Media-savvy team of Catholics assembled for Pope’s trip
By David V Barrett

12 February 2010

A team of "authoritative but unofficial" media-savvy pundits is being put together by the Church in advance of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Britain in September.

Between 20 and 25 people will be recruited into the "Catholic Voices" team by the end of this month.

From March until July they will attend fortnightly briefing sessions on potentially contentious issues that may arise during the Pope's visit. They will also receive intensive media skills training in a three-day course. A residential retreat in the summer at Worth Abbey, Crawley, will conclude their training.

Jack Valero, director of communications of Opus Dei in Britain, said a pool of people will be available before, during and after the Pope's trip to speak to the media and to "communicate the message attractively, positively and persuasively".

The team has not yet been officially announced. Abbot Christopher Jamison of Worth and Lord Brennan, president of the Catholic Union of Great Britain, are the project's patrons.

Abbot Jamison said: "Catholic Voices came out of discussions that followed the disastrous outcome of a major public debate about the Church last October."

In an Intelligence Squared debate last year between Ann Widdecombe MP and Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria, and Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens, the motion "The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world" was defeated by 1,876 to 268.

"Some Catholics were afterwards calling for a professional group of apologists - a modern-day version of the old Catholic Evidence Guild but geared to the demands of the modern media. Pope Benedict's address to our bishops in Rome shows how important and necessary this project is," he said.

When the Pope met the English and Welsh bishops in Rome last week he said the Church needed "great writers and communicators", citing Cardinal Newman as an example.

Pope Benedict called on the bishops to "insist upon your right to participate in national debate through respectful dialogue with other elements in society" and "to draw on the considerable gifts of the lay faithful in England and Wales and see that they are equipped to hand on the faith to new generations comprehensively, accurately and with a keen awareness that in so doing they are playing their part in the Church's mission".

Catholic Voices is independent of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales but has its approval.

It follows on from a similar project launched in 2006 to deal with the media interest in the film of Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code.

Lord Brennan said: "The idea is to have a good mixture of people on our team. Some might have a particular knowledge or expertise, but we are looking mostly for fresh faces, people who are willing to be trained in how to put across their views in the quick-fire settings of media interviews and debates.

"The team will be available before and during Pope Benedict's visit and we hope will continue in some form afterwards," he said.

The members of the team will be selected by the end of February, and the 10 evening briefing sessions will begin in March.

The areas include the role and teaching of the Church, the Church in personal and public life, the Church and current political and economic questions, the Church's teaching on population and development, clerical sexual abuse, the Church and science, the Church and non-Catholic religious bodies, the Vatican and the papacy and holiness and sainthood.