.

The station’s role is not only to inform the public about activities and debates within the Catholic Church, but also to promote aims for the greater social good.

Catholic radio is particularly valued in troubled countries for articulating the aspirations of people weary of conflict, corruption, poverty and moral degeneration. In South Africa, it would contribute to a moral regeneration of society.

Radio Veritas’ presence on the airwaves is overdue. May Icasa finally, after 11 years of sidelining the Catholic voice, correct a broadcasting injustice.