Manila (AsiaNews) A new, Church-owned TV channel will hit the airwaves on January 1, 2006. Church sources say it will be called The Catholic Channel. The new broadcaster is the result of an agreement between Dream Satellite TV and the Episcopal Commissions for Social Communications and Media of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).
Fr James B. Reuter, a Jesuit priest who is also secretary of Episcopal Commissions, said that "the programming will concentrate on deep human values, which are in the heart of every Filipino, whether Catholic, Christian, Buddhist or Muslim."
"The new channel," he explained, "will try to do what the late Pope John Paul II succeeded in doing so well: break down the wall between people, build bridges of understanding, friendship and love, for the unity of the nation, for the unity of the world."
Meetings are currently underway among Catholic TV producers, radio broadcasters and all organisations that would like to use this new Catholic satellite channel for their schools, parish, charismatic movement, radio station, apostolic project or religious order.
Under the agreement, Dream agrees to offer The Catholic Channel to all of its subscribers in the Philippines, a large part of Asia, and the whole of North America.