Radio: The Poison as Before

On the eve of regular TV telecasts in Italy, Pope Pius XII last week released a statement to all Italian bishops pointing out that television must be regarded as a mixed blessing. On the one hand, TV as a “new conquest of science” can exert a “beneficial influence in relation to the culture and popular education of the people.” On the other hand, “TV programs are, in most part, made up of films and theatrical spectacles, and the number that fully satisfy Christian morality is still too small.” The Pope warned that “it can only be frightening to think that, through the medium of television, it is possible to introduce into the home the same poison of materialism and hedonism that only too often appears on the screen . . .”