Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus!
India is celebrated for its diversity and richness of various cultures and traditions, number of languages and dialects, vast variety of food customs and climatic conditions, inestimable art forms and architectures and India has been a cradle of regions and schools of philosophy. India is one of the most religiously and ethnically diverse nations in the world, with some of the most deeply religious societies and cultures. Therefore, religion plays a central and definitive role in the life of Indians.
Christian faith was brought to India by St. Thomas the Apostle, one of the most zealous disciples of Jesus Christ, and by the famous missionaries like St. Francis Xavier, St. John de Britto, Fr. Constantine Joseph Beschi and several others.
Tamilnadu is one of the 29 States in India and it lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula. According to the Indian census, Tamilnadu state had a population of 70.2 million and as per the religious census, Tamilnadu had 87.6% Hindus, 6.1% Christians, 5.9% Muslims, 0.1% Jains and 0.3% following other religions or no religion.
There are 18 Latin Rite dioceses and 4 Oriental Rite dioceses in Tamilnadu. The 18 Latin dioceses are comprised of 2534 Parishes. The Catholic Church in Tamilnadu is very vibrant and interactive through the activities of various Commissions guided by the Tamilnadu Bishops’ Council (TNBC).
Santhome Communications Centre is the Regional Communications Centre of the Tamilnadu Bishops’ Council, which comes under the TNBC Commission for Social Communications. Most Rev. Dr. S. Singaroyan, Bishop of Salem is the Chairman of the Commission and Rev. Fr. A. David Arockiam, from the Archdiocese of Madurai is the Secretary and Treasure of the Commission. The mission statement of the Regional Communications Centre is “To Proclaim the message of God’s Love through Media”. The establishment of the Regional Communications Centre was an earnest response of the Tamilnadu Bishops to the urgent call of the Second Vatican Council to give high priority to Mass communication considering its vital importance as an instrument of evangelization and human promotion. The media mission of Santhome Communications Centre is promoting moral, social and ethical values through media and media education basing on the Gospel Values of the Kingdom of God.
The Catholic Church in India is facing lot of challenges today. The political and social situation is not that conducive and at the same time, the Pentecostal and Evangelical Churches make the maximum use of the modern media to propagate against the teachings and traditions of the Catholic Church. Therefore, there lies a great responsibility for the Catholic Church in India to communicate in an effective and mass method the correct teachings of our Catholic Church; the true devotion to the Eucharistic Lord, Blessed Virgin Mother and the Saints; Catholic understanding the Holy Scriptures and the teachings of the Holy Father.
The Santhome Communications Centre of the Tamilnadu Bishops’ Council to address the above situation has taken the support of the Tamilnadu bishops, Priests, Religious and the Faithful and engaged itself in a Himalayan initiative to create a platform in the mainstream media. The arduous yearning, planning and execution of the Regional Centre resulted into a Catholic Satellite Television known as MADHA TV; we Tamils affectionately call our Blessed Virgin Mother “MADHA”, on 11th February 2014.
The programmes telecast in Madha TV is mostly viewed by our Tamil Catholics living in our State of Tamilnadu and pan India. More over, Madha TV is also watched by Tamil Catholics living in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Middle East Countries, European Countries, Australia, UK, USA and Canada.
The programmes produced by our Regional Centre and telecasted through Madha TV have transformed the life of many Tamil faithful and faithful of denominations and Religions. We receive hundreds of letters, emails and thousands of phone calls every week, which bear witness for this media mission. Many young couples and children have started reciting rosary, participate in the Eucharistic Adorations, watch Bible based programmes and they closely follow the teachings of Holy Father. We telecast a weekly programme called Vatican Top 10, a magazine programme, which we receive from Rome Reports on every Wednesday and translate and dub into Tamil language to facilitate our viewers. We also telecast Holy Father’s prayer intensions and motivate our viewers to pray for the Universal Church. Lots of faithful from other denominations and other faith watch many of our programmes especially programmes on Mariology, Holy Bible and Family Counseling.
This re-evangelization ministry and reinstating Catholic Culture through media is supported by our simple and poor Tamil Catholics living in our Tamilnadu State and other parts of our country. This media mission is in urgent need of helping hands for its uninterrupted mission. Today, I am here in your mist recommending your generous support for the re-evangelization ministry in India. As St. Paul reminds us of Jesus’ teaching that “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). More over, as we read in the letters of St. Paul that the churches of Macedonia were models of generosity in giving, even though they were poor. They gladly gave out of gratitude towards God and love for their brethren (2Corinthians 8:4,9).
I sincerely thank the Diocesan Mission Office, the Pastor of this Parish and my dear faithful for offering us this wonderful chance for mission appeal to uplift the Media Mission in our country.
May God bless you all abundantly!
Praise the Lord.