EWTN to Launch Daily News Program with ‘Catholic Perspective’ in D.C.

The Eternal Word Television Network, which, from an unlikely start in the garage of an Alabama monastery, has become one of the world’s biggest religious broadcasting operations, is bulking up its presence in Washington this summer by starting its first evening newscast.

The live, half-hour show, scheduled to start next month, is a major step for the Catholic broadcast company, whose message is typically expressed through devotional talk shows, replays of Mass and religious education programming such as series on the Eucharist or the saints.

By planting a stake in Washington — in an office space near Capitol Hill — EWTN hopes to raise its profile on issues where religion converges with public affairs: abortion, contraception, stem cell research, immigration, the death penalty, terrorism and repression of Christians abroad.

“It’s a deliberate choice to be in the midst of everything,” said Michael P. Warsaw, EWTN’s president and chief executive. “We hope it has an impact on policymakers and the inside-the-Beltway crowd.”

“But the church also prohibits capital punishment, which aligns with a more liberal philosophy."

Michael Warsaw is incorrect.

Capital Punishment

2266 The State's effort to contain the spread of behaviors injurious to human rights and the fundamental rules of civil coexistence corresponds to the requirement of watching over the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime. the primary scope of the penalty is to redress the disorder caused by the offense. When his punishment is voluntarily accepted by the offender, it takes on the value of expiation. Moreover, punishment, in addition to preserving public order and the safety of persons, has a medicinal scope: as far as possible it should contribute to the correction of the offender.67

2267 The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.
"If, instead, bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
"Today, in fact, given the means at the State's disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender 'today ... are very rare, if not practically non-existent.'[John Paul II, Evangelium vitae 56.]

Also, Colleen Carroll Campbell will be the anchor of the newscast.

And while the network’s guests include a steady diet of those who represent the conservative wing of the church...

"Conservative" as in faithful to magisterial teaching, not the stuff of dissidents. Thank you, Mother Angelica!

Interesting that the article paints the station as wimpy in some respects even though EWTN was the first Catholic organization to file suit against the HHS mandate. And they haven't been intimidated into silence in speaking out against it and other threats to religious liberty. This news show may not be as wimpy as some are hoping.

Time to send another donation.

“It’s a deliberate choice to be in the midst of everything,” said Michael P. Warsaw”

Glad that somebody insists on being in the midst. Unlike the other kind of Catholics.

“if the salt becomes flat and tasteless, it is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot”

Is your diocese being trampled under foot?

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