Canonization rites may be shown live on TV in parishes

PARISHES in Cebu and other provinces may be able to show the live broadcast of the canonization of the country’s second saint in October.

Nonito Limchua, Cebu Catholic Television Network (CCTN) president, said only the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) will cover the canonization rites of Pedro Calungsod and six other blessed persons in Rome, Italy.

Pope Benedict XVI will preside over the liturgical rites that will be held at St.
Peter’s Square.

Blessed Pedro Calungsod, a teenaged lay catechist, was killed for his faith on April 2, 1672 with Jesuit priest Blessed Diego Luis de Sanvitores.

New saints

Calungsod will be canonized with Jacques Berthieu, a French martyr and priest of the Society of Jesus; Giovanni Battista Piamarta, an Italian priest and founder of the Congregation of the Holy Family of Nazareth; Maria del Carmen (nee Maria Salles y Barangueras), Spanish founder of the Conceptionist Missionary Sisters of Teaching; Maria Anna Cope (nee Barbara), German religious of the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis in Syracuse, USA; Kateri Tekakwitha, an American laywoman; and Anna Schaffer, a German laywoman.

The EWTN, a Catholic TV channel, can be seen on TV or through Internet streaming and heard on the radio throughout the world.

Priest present

Limchua said the EWTN will feed the live broadcast to CCTN, which will have an uplink that other TV and radio stations in the Philippines can connect to.

“The broadcast can be translated to the local dialect where it is shown. But this should be done with a priest so he can explain (the liturgical ceremony),” he said.

The CCTN, through its relay stations, can reach the whole of Metro Cebu, Bantayan Island and parts of Masbate, Leyte, Negros Oriental and other cities in the Visayas and Mindanao.

“I suggest that a signal be given to all churches so the canonization can be shown and the people can watch at their parishes,” Limchua said.

Msgr. Trinidad Silva, Archdiocesan Commission on Social Communications chairman, said the entire mass will be broadcast in real time by 5 p.m. on the same day.

The announcement was made yesterday morning after they met with media practitioners from both local and Manila-based outlets.

The purpose of the meeting, which was held at the archbishop’s residence, was to thresh out the details of the coverage of the national thanksgiving mass that will be held at the South Road Properties in November.