Friday, December 24, 2004
Check out the festivities tonight
Vatican, Dec. 23 (CWNews.com) - The midnight Mass from St. Peter's Basilica on Christmas Eve, and the Pope's Urbi et Orbi message at noon, will be televised live to 72 different countries this year.
The Pontifical Council for Social Communications has announced that 111 television broadcasters will air the midnight Mass across five continents, while 114 networks will carry the Pope's traditional message on Christmas Day.
In Europe the broadcast will be available to audiences in 38 countries; in the Americas (North and South) to 19 countries. The Mass will be telecast to nations as diverse as Algeria and Russia, Burundi and Turkey, Israel and India. The Knights of Columbus have furnished financing to allow satellite transmission to several countries where it might otherwise be unavailable.
The broadcast Mass will not be available in China. But at 5 pm on December 24-- midnight, Beijing time-- a Christmas Mass will be celebrated in Chinese in the studios of Vatican Radio, and broadcast live to that country. Pietro Chiami, who manages Chinese-language programming for Vatican Radio, explains that the radio broadcast has been offered for 20 years. "It gives the Catholics of China the opportunity to follow the Mass-- particularly those who cannot, for different reasons, find a church to attend," he said.
Pope Pius XII inaugurated the practice of broadcasting the Christmas Mass from the Vatican basilica, in 1954. For years the telecast was available only in Europe, until in 1969 it was made available in Chile and Argentina. Five years later, the first satellite broadcasts were transmitted from the Vatican, and 44 countries had access to the Christmas Mass celebrated by Pope Paul VI in 1974. The span of the broadcast has grown steadily with the increasing sophistication of the electronic media.
Do I get to watch? It seems strange to watch Midnight Mass before I go to Church for Mass. So wrong, on some level.
The Pontifical Council for Social Communications has announced that 111 television broadcasters will air the midnight Mass across five continents, while 114 networks will carry the Pope's traditional message on Christmas Day.
In Europe the broadcast will be available to audiences in 38 countries; in the Americas (North and South) to 19 countries. The Mass will be telecast to nations as diverse as Algeria and Russia, Burundi and Turkey, Israel and India. The Knights of Columbus have furnished financing to allow satellite transmission to several countries where it might otherwise be unavailable.
The broadcast Mass will not be available in China. But at 5 pm on December 24-- midnight, Beijing time-- a Christmas Mass will be celebrated in Chinese in the studios of Vatican Radio, and broadcast live to that country. Pietro Chiami, who manages Chinese-language programming for Vatican Radio, explains that the radio broadcast has been offered for 20 years. "It gives the Catholics of China the opportunity to follow the Mass-- particularly those who cannot, for different reasons, find a church to attend," he said.
Pope Pius XII inaugurated the practice of broadcasting the Christmas Mass from the Vatican basilica, in 1954. For years the telecast was available only in Europe, until in 1969 it was made available in Chile and Argentina. Five years later, the first satellite broadcasts were transmitted from the Vatican, and 44 countries had access to the Christmas Mass celebrated by Pope Paul VI in 1974. The span of the broadcast has grown steadily with the increasing sophistication of the electronic media.
Do I get to watch? It seems strange to watch Midnight Mass before I go to Church for Mass. So wrong, on some level.
