Miranda Prorsus §3

³ RADIO No less carefully do We desire to express to you, Venerable Brethren, the anxiety which besets Us with regard to that other means of communication which was introduced at the same period as the cinema: We refer to Radio. Though it is not endowed to anything like the same extent with scenic properties and other advantages of time and place, as is the cinema industry, sound radio has yet other advantages, not all of which have yet been exploited. For, as We said to the members and directors of a broadcasting company, "this method of comunication is such that it is, as it were, detached from and unrestricted by conditions of place and time which block or delay all other methods of communication between men. On a kind of winged flight much swifter than sound waves, with the speed of light, it passes in a moment over all frontiers, and delivers the news committed to it". Brought to almost complete perfection by new inventions, wireless telegraphy brings oustanding advantages to technical processes, since, by means of a ray, pilotless machines may be directed to a determined place. But We rightly think that the most excellent function which falls to Radio is this: to enlighten and instruct men, and to direct their minds and hearts towards higher and spiritual things. But there is in men, though they may be within their own homes, a deep desire to listen to other men, to obtain knowledge of events happening far away, and to share in aspects of the social and cultural life of others. Hence it is not remarkable that a very large number of houses have, within a short period of time, been equipped with receiving sets, by which, as it were through secret windows opening on to the world, contact is made night and day with the active life of men of different civilizations, languages and races. This is brought about by the countless wireless programmes which cover news, interviews, talks, and items conveying useful and pleasant information derived from public events, the arts, singing, and orchestral music. For as We said recently, "how great is the advantage enjoyed, how great the responsibility laid on men of the present day, and how great the changes from times gone by when instruction in truth, commandments of brotherly love, promises of everlasting happiness, came slowly to men through the Apostles, treading the rough paths of that former age; whereas, in our day, the divine message can be conveyed to tens and hundreds of thousands of men at one and the some time". It befits Catholics, then, to make use of this privilege of our day, and to draw extensively from the rich fund of doctrine, recreation, art and also of the divine Word, which sound broadcasting brings to them, since they can thus increase and widen their range of interests. Everyone knows what a great contribution good radio programmes can make to sound education; yet from the use of this instrument there arises an obligation in conscience as in the other technical arts, since it can be employed to achieve good or evil. Those words, then, written in Scripture, can be applied to the art of Radio: "By it we bless God and the Father ; and by it we curse men, who are made after the likeness of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing".