{"id":491,"date":"2009-05-20T10:47:39","date_gmt":"2009-05-20T10:47:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/2009\/05\/pbs-v-mass-for-shut-ins.html"},"modified":"2009-05-20T10:47:39","modified_gmt":"2009-05-20T10:47:39","slug":"pbs-v-mass-for-shut-ins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/05\/pbs-v-mass-for-shut-ins.html","title":{"rendered":"PBS v. “Mass for Shut-Ins”?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do they really want to go there? The Public Broadcasting Service’s board is to vote in June on a  recommendation to “strip the affiliation of any station that carries ‘sectarian’ content,” as the Washington Post account<\/a> has it. And apparently “sectarian” can mean televised masses:<\/p>\n

\n

The proposal is already having local ramifications. In anticipation of the vote next month, WHUT, the public station operated by Howard University in the District, has notified the Archdiocese of Washington that it will cancel “Mass for Shut-Ins,” a Diocese-produced weekly program, if the PBS board adopts a strict interpretation. “Mass for Shut-Ins” has been carried on WHUT since 1996, and continuously on a Washington TV station for nearly 60 years.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“It’s kind of a shock to us,” said Susan Gibbs, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese. “They’ve been great partners of ours for a long time…The Mass is a very local programming that provides a community service. You’d think public television would be about engaging the community.” <\/strong><\/p>\n


\n\"Oscar<\/span>PBS, which is based in Crystal City, did not have an official tally of how many of its 356 member stations carry broadcasts of religious services, but the number is believed to be small. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Under bylaws enacted in 1985, PBS stations are required to present programs that are noncommercial, nonpartisan and nonsectarian. The rules were put in place to ensure balance and fairness among PBS-affiliated stations, which rely on government funding, private-sector grants and sponsorships, and contributions from viewers. <\/strong><\/p>\n

But the definition of “nonsectarian” programming has always been loosely interpreted, and the rule has never been strictly enforced, according to PBS officials. The issue came up for debate late last year as PBS stations began overhauling their membership rules for the transition to digital television. <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Calling Oscar the Grouch<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But question: If they allow “Mass for Shut-Ins,” they’ll also have to allow content from other religions. You want a Scientology informercial? Still, it seems to call for reasonable accomodation. The spirit of the law versus the letter. But I’m sounding like a liberal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do they really want to go there? The Public Broadcasting Service’s board is to vote in June on a  recommendation to “strip the affiliation of any station that carries ‘sectarian’ content,” as the Washington Post account has it. And apparently “sectarian” can mean televised masses: The proposal is already having local ramifications. In anticipation of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholic","category-church","category-politics","category-pop-culture"],"yoast_head":"\nPBS v. 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He came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, during a longer-than-expected sojourn in Rome in the 1980s. Gibson began his journalistic career as a walk-on sports editor and columnist at The International Courier, a small daily in Rome serving Italy's English-language community. He then found a job as a newscaster and writer across the Tiber at the English Programme at Vatican Radio, an entity he describes as a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope. The Jesuits who ran the radio were charitable enough to hire Gibson even though he had no radio background, could not pronounce the name \"Karol Wojtyla,\" and wasn't Catholic. Time and experience overcame all those challenges, and Gibson went on to cover dozens of John Paul II's overseas trips, including papal visits to Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States. When Gibson returned to the United States in 1990 he returned to print journalism to cover the religion beat in his native New Jersey for two dailies. He worked first for The Record of Hackensack, and then for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, winning the nation's top awards in religion writing at both places. In 1999 he won the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, and in 2000 he was chosen as the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year. Gibson is a longtime board member of the Religion Newswriters Association and he is a contributor to ReligionLink, a service of the Religion Newswriters Foundation. Since 2003, David Gibson has been an independent writer specializing in Catholicism, religion in contemporary America, and early Christian history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Boston Magazine, Commonweal, America, The New York Observer, Beliefnet and Religion News Service. He has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN and other networks and has traveled on assignment to dozens of countries, with an emphasis on reporting from Europe and the Middle East. He is a frequent television commentator and has appeared on the major cable and broadcast networks. He is also a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Catholicism, religion in America, and journalism. Gibson's first book, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco), was published in 2003 and deals with the church-wide crisis revealed by the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The book was widely hailed as a \"powerful\" and \"first-rate\" treatment of the crisis from \"an academically informed journalist of the highest caliber.\" His second book, The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World (HarperSanFrancisco), came out in 2006 and is the first full-scale treatment of the Ratzinger papacy--how it happened, who he is, and what it means for the Catholic Church. The Rule of Benedict has been praised as \"an exceptionally interesting and illuminating book\" from \"a master storyeller.\" Born and raised in New Jersey, David Gibson studied European history at Furman University in South Carolina and spent a year working on Capitol Hill before moving to Italy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter and is working on a book about conversion, and on several film and television projects.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/author\/dgibson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}