SIGNIS

SIGNIS (official name: World Catholic Association for Communication) is a Roman Catholic lay ecclesial movement for professionals in the communication media, including press, radio, television, cinema, video, media education, internet, and new technology. It is a non-profit organization with representation from over 100 countries. It was formed in November 2001 by the merger of International Catholic Organization for Cinema and Audiovisual (OCIC) and International Catholic Association for Radio and Television (Unda). At its World Congress in Quebec in 2017, SIGNIS welcomed also former member organisations of the International Catholic Union of the Press (UCIP).

The word SIGNIS (always in uppercase) is a combination of the words SIGN and IGNIS (Latin for "fire"). It is not an acronym.

The Holy See has officially recognized SIGNIS as an International Association of the Faithful, and has included the "World Catholic Association for Communication, also known as SIGNIS" in its Directory of International Associations of the Faithful, published by the Pontifical Council for the Laity. Before the dissolution of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, the governing body of SIGNIS included a representative of this pontifical council, another department of the Roman Curia. OCIC, Unda, and SIGNIS had also members and consultors in the Pontifical Council of Social Communications. in June 2015, Pope Francis established a new dicastery of the Roman Curia with authority over all communications offices of the Holy See and the Vatican City State, including the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Holy See Press Office, Vatican Internet Service, Vatican Radio, Vatican Television Center, Osservatore Romano, Vatican Press (it), Photograph Service, and Vatican Publishing House. A representative of this new Secretariat for Communications is part of the governing body of SIGNIS.

SIGNIS has consultative status with UNESCO, the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, in Geneva and New York City and the Council of Europe.

Mission

The Mission of SIGNIS is: "To engage with media professionals and support Catholic Communicators to help transform our cultures in the light of the Gospel by promoting Human Dignity, Justice and Reconciliation."

History

The Catholic Church has a long history of engagement with the media of communications, from the liturgy itself, in manuscripts and print publishing, in painting, architecture, and music. But with the emergence and spread of new popular media in the latter half of the 19th century, the Church faced new challenges. Already in the 19th century, Catholics considered the press, and in the 20th century, cinema and radio, to be powerful modern popular media that could influence worldviews and moral values. Many Catholics, including Pope Gregory XVI and Pope Pius IX, did not trust modernity, and the popular media were no exception. Gregory XVI published in 1832 his encyclical '' Mirari Vos'' (On Liberalism and Religious Indiffertism) that "Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty. Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice." In fact, they blamed them for the declining influence of religion in society. Modernity did not simply introduce technological and scientific innovations; it enabled the dissemination of new ideologies, based mostly on atheism and challenging the place of the Church in society. Pope Pius IX in 1864 condemned modernity, liberalism, and "pestilential books, pamphlets and newspapers". However, Pope Leo XIII wanted to build a bridge between the Church and the modern world and started to promote Thomism, the theology based on that of Thomas Aquinas in an attempt to see if it might help to solve modern problems. In 1888, Leo XIII wrote that unconditional freedom of speech and publication could be tolerated. Later on, in the 1920s, Pope Pius XI encouraged the growth of Catholic Action: professional Catholics working and acting in the secular world including that of the modern media.

As a fruit of the contemporary Catholic Action, UCIP was founded in Belgium in 1927.Günter Mees, ''Stimme der Stimmlosen. UCIP – Katholische Weltunion der Presse: Anmerkungen, Episoden, Hintergründe''Bd. 2, LIT Verlag Berlin-Münster-Wien-Zürich-London, 2005, 208 S. A year later, the Office Catholique Internationale du Cinéma (OCIC) came into being in The Netherlands, and the Bureau Catholic International de Radiodiffusion (BCIR) in Germany. In 1946, BCIR became the international professional Catholic association for radio and television, Unda.

OCIC, Unda, and UCIP had similar objectives: to bring together Catholics already working as professionals in the media (OCIC in the field of cinema, Unda in radio and television, and UCIP in the press). The interest of Catholics in the press and especially in the new media was understandable. They saw the opportunities offered by the mass media to present their views and opinions on life and the world and so they naturally became involved in promoting education and values.

