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Pope's meetings maybe telecast live

Amberish K Diwanji in New Delhi

Efforts are on to telecast live the Pope's address and meetings during his two-day visit to New Delhi on November 6 and 7.

Church officials of the Delhi Diocese, who are overseeing the arrangements of the Pope's visit, said there are three meetings that are likely to be aired live by both television and radio.

The first event is the Pope's address to the Bishops of Asia, to be held at the Sacred Heart Cathedral in New Delhi on November 6 at 1700 hours IST.

The second event for which live coverage is being sought is the Mass that the Pope will hold at Nehru Stadium on the following morning, from 0930 hours IST. This being a public event, media coverage is a certainty but the church is hoping that the entire mass, which will last for about three hours, can be broadcast live for the benefit of people who are unable to attend the Mass.

The third meeting for which live coverage is being sought is the function at Vigyan Bhavan at which the Pope will meet heads of various religions, on the evening of November 7. However, coverage of this event remains in doubt since its details are still to be finalised. The Delhi church is hoping that Vice-President Krishan Kant will preside over the function, and is still in the process of contacting various other religious and temporal heads.

"We are very keen to cover the first two functions," said the Reverend Dominic Emmanuel, "Because at these two functions, he will have messages for the church officials and for the laity."

Reverend Emmanuel is certain that the Mass on November 7 will be covered live, since it is a public event and various television channels have already shown an interest. "Jain TV (which was relaunched recently) and Star TV have already approached us for a live coverage of the entire Mass," said Emmanuel.

The reverend also expected certain regional channels, especially the Malayalam-language Asianet that is very keen to broadcast the Mass live for its huge Christian audience in Kerala. Northeast India too has a large Christian population but whether any special arrangement for them will be made remains unknown.

Emmanuel admitted that though Doordarshan had been approached for doing a live broadcast and it has shown an interest, the government-owned channel had still not received the necessary permission from its political masters.

"Even if Doordarshan does not get permission, it does not matter because now there are a sufficient number of private channels that are showing an interest," he added.

However, Doordarshan is India's only terrestrial channel and has the largest number of viewers, around 600 million. The next largest channel, Zee, reaches only about 100 million people. Star TV and Jain TV are much smaller in comparison.

Church officials are also hopeful that the address to the Bishops will be covered live since the Pope is expected to issue an important message for the Asian bishops even as the Church prepares to celebrate the 2000th birth anniversary of Jesus Christ.

"The Pope's visit is linked to the approaching new millennium and his message to the Roman Catholic church in Asia for the coming millennium. That is why we are very keen to broadcast the address to the bishops. Though the Mass is perhaps the bigger public event, the address to the Bishops is perhaps more important," said Reverend Emmanuel.

He said in April-May last year, a synod for Asian bishops had been held where a document had been prepared on the role of the church in the new millennium. "This document will be released by the Pope, the head of the Roman Catholic church, during his address to the Asian bishops," the priest added.

The synod had discussed the situation of the church in Asia as distinct from the church in Europe and how in Asia, the church can become more relevant. It also debated different topics such as the different cultures, the poor of Asia, the role of the laity and dialogues with other religions of the region, all of which was then placed on to a doctrine.

Radio Vatican will broadcast all the events live over the radio for the benefit of its audience. Church officials pointed out that besides India, huge audiences were expected to tune from the Philippines, a Roman Catholic majority country.

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