THE CHALLENGES and opportunities of cable television were aired by six English-speaking bishops and nine mass media experts at Maryvaie Pastoral Centre, near Guildford, last week.
The meeting discussed the possibility that bishops could soon speak directly to the people of their dioceses via cable television. It noted that the United States' Bishops' Conference already owns a satellite for interdiocesan communication and church news broadcasts and religious programmes.
The chairman was Bishop Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, chairman of the Bishops' Committee for Europe (Bishops' Conference of England and Wales).
Participants included Bishop Agnellus Andrew, acting president of the Pontifical Commission for Social Communications, Bishops Holland, Lindsay and Harris, all members of the Mass Media Commission for England and Wales, Bishop Teddy Zwartkruis of Haarlem, Holland and Catholic press officers from Scotland and Ireland.
The Church of England working party to the Hunt Committee on the expansion of cable television made its submission this week. It said it would be tragic if the BBC and IBA were to be undermined by unregulated expansion of cable television.