These professional Catholic lay associations, working in the world of the professional media, wanted to unite their efforts against the secularization of society and were thus working in the secular world. On the one hand, they were aware that the press and the new media of radio and cinema were contributing to secularization. On the other hand, they also believed that by engaging in these media, and above all the secular media, they could use them as a new means of evangelization. Efforts had to be made to evangelize the secular mass media, or at least to insert the values of the Gospel into them.

As a result of the merger of the Catholic media organizations OCIC and Unda, SIGNIS was founded in 2001. The archives of OCIC and Unda are located in the Documentation and Research Centre for Religion, Culture, and Society, KADOC, at the Catholic University of Louvain (KU Leuven). In 2014, the Vatican suggested that SIGNIS should also integrate the members of the former International Catholic Union of the Press (UCIP), which a few years earlier had lost its recognition by the Holy See as an official Catholic organization. At the SIGNIS World Congress of 2017 in Quebec, several Catholic press associations, former members of UCIP, were welcomed, among them CPA (Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada).

Catholics and cinema

Catholics were involved in the new art of cinema from its inception. In November 1895, the Catholic University of Louvain organised a screening of the Auguste and Louis Lumière films. In April–May 1898, the Englishman William Kennedy-Laurie Dickson of the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company cinematographed Pope Leo XIII in the gardens of the Vatican. It was the first time that a Pope appeared before a film camera and blessed it (and the spectators). Later when cinema became a regular and popular medium, Catholics, and above all the parish priests, reacted in two ways: condemning it or considering it as a tool of evangelisation with worldwide influence on families and, above all, on young audiences. In several countries worldwide, priests started to use cinema as part of their apostolate. Among them, there was the Jesuit priest, known as Abbé Joseph Joye in Switzerland. Before the arrival of cinema, he projected images with a magic lantern for schoolchildren, and from 1902 on, he used cinema.

Early film producers like Pathé Frères found also inspiration in the Bible and in religions. In early 1907, an American film magazine published that from a modest beginning six or seven years earlier the films of the Passion of Jesus Christ became more and more popular every Lent, and were among the most expensive productions in the whole film world. It wrote also that in these years in the US, most films of the Passion were coming from France and Great Britain.
From 1910 on, almost every Belgian city had its Catholic cinema (called mostly Family cinema, or Patria). In these cinema halls, educational as well as entertainment films were on the programme, and the selection and screening were controlled by the organizers, mostly priests.

One of the Belgian pioneers was Abbé Abel Brohée, who was active in the Catholic Action Movement and began to bring order to these Catholic initiatives. By the 1920s, he was convinced that it was necessary to inform the public of the moral value of films. His aim was not to limit the action of Catholics to moral quotations. He wanted a presence "on all fronts". That is why, as early as 1921, he joined a group of Catholics who had founded a distribution agency under the name Brabo-Films. He became one of the leading personalities, as president of OCIC in the 1930s, in the field of cinema. OCIC itself was the result of international politics.

In 1919, the League of Nations was established in Geneva with the objective to prevent another world war by promoting a culture of peace and dialogue. This was not only a matter of politicians and diplomats but also and a matter of the cultural world. In 1922, a technical committee for culture, the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (CICI), was formed, with personalities like Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Gabriela Mistral, and Henri Bergson, to shape the mind of the members of the League of Nations, for example, toward rectifying errors in text books which were alleged to be a mainspring of racial prejudices. Out of this committee came a permanent organisation to study the development of cinema as a tool of education. Only member states and international organisations were admitted to this organization. In 1926, the International Union of Catholic Women's Leagues (UILFC – since 1952, the World Union of Catholic Women's Organisations, WUCWO) urged Catholics involved in cinema to build an international Catholic cinema organisation in order to have a say in the international film work of the League of Nations. This led to the founding of OCIC in 1928 with its first secretary general the French canon Joseph Reymond, who also became the secretary of the International Educational Cinematographic Institute (IECI) of the League of Nations. It was a way to counter the influence of those who had a negative attitude towards the Catholic world.

OCIC developed a complex but largely positive approach to this new art. It wanted to offer guidance to audiences and to discover and foster productions which promoted the same values as Christians did. It wanted to inform lay Catholics and others, in a professional way, about the moral and artistic quality of films, so that they could decide themselves if they would go and see a film or not. It was the beginning of film education. OCIC called for the creation of national organizations dealing with topics such as childhood, families, spirituality, religion and cinema, and film reviews (an early form of media education). It also expressed its intention to collaborate with the film industry. One of its concerns was the promotion of 'good' films, both for education and entertainment. This was one of the aspects put forward by the ''Encyclical Letter of Pope Pius XI on the Motion Picture Vigilanti Cura'', published in 1936. The dominant perspective in this encyclical was cautious, defensive, and moralising, following the approach of the Legion of Decency which had been founded by the US Catholic Church to launch a crusade against the "abuses" of the motion pictures. After the Second World War, the Vatican began to move closer to the approach taken by OCIC in the matters of cinema.

While Unda was much more involved in its development with specifically Catholic production for Catholic audiences, OCIC soon realised that film production was beyond the funds and technical abilities of its members. There were some hopes and flirtations with production in the early 1930s, especially in the Netherlands, but the members and leadership of OCIC saw that their work was in collaboration in promoting exhibition, distribution, review, and critical writing on cinema.

During canon Jean Bernard's presidency (1947–1972), the writing and reviews continued but the main development was the establishing of juries at international film festivals, in collaboration with the directors and boards of the festivals, beginning at the Brussels International film festival in 1947, and a year later at the Venice Film Festival. The OCIC jury at Cannes began in 1952. This enabled OCIC to develop its criteria for its awards over these years. One difficulty which emerged was a clash of perspectives on occasion with the decisions of the US Legion of Decency which had been set up (even with an oath of loyalty) by the American bishops in 1934, the time of the enforcement of the Motion Picture Code for all American film production. In the 1950s, the Americans indicated that some films which had won OCIC awards were rated Objectionable or Condemned by the Legion and were concerned at this difference in moral perspective. The philosophy behind the Legion of Decency was not influential in Europe, although the work of the Legion was acknowledged positively by Pius XI in his encyclical letter, ''Vigilanti Cura'', 1936.Peter Malone, at his conference in Oxford UK, 16 May 2011. Then with changes in what could be portrayed on screen and how it could be portrayed, Fr. Bernard had to face a controversy concerning the OCIC prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1968, which resulted in discussions with Church authorities and the Vatican. The jury gave its prize to Pier Paolo Pasolini, avowed Communist, though winner of the 1964 award for his '' The Gospel According to St. Matthew'', for his film, '' Teorema''. The controversy was inflamed by another spark when the Berlin International Film Festival 1969 award went to John Schlesinger's Oscar winner for Best Picture, ''Midnight Cowboy''. This meant that after forty years of activity, OCIC was able to survive controversy, articulate its aims and objectives, and establish itself as what might be called a 'consciousness organisation' within the Catholic Church. It did not set itself up as a censoring board (which many assume still when hearing that the Catholic church has a cinema organization). Later some of its members nationally or regionally were part of the work of the Bishops Conference, offering reviews, classifications, and advice which depended for its authority more on the Bishops rather than OCIC.

Preservation of film also became a concern. The consequences for OCIC in terms of policy and power was that it could not be described as a 'sacristy' organization. Later, a succinct description of how OCIC saw its scope (as the president, Fr. Peter Malone, put forward at the audience with John Paul II at the time of the merger of Unda and OCIC in SIGNIS), as both supporting Catholics who work in cinema and being a bridge between the Catholic Church and the professional world of cinema. While explicitly religious films are appreciated, OCIC came to realize that well-made films grounded in humanity made the most impact – a policy of seeing 'Christ in the Marketplace'. The image of the marketplace was later embraced by John Paul II, referring to Paul's mixed hearing in the Athens marketplace, the Areopagus (Acts of the Apostles, 17), that media is the 'new Areopagus'. This policy has guided OCIC and the film work of SIGNIS over the decades, leading to the presence of OCIC juries at world film festivals, national OCIC cinema awards, publications on the cinema of different nations (especially from Africa), movie reviews in publications and online, promotion of particular films, dialogue with directors and filmmakers, and offering advice on the release of films with particular Catholic interest or controversies (from ''The Da Vinci Code'' to ''Antichrist'').

From the 1930s on, the Vatican began to have a closer interest in cinema. With the letter of Pius XI in 1936, ''Vigilanti Cura'', the official teaching of the Church on cinema was positive (even though the document began 'With vigilant care'). Amongst the ideas put forward by Pius XI was one that would challenge philosophers and theologians, that cinema teaches the majority of men and women more effectively than abstract reasoning (no.23). Just over twenty years later, Pius XII issued the Encyclical letter ''Miranda prorsus'' (1957) where he urged his readers to learn how to understand and appreciate how film works. One might say that he is urging people to move on from being literate, literacy, to being visuate, visuacy (no. 57, though the terminology is this author's rather than the Pope's). In 1971, a fuller document on communications and media following the Second Vatican Council and its Declaration on Social Communications, '' Inter mirifica'' (1963), spoke about the spirituality dimensions to be found in cinema ('' Communio et Progressio'', 1971, nos 142–144). Dialogue was a significant feature of the writings of Paul VI, from his first Encyclical, ''Ecclesiam suam'' (His Church), 1964, to '' Evangelii nuntiandi'' (Announcing the Good News), 1975.

OCIC's periodicals (1937–2001)

In March 1937, the first Newsletter of OCIC was published in Brussels. It was only in French. It was mimeographed and produced in the office and the first issue counted five pages send by post to the members and other stakeholders. Although it was not in German, the newsletter '' Informations de l'OCIC'' had also a German title '' Mitteilungen des Internationales Katholischen Filmbüro''. When the war started in Belgium in May 1940, the publication didn't continue. It was picked up in November 1944 by Felix Morlion as "Les Formations de l'OCIC". "Bulletin of the OCIC – Office Catholique International du Cinema – International Catholic Office for Film Affairs – Continuation of the Bulletin" formerly published at 6 rue Traverstière, Brussels". Only a few issues were published and the last came out in 1947 when the situation in Belgium had become normal.

In 1949, the ''International Film Review'' (English Edition) and ''Revue Internationale du Cinéma'' (French Edition) was launched under the direction of André Ruszkowski and published in Luxemburg. Later, a Spanish edition was published in Madrid '' Revista Internacional del Cine'' containing not the same articles as in its French and English edition. A German edition began at Trier in 1951. This important illustrated publication, directed after the departure of Ruszkowski by Pierre d'André and then by the Jesuit Emmanuel Flipo in Paris, reached more than 170 issues. In the first years, it became worldwide an eye opener for the professional film world and film journalists and film historians. It gave a lot of attention to non-American cinema: European, Asian, and Latin American. In 1955, it published a special issue dedicated to filmology, which was at that time, a new way of approaching film analysis. In 1948, the OCIC board members met the founder of filmology in Paris Gilbert Cohen-Séat at the Venice Film Festival. In 1973, through lack of funds, OCIC reverted to its bulletin ''OCIC Information'' published in French, Spanish, and English – which had then existed already more than twenty years.

After an issue 0 published in July 1952, OCIC did launch at the end of that year for the second time '' Informations of OCIC'', the result of a decision taken at the General Committee of OCIC at its Madrid meeting. There was obviously the International Film Review, but this was the magazine which was mostly directed to the secular film world and to make clear that Catholic professionals were contributing and developing in a positive way to the international film culture. It needed a contact or an intern bulletin between the General Secretariat and its members, the national Catholic film centers. An information bulletin which was focussed upon the life and activities of OCIC itself containing reports on the international and national meetings, activities, discussions, and so on. It was also published in French and Spanish. The aim was to bring together the activities of the members, and the representation of the organisation in the secular world such as UNESCO, Council of Europe, ECOSOC, and the United Nations, and the collaboration with the other international Catholic organisations such as Pax Christi or BICE. It was also mimeographed and produced in the office.

In 1979, the new secretary-general Robert Molhant started again a quarterly magazine called first '' OCIC-Info'' in different language versions: French, English, and Spanish, illustrated and printed on their own printing machine – offset press in Brussels. First transforming the internal bulletin into an international periodical for internal and external use. In 1988, it changed its name into '' CINE-MEDIA'' and gradually it became a trilingual international quarterly magazine. It wanted to show the world OCIC activities – of the General Secretariat and its members – and reflections on cinema in the secular world. The need to have a new internal bulletin was felt and ''OCIC info'' did appear once more. It existed till the end of 2001, the moment OCIC merged with Unda into SIGNIS.

General Secretariat – Location

In 1928, OCIC was founded in the Dutch city The Hague (Den Haag). The first secretary general was Rev. Reymond who got the secretariat established in Paris. In 1933, the secretariat moved from Paris to Leuven (Belgium) where the new president Brohée and the new secretariat Bernard were. Two years later, the staff moved to Brussels to the Rue Traversière. This office was occupied from 1940 to 1944 and after the war, it was the new secretary general Yvonne de Hemptinne who integrated the secretariat in her home at the rue de l'Orme, also in Brussels from 1946 to 1996, where it had to be abandoned due to expropriation and the project of the government to demolish the building for a new construction (which was not done until 2018). Between 1996 and 2001, the secretariat found a home in a Catholic school also in Brussels, rue Saphir, where it got a whole wing of four floors and an enormous basement to its disposal.

General Assemblies (World Congress) of OCIC and its international studydays

* 1928: La Haye: Foundation of the International Catholic Office for Cinema
* 1929: Munich: With the BCIR first international Congress, the General Assembly of OCIC
* 1933: Brussels: With the Belgian Centre Catholic d'Action Cinématogrpahique (CCAC), reorganisation of the international organisation with international studydays
* 1938: Vienna: Cancelled because of the international political situation – the ''Anschluss'' of Austria by Nazi Germany – because the OCIC was anti-Nazi
* 1947: Brussels: World Congress of OCIC with international study days theme on Catholic Action in Cinema considered in the light of the teachings of the encyclical ''Vigilanti Cura''
* 1950: Rome: International study days on spiritual values in the film profession
* 1951: Luzern: International study days on Christian film critic
* 1952: Madrid: International study days on Film education
* 1953: Malta: International study days on Cinema and the Missions
* 1954: Cologne: International study days on the moral classification of films
* 1955: Dublin: International study days on the distribution and the influence of the moral classification of films
* 1957: Havana: World Congress with International study days on the promotion of good films by film associations
* 1958: Paris: International study days on the promotion of good films for a broad public
* 1960: Vienna: International study days on cinema, youth, and the government
* 1962: Montréal: World Congress with Unda and international studydays on creators of films and television productions
* 1964: Venice: International study days on cinematographic exhibition and its function towards the audience
* 1966: Cuernavaca: International study days at Ivan Illich's center – CIDOC ( Centro Intercultural de Documentación), on the apostolat of cinema in the light of the Second Vatican Council
* 1967: Berlin: International study days during the Berlin International Film Festival with Interfilm – the international Protestant organisation for film – on Communication creation, the sacred and cinema, the visualisation of the relations man and women in the film, and the film for and with children
* 1968: Beirut: World Congress of OCIC with International study days on Cinema at the service of evangelisation
* 1971: Gwatt: International and interconfessionnal (with Interfilm) meeting in Switzerland on short films and audiovisual programmes at the service of the Christian message
* 1972: Deauville: World Congress of OCIC with study days on cinema and the human development; the name of OCIC is changed into ''International Catholic 'Organisation' for Cinema''
* 1975: Petrópolis: World Congress of OCIC with international study days on cinema as a communication instrument between human beings.
* 1977: Munich: World Congress with international study days on cinema as a means of human promotion and the encounter between cultures.
* 1980: Manilla: World Congress of OCIC with international study days on cultural and social influence of foreign films
* 1983: Nairobi: World Congress of OCIC with the common OCIC–Unda international study days on communication and human promotion, the challenges today – with common studydays with Unda and the keynote speech by Sean MacBride
* 1987: Quito: World Congress of OCIC with the common Unda–OCIC study days on culture, media and Gospel Values – with a keynote speech by the Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Zanussi
* 1990: Bangkok: World Congress of OCIC and Unda with study days on the new Media age and its challenge
* 1994: Prague: World Congress of OCIC and Unda with study days on media and human dignity
* 1998: Montréal: World Congress of OCIC and Unda with study days on creativity in the media sphere: spiritual opportunity
* 2001: Rome: World Congress of OCIC and Unda – merging into SIGNIS.

Catholics and radio and television

Catholic radio producers had realized by the mid-1920s that radio had become, like cinema, an important means of spreading ideas, and could therefore influence the views of millions and connect them to Christian values. Already in December 1923, the radio world was waiting for the first international move of the churches to bring religion by means of radio to "humanity". This was put forward because in the Vatican, the Pope was interested to spread the Christian message to all over the earth. The Company of Guglielmo Marconi was already involved in building a radio to transmit the "voice of the Holy Father to almost every land". It became a race against time because the Protestants had the same plans to be present in the world via the new invention which was the radio.

In the US, the first Catholic stations went on the air in 1925 in Canton, Ohio; Yakima, Washington, and East St. Louis, Illinois. That same year, the Paulist Fathers established WLWL, their own radio station in New York. The aim was acquainting the public with the Catholic viewpoint of Current Affairs". Fr. Joseph MacSorley, Superior General specified this in saying that the station intended to be the "official mouthpiece of everything Catholic. We want especially to reach isolated communities where there is no Catholic Church". All lasted only a few years. That year, the Dominican Fr. Lambert Perquin founded the Catholic Radio Broadcasting Company (KRO) in the Netherlands, as did the Socialist Association of Works Amateurs (Vara) and a year later, the Liberal Protestant Radio Broadcasting Company.

European Catholic broadcasters did meet for the first time in May 1927 in Cologne (Germany) while attending an international press exhibition organized by Dr. Konrad Adenauer, the mayor of the city. They decided to gather again a year later to discuss the creating of a permanent international organization for Catholics in radio. This meant not only Catholic radio, but also Catholics working in non-Catholic radio stations. In 1928, they did found the Bureau Catholique International de Radiodiffusion (BCIR) in Cologne during their meeting in June of that year. The name BICR was changed after the war into Unda. The president of BCIR was Fr. Perquin; the director was Msgr. Bernhard Marschall, responsible for the Catholic radio in Germany and of the BCIR General Secretariat in Cologne. At its first International Congress (1929) in Munich, BICR drew attention to the importance of radio for religious, cultural, and social life. It issued a blueprint for action: "Decisions for Catholics and Broadcasting". It also established criteria for membership: "National Committees", representing Catholic individuals and groups professionally or pastorally engaged in broadcasting. In that spirit, BCIR invited Catholics to collaborate with radio companies (private or public) in making religious programmes and to foster Christian values. In 1930, BCIR established formal liaison with the Geneva-based Union Internationale de Radiodiffusion. BCIR was also asked to help in organizing Vatican Radio's first broadcast and to advise them in this new communication domain.

In the 1930s, Catholic broadcasters worldwide had an optimistic view of the development of radio and, later, of the new medium of television. It could transcend frontiers and bring peoples and cultures together. It could be a means of exchanging cultural values, a way of fostering mutual understanding. Radio was thought of as the means par excellence for reconciling peoples, fostering fellowship among nations, and promoting peace. Like OCIC, BCIR also developed different aspects of media education. Due to the arrival of the Nazis into power, the BCIR General Secretariat moved in 1935 from Germany to Amsterdam. Fr. Perquin resigned and Msgr. Marschall became the new president and the Dutch Dominican Fr. John Dito o.p. of the KRO became the new General Secretary.

After World War II and during the succeeding decades, these principles found new expression in radio and television activities. In 1946, BCIR changed its name to Unda, which is Latin for "wave". Its objectives were: to help coordinate professional and apostolic activities of Catholics in radio and television; to promote collaboration among members, through conferences, publications, information exchanges, and research; to represent internationally the interests of members; to help meet communications needs of members; to help meet communications needs of the Third World; and to collaborate with non-Catholic organizations having similar objectives. In February 1958, for example, participants from twelve countries came together in the second ever International Television Festival (the first was the Prix Italia) in the world, organised in Monte Carlo by Unda. This TV festival was supported by Prince Rainier III who, inspired by this event, created the Festival de Télévision de Monte-Carlo three years later. Unda was asked to give a prize at this festival and this tradition has been carried on by SIGNIS.

From 26 to 30 April 1954, Unda conducted an International Congress for Radio/TV specialists and professionals from thirty-two countries attended to talk about preaching via radio and television, family and radio and television (with Fr. Angnellus Andrew o.f.m, working for the BBC, and so on. At the end of the meeting, the Unda General Assembly elected Fr. Kors o.p. as president. Two months later, Unda did found the Department of Television, which was a sub-secretariat directed in paris by the Dominican Fr. Raymond Pichard o.p. He started to develop a network of eighty TV specialists in twenty countries and published a monthly ''International Catholic TV review''. In February 1954, Unda organized the first International Catholic Conference for Television in Paris and had as its theme "The Status of Catholic Television and Its Place Within National Broadcasting Systems". Due to the conference, the first Eurovision broadcast could be worked out. With the Eurovision officials at the European Broadcasting Union, the Pope could give a message in Italian, French, German, English, and Dutch on Pentecost Sunday.

Christian Television Weeks

In 1969, the European members of Unda (Unda Europe) and WACC organized the first joint Christian Television Week at Monte-Carlo. Television stations and networks from sixteen countries submitted a total of fifty-two programmes for competition in three categories: drama, entertainment, and news, documentary. Participation took place worldwide. It is done both Unda and WACC, but they take turns as chief organizer; when Unda is responsible, it delegates the job to its European affiliates. The idea is to be an ecumenical forum for fostering TV programmes of high professional standard which reflect the vision of Christianity and values proper to man. Since then the event occurred every two years.
* 1969: Monte Carlo
* 1971: Baden-Baden
* 1973: Salzburg
* 1975: Brighton
* 1977: Montreux
* 1979: Stockholm
* 1981: Amsterdam
* 1983: Dublin
* 1989: Hilversum
* 1995: Buxton

Unda's periodicals (1934–2001)

The 1934 publication of the first '' BCIR Bulletin'' represents a principal aim of the organisation through its entire history: to collect and diffuse information and documentation on broadcasting Catholics working in the church but above all in the secular world of broadcasting. The organisation (first BCIR and then Unda) published in his monthly bulletin, a quarterly review or both news for and about the members, coverage of major BCIR/Unda events, commentaries on official Church events and pronouncements, topis in broadcasting (matters of professional technical or pastoral interest), and announcements/decisions of the organisation's governing authorities. In its history, the publications were mostly in English and French but sometimes a number of editions were published in German and Spanish. It aimed a readership which were not only its members and church-related institutions but also the professional world, listeners, and viewers.
* ''BCIR Bulletin'' (quarterly) published between 1934 and 1945 in French, edited by Paul Andrien Speet of KRO (Netherlands)
* ''Unda Bulletin'' published in 1948 in Fribourg, Switzerland
* ''International Catholic TV review'', (monthly) published in 1952 by Fr. Raymond Pichard
* * '' Unda-Documentation'', a quarterly review launched in December 1976

General Assemblies of BCIR and Unda

* 1928: Cologne: Foundation of the Bureau Catholique International de Radiodiffusion ( BCIR)
* 1929: Munich: Together with OCIC.
* 1936: Prague
* 1947: Fribourg: With the installation of the new General Secretariat in Fribourg and with the new name of Unda (wave)
* 1951: Madrid
* 1953: Cologne
* 1955: Vienna: The themes of the Assembly's study sessions were The Priest Before the Microphone, Broadcasting in the Service of Education, and Liturgy and Television.
* 1957: Geneva
* 1960: Monte Carlo
* 1962: Montréal: The theme of the Assembly's study sