The
S outhern C ross
August 27 to September 2, 2014
Reg No. 1920/002058/06
Look inside us: Can there be peace?
No 4888
www.scross.co.za
All about Pope Francis in South Korea
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The Bible: Our best self-help book
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SABC cancels papal Christmas Mass broadcast BY STUART GRAHAM
T
HE SABC has cancelled its broadcast of the papal Christmas Mass in 2014— despite a 2010 undertaking to broadcast it every year. Archbishop William Slattery, speaking on behalf of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, said the state broadcaster had informed the Church that it had decided to cancel the broadcast and that it was “too late” to renegotiate the screening of the papal Mass for the year. The bishops, Archbishop Slattery said, would now push digital satellite TV service DStv to host the US Catholic EWTN channel in its bouquet. “What the bishops want to do is to get the people of South Africa, especially DStv subscribers, to present a petition to [the service’s owners] Multichoice to have EWTN as part of the bouquet so that Catholics can tune in 365 days a year,” Archbishop Slattery said. This way Catholics would have access “to all papal Masses, not only the midnight Mass at Christmas”, he saids. Archbishop Slattery recalled that when EWTN was pulled off the DStv bouquet in Nigeria in 2012, the country’s bishops protested and the channel was immediately reinstated. “The bishops in Nigeria got prominent Nigerians to react to that. Now Catholics in Nigeria are in the fortunate position of having Catholic programmes 24 hours a day.” In December 2010, the SABC’s general manager of content at the time, Ed Worster, undertook that the Mass would be scheduled annually. Mr Worster left the SABC in 2013. Fr Chris Townsend, who as the bishops’ information officer at the time negotiated with the SABC, said he was surprised by the decision to cancel the broadcast. He said that when the bishops negotiated with the SABC, it was clear the broadcaster was not going to make money from the papal Mass but that it was “one of those good things to have”, in line with its religious diversity policies. The Church would also pick up the tab for the technical costs of relaying the Mass. “We paid for all the technical stuff. It cost
them nothing. The Mass was filling in programming which they are desperately short of,” said Fr Townsend, who now serves as a parish priest in Pretoria. Fr Townsend said there had been almost a “systematic exclusion of established religions” at the SABC. “There is a constant battle being fought to retain religious broadcasting on the state broadcaster. But with the change in philosophy at the moment, I don’t think the SABC has a direction,” Fr Townsend said. “The real problem is the way the SABC as a whole deals with faith and media… Nobody stays long enough to hold any opinion,” he said. The broadcaster, he said, appeared to be in favour of what the priest called “smaller groupings”.
F
ather Townsend cautioned that it costs an “enormous amount of money” to have a channel on DStv. The Church had been negotiating with DStv for years to host EWTN, and found its attitude dismissive. “They won’t put on a Catholic channel at all,” he said. “Their response has been that we have got our quota of Christian channels.” As an alternative to pushing for a channel on DStv, the Church might focus on supporting Catholic radio. “We should be punting our efforts into supporting radio,” he said. “Radio is Africa’s medium. People listen to it.” Fr Townsend said it is important for the Church in Southern Africa to focus on radio as its main medium because 70% of the Church is in the rural areas and has no access to television. “It is far easier to reach people in rural areas with radio,” Fr Townsend said. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) awarded Radio Veritas a limited medium wave broadcast licence for Johannesburg in 2011, but with stringent conditions. The Church had fought for the licence for more than a decade. Despite repeated attempts, neither the SABC nor DStv had replied to questions from The Southern Cross as of going to print.
journalist James Foley, a Catholic who was executed by Islamist terrorists this month, speaks after being released from imprisonment in Libya in 2011. (Photo: Tommy Giglio, Northwestern University via Reuters/CNS)
Journalist beheaded by ISIS was a devout Catholic
P
RAYER not only served as a source of strength for Catholic journalist James Foley—whose death by decapitation by militant Islamic State forces was shown in a video—but is now a foundation for his family and community. On August 19, the Islamic State, a militant group which controls territory in Syria and Iraq, released a video titled “A Message to America” in which the video purportedly shows the beheading of Mr Foley. Insurgents said that Mr Foley’s execution was in retaliation for US airstrikes against Islamic State targets in northern Iraq. Mr Foley, a graduate of the Jesuit Marquette University in Wisconsin and a freelance journalist working mostly in the world’s trouble spots, went missing in late 2012 in Syria. He had previously been kidnapped on a Libyan battlefield and held captive in Tripoli for 45 days. Sometime in late 2012, he went missing in Syria. Following his murder, Mr Foley’s family has been using Facebook, Twitter and other social media to express their sorrow and ask for privacy. In a statement on Facebook, his mother,
Diane Foley, said: “We thank Jim for all the joy he gave us. He was an extraordinary son, brother, journalist and person.” She said family members “have never been prouder of him”. “He gave his life trying to expose the suffering of the Syrian people. Like Jim, they are innocents. They have no control over American policy in Iraq, Syria or anywhere in the world,” Mrs Foley said. Sister Kelly took to Twitter asking others not to watch the video that shows his beheading: “Please honour James Foley and respect his family’s privacy. Don’t watch the video. Don’t share it. That’s not how life should be.” Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said that anyone sharing the images of the event would have their accounts suspended. In 2011, after he was let go by his kidnappers in Libya, Mr Foley wrote an article for the magazine of the Jesuit Marquette University on how prayer, specifically the rosary, got him through captivity in a military detention centre in Tripoli. He had been captured with two colleagues, he said. “Each day brought increasing worry that our moms would begin to Continued on page 4
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