The Catholics and the Media

Ukraine is increasingly allured by media appeal. According to a recent survey, a Ukrainian child speaks with his mother 21.5 minutes per day, 7 minutes with his father, while he views 15,000 scenes of violence on television each week. After Russia, Ukraine is the most populated country since the collapse of the Soviet Union, with 45.994.287 inhabitants (2008). Orthodox Christianity is the majority religion (67%,of the population under the leadership of the Patriarchate of Moscow and Kiev), followed by the Catholic (Uniate) religion. There are also Jews, Muslims and Protestants. Fruitful cooperation. The media could be a new “areopagus” enabling third millennium evangelization. For this reason, on March 31 2001, the Catholic Media Centre was established in Kiev. “The purpose of the centre – explained the director, father Pavlo Vyshkovskyy – is to raise awareness on the life of the Catholic Church through the media, by objectively informing the Ukrainian population on the life of Catholics in Ukraine and throughout the world. Cooperation with Ukraine’s information centres enables to delve into the different problems related to social, citizen, national and international associations”. The Centre actively cooperates in the production of a number of educational programs for the television and the radio. “Only last year – pointed out Father Vyshkovskyy – we distributed over 3500 books against abortion in the different Ukrainian regions triggering the commitment for life protection also in other confessions”. A newspaper for children. “The Catholic media centre – clarified father Vyshkovskyy – doesn’t only coordinate the Catholic media of Ukraine’s dioceses, since it also produces information material of different kinds (audiovisuals, thematic books, web pages)”. Its publications include a colour-magazine for children, “Vodograj”, distributed by Catholic and Greek-Catholic parishes in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Moldavia and Kazakhstan. “We started by printing 800 black and white copies – Father Vyshkovskyy recalled-. Until 2005 we distributed 4000 copies throughout all Roman-Catholic parishes in Ukraine. We are now making an effort to extend the distribution net of the newspaper also to Greek-Catholic and Orthodox parishes. Since January 2007 we started sending it also to state-schools with the purpose of providing literature in realm of education to the ethics of faith; 200 schools accepted the proposal and in fact receive the magazine every month”. Thanks to this initiative, the newspaper’s circulation went from 4thousand to 14thousand and is on the constant increase. “Half of these copies – the priest declared – were printed in Russian and sent throughout the ex Soviet Union to children who don’t know God. Furthermore, we send – free-of-charge – some 500 copies to 20 orphanages with over 200 children. The children also have the possibility of communicating with one another on the website Vodograj”. “Creed”. Father Pavlo also spoke of the radio programme “Creed” that is broadcast in Ukraine since May 18 1997. “The propitious broadcast schedule (every Sunday) and the inclusion of the first national radio station, brought this programme to soon become the most important channel of the Catholic Church”. In fact, “the difficult economic situation of many Ukrainians, marked by the lack of electricity in many homes, has led the radio to be the only media channel. This is true especially in hospitals, in many orphanages, prisons and barracks”. “Until September 2001 programs were recorded in the structures of the national radio – the priest said -. Five years ago we set up a recording studio in the Catholic media centre from which we broadcast our radio program and the news of the Vatican Radio in Polish and Ukrainian”. Intelligent use. The Centre set up a centre for the “intelligent” use of the media. Over the past two years the Centre was attended by 1800 people, including students, teachers and doctors, who in three months learned to log on the Internet accessing films and television programs. One of the school’s achievements, said father Vyshkovskyy, “was last year’s establishment of the association “Pure hearts”. Although Ukraine ranks 87th among the world countries with web accesses, the Catholic Media Centre has set up 6 websites. Among these figures a website for youth television, a virtual library with Catholic documents and literature in Ukrainian for Catechists and educators. “Special relevance is given to the section devoted to information for press agencies and for registered users, who three times a week receive a newsletter on the Catholic Church in our country. Voluntary contributions have enabled us to broadcast Christmas and Easter Holy Masses in the Vatican on all of Ukraine’s television channels”.