ENSURE POSITIVE SPIRITUAL CONTENT IN MEDIA PRODUCTIONS

VATICAN CITY, NOV 20, 2001 (VIS) - The Pope received today in audience 450 participants in the world congress promoted by OCIC and UNDA, the international Catholic organizations for cinema, television, and radio, which is being held in Rome from November 19 to 27.

John Paul II expressed his pleasure that the members of the International Catholic Association for Radio and Television (UNDA) and the International Catholic Organization for Cinema and Audiovisuals (OCIC), are preparing to merge in a few days to form SIGNIS, the new international Catholic organization for all audiovisual media.

"It is my hope," he said, "and yours too I am sure, that SIGNIS will expand and make ever more effective the work which your two organizations have undertaken for the past seventy years, the work of evangelizing in and through the communications media, proclaiming the Lord's saving Gospel in the world of cinema, radio, television and, most recently, internet."

The Holy Father emphasized that "SIGNIS must continue to create new audiences for Catholic programming and work with other involved bodies to ensure that positive religious and spiritual content is not lacking in the various media productions."

"People spend enormous amounts of time absorbed in media consumption, particularly children and adolescents. An important part of your work, therefore, is to teach wise and responsible media use. This means setting high standards not for the general public alone but also for the leaders of the communications industry. It means bringing people to a keen awareness of the great influence that the media has in their lives. It means monitoring the quality of content and promoting constructive dialogue between media producers and consumers."

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