The Catholic media now

At the risk of reducing a serious matter to cliche we shall say it again: the media is a crucial tool in the Church’s apostolic mission to spread the Good News. If we neglect to use the media, we sabotage our evangelising efforts.

The Vatican, led by the pope, ceaselessly reminds us that the mass media need not be feared, that it can be a friend if related to appropriately.

Getting lost in that emphasis, however, is the importance of the Catholic media, especially in an age when many of the faithful themselves need to be re-evangelised.

The Southern Cross, for example, plays a paramount role in the life of the local Church. Alas, it is often taken for granted.

Likewise, Catholics have long surrendered to the notion that their Church should be voiceless on the airwaves.

The recent temporary broadcasts by Radio Veritas, received with such enthusiasm by Catholics in the Johannesburg region, have served to breach that indifference.

By all accounts, Radio Veritas presented entertaining and uplifting quality programming. One may wonder why there has not been such a radio station before, especially one that transmits permanently and nationally?

Part of the answer is simple: apathy within the Church, that bugbear of the Catholic media.

Unaccountably, the broadcasting authorities list among the requirements for granting Radio Veritas a permanent licence “demonstrable support” among Catholics for such a station. It is a sad state of affairs that the Catholic Church, which at 7% of the population constitutes the biggest single religious organisation in South Africa, still has to prove such support when the airwaves are littered with radio stations catering for the adherents of much smaller religious groupings.

It is worth noting that only one Christian denomination in South Africa is served by a national weekly newspaper you are, of course, holding it in your hands and has been for 80 years, preceding the advent of public radio.

Indisputably, among South Africa’s religious radio stations there should be one for Catholics.

Let’s get behind our Catholic media. Demand of your local news agency that it stocks The Southern Cross. Remind your daily newspapers to cover Catholic events equitably. And shout it from the rooftops that South Africa’s Catholics want their own radio station. Now.