Salt+Light set to broadcast plenary

OTTAWA - The Canadian bishops are teaming with Salt+Light Television to give Catholics a glimpse of the inner workings of the bishops’ conference.

When the Catholic bishops from across Canada gather for the annual plenary Oct. 17-22 in Cornwall, Ont., for the first time Salt+Light will provide a live window on some of the proceedings. Salt+Light, a Canadian digital Catholic network, will collaborate with the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops to offer streaming-video online via the revamped bishops’ web site and Salt+Light’s web site and network.

“When we come together as a plenary, we get a unique view of where the Church is today and where it is that our shepherds would like to lead us,” said CCCB General Secretary Msgr. Pat Powers. “I think that average Catholics in Canada have never really had a chance to even understand what goes on at a plenary meeting of the bishops or how that happens or how that takes place... We want them to have a glimpse of these important moments.”

Though only a day-and-a-half of the plenary is open to the news media, Salt+Light will provide streaming-video of outgoing CCCB President Bishop Pierre Morissette’s address, the opening liturgies each day and the reflections that Toulouse Archbishop Robert Le Gall will offer on the post-synodal apostolic exhortations Sacramentum Caritatis and Verbum Domini.

Salt+Light will also provide coverage of Morissette’s closing remarks as well as the new president Archbishop Richard Smith’s statement at the close of the plenary.

Powers said the collaboration is made possible by a $250,000 investment in computers and technological infrastructure at the CCCB’s Ottawa secretariat that will eventually allow the conference to offer even more live-streaming in subsequent plenaries, video conferencing and other up-to-date tools for the New Evangelization using the electronic media.

Several Salt+Light staff will also be conducting interviews with bishops in the hallways of the Nav Canada Centre while the plenary goes on.

“It is a great privilege for us at Salt+Light Television to be invited to televise and live stream many of the key moments of the upcoming plenary assembly of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops in Cornwall,” said Salt+Light Media Foundation CEO Fr. Thomas Rosica.

Salt+Light has collaborated with the CCCB on a number of occasions, including the 2008 International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec, the CCCB Doctrinal Commission’s pastoral messages and World Youth Day in Madrid.