Good News, For a Change Television, radio, newspapers, magazines, the Internet. Everyday Americans come into contact with many of these. Yet we rarely question what type of information it is that we are being bombarded with. Who is giving us all this information and why are they doing it? The Catholic Communications Campaign (CCC) is the Catholic Church's way of trying to support human dignity and Christian values in the mass media. This past year, audiences viewed "John Paul II: A Light for the Nations," which celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the pope's ordination, on at least 145 stations nationwide. In 1995, the last year for which statistics are available, the CCC underwrote $2,298,893 for similar projects. The CCC also supports the production of feature films such as "Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story," "Sr. Thea: Her Own Story," "Creativity: Touching the Divine," and "My Soul Proclaims: Voices of Catholic Women." Internationally CCC has provided funds to the Society Devoted to the Sacred Heart for their production "The Sacred Heart Kids Club," a religious education program for preschoolers. The English-language program has since been translated into Spanish, Chinese, and Hungarian demonstrating the efforts of the CCC worldwide. In addition the CCC provides funding for more than 50 dioceses' televised Sunday Mass, keeping hospitalized and homebound people connected to the Catholic community each week. Locally that translates into partial funding of the Archdiocese of Newark's annual taping of the Christmas and Easter Masses for WWOR-TV. The CCC funding also provides support for The Catholic Advocate, Archbishop McCarrick's bi-monthly radio show "Speaking Together," and several Public Service Announcements produced by the Archdiocese of Newark. Churches throughout the Archdiocese of Newark will be accepting donations for the Catholic Communications Campaign during Mass services on Saturday, May 17 and Sunday, May 18.
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