ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II
TO THE EDITORIAL STAFF
OF THE AUSTRIAN PERIODICAL "HÖRZU"

Thursday, 8 February 1979

Lord Cardinal,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

With your visit today, accompanied by Cardinal König, you would like to honour an event which broadcast via satellite by television last year, met with world-wide interest and approval. I am referring to the eucharistic celebration at the beginning of my pontificate, the broadcast of which was indicated by the editorial staff of the Television and Radio magazine Hörzu as the most important television programme in the year 1978.

Like this opening liturgy, also all the other great events connected with the papacy in the preceding year, with the help of the modern media of communication, greatly increased the interest of the public in the person and activity of the Pope. At present, broadcasts and commentaries on the highest office of the Catholic Church meet with heightened attention. That should fill us all with rightful joy.

I would also like to understand in this sense the prize of your magazine, the "Golden Camera", which I accept gratefully. My sincere thanks goes, at the same time as to you, to all those who contributed to the success of these broadcasts on the important ecclesial event.

And if I can add further a personal request, it would be the following: You, too, with your magazine of programmes, so widely circulated, help to give listeners and viewers a deeper religious understanding of such ecclesial broadcasts by means of suitable, competent introductions and commentaries. In this way, you will form them universally to a balanced and critical use of the media of communication, so that these wonderful achievements of technique will contribute to their real spiritual and moral progress. My special Apostolic Blessing accompanies you for this purpose!