The launching of the Catholic Voices project in Australia has raised the prospect of this media initiative being extended to New Zealand.
Catholic Voices, whose aim is to improve the Catholic Church’s representation in the media, began in Britain in 2010 with the training of 24 lay people and a priest in preparation for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI.
Its success there has led to groups of trained Catholic spokespeople being established in 10 other countries, providing the media with access to “well informed, practising Catholics who will represent the Church truthfully and passionately”.
The latest group has been established in Melbourne, where a training weekend for nine speakers, led by the founders of Catholic Voices, was attended by two New Zealand observers.
“Catholic Voices Australia were thrilled to have the founders of this initiative, Mr Jack Valero and Dr Austen Ivereigh, come to Melbourne to launch the first speakers training weekend,” said the group’s co-ordinator, Kathleen O’Shea.
“Their visit to Australia, which also involved speaking about Catholic Voices at the Great Grace Conference in Sydney last week, has sparked huge support and excitement for the project across the country.
“CV Australia is hopeful that this momentum will carry across the Tasman, and would be very keen to see it take shape in New Zealand,” she said.
Though Catholic Voices speakers do not represent the official Church, the project in Australia has been supported by the president of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne, and by Cardinal George Pell of Sydney.
The founders of Catholic Voices are both prominent Catholics in the UK.
Ivereigh, who has been deputy editor of The Tablet and public affairs director for Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, has written several books, the most recent being How to Defend the Faith without Raising your Voice.
Valero is press officer for Opus Dei in the UK and in 2010 was press officer for the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman during the papal visit.
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Image: The Record