News agency with ties to Legionaries to launch video service (Updated with reply)

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
New York

A Vatican-endorsed TV news service will attempt to bring to the video age the same style of church-friendly reporting associated with the Zenit News Agency, an on-line project launched in 1998 with ties to Regnum Christi, the lay branch of the Legionaries of Christ.

tThe new “H2O” broadcast service – named, organizers say, for water as the symbol of life – is intended as a video news source available through the Internet, on cell phones with video capability, as well as through conventional Catholic television networks. The project was formally presented at an Oct. 10-12 world conference of Catholic television providers in Madrid, Spain, convened by the Vatican.

Initially, plans call for “H2O,” with offices in Rome, to produce five daily news items of one and a half to two minutes each: two on the activity of the pope, two on the church in other parts of the world, and one of artistic and cultural interest. Interviews with Catholic newsmakers and, to the extent possible, overviews of new Vatican documents will also be part of the mix.

The news items will be free of charge to Catholic TV networks which choose to broadcast them, and to Internet users. Initially, “H2O” will emphasize delivery on the Internet, attempting to reach the estimated 20 million users of Catholic web sites worldwide.

Organizers say they will try to take a positive approach.

“We won’t go looking for polemics,” said Jesús Colina, a Spaniard who founded and currently serves as director of Zenit, and who has been asked by the Vatican to oversee the new video project.

“That’s my personal style, and it’s what we follow at Zenit,” said Colina, a member of Regnum Christi.

The idea for a video version of Zenit’s text-based news service, which is offered daily to some 240,000 subscribers on five continents, was the brainchild of Monsignor Enrique Planas y Como of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. Planas asked Colina to oversee the project.

Though “H2O” carries the formal backing of the Vatican, and the Vatican Television Center will provide some content, Colina told NCR that “H2O” will be independent and financially self-sustaining. Assuming that funding can be found, organizers intend to provide a couple of “trial run” packages in January, with the full service to debut in March.

The news items are to be released in English, Spanish, Italian, French and German, though Colina told NCR these plans are subject to review based on market interest. Colina said he’d also like to broadcast in Arabic, but those plans are more tentative.

Colina told NCR Nov. 14 that while content can be produced by anyone, “H2O” intends to take advantage of Zenit’s existing network of contributors and correspondents around the world.

Colina said that “H2O” will also enjoy the collaboration of a new religious congregation founded in Spain in 1994 called the “Servant Sisters of the Hogar de la Madre,” some of whose members have taken up video production as a specialty. In the United States, the community runs a program of vocational discernment for women at Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida, an institution founded by Domino’s pizza magnate Thomas S. Monaghan.

One aim of “H2O,” Colina said, is to promote a “common platform” of production and editorial standards among the roughly 2,000 Catholic television channels around the world, so that content becomes more interchangeable and “synergies” can be created.

Colina said that while “H2O” does not have any formal agreement with EWTN, the independent American Catholic network which is by far the largest Catholic TV service in the world, he hopes the news items “will be so well-made, so interesting, that EWTN feels it can’t pass them up.”

Colina said he also hopes to work cooperatively with an already-existing Rome-based video production company called “Rome Reports,” founded by a Spanish Opus Dei member named Santiago de la Cierva. That agency, Colina said, is aimed primarily at the commercial and state-run TV market, while “H2O” is intended for Catholic TV outlets and the individual user on the Internet.

Colina is a member of Regnum Christi with close ties to Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, who was asked by the Vatican on May 19 to observe a life of “prayer and penance, renouncing every public ministry” in the wake of charges of sexual abuse lodged against him by former Legionaries. In 2003, Colina produced a book-length interview with Maciel titled Christ is My Life.

When the Vatican disciplined Maciel, its public statement rejected any collective guilt on the part of the order or other groups founded by the Mexican priest. The decision to entrust Colina with the “H2O” project is thus seen by some Vatican observers as a sign that the Legionaries and Regnum Christi are still in good graces.

Privately, Vatican sources told NCR that another factor weighed in the decision to launch an official TV service. In some Vatican quarters, sources said, there has long been concern that networks such as EWTN are becoming the “voice of the church” in the broadcast arena, without any oversight from church officials. The idea of a Vatican-sponsored news outlet, these sources said, thus restores a measure of “control” over the message.

This becomes a sore point, sources said, when Catholic TV outlets for one reason or another downplay aspects of the church’s message. Some Vatican officials, for example, feel EWTN did not give adequate attention to the church’s criticism of the Iraq war for fear of alienating conservative American Catholics. In other cases, sources said, there’s concern that some Catholic TV services are run by personnel who may not be fully supportive of church teaching on issues such as sexual morality or papal authority.

A preview of the H2O web site can be found here: H2O News

RESPONSE FROM "H2O" RECEIVED DEC. 10
"Given that some affirmations in this article give a different idea of the audio-visual information project H2O, the organizers offer some clarifications:

* "H2O does not have any connection with the Legionaries of Christ. Jesús Colina does not represent the Legionaries of Christ or the Regnum Christi movement.

* "In the indications received from the personnel of the Holy See with whom the organizers of H2O are in contact, there has always been the counsel to help EWTN grow, never the contrary. The proof is that representatives of EWTN were invited to the presentation of H2O at the Conference of Madrid.

* "It's true that free distribution is planned for Internet users, as the article says, but for subscribers to TV channels, Catholic or non-Catholic, initially payments are anticipated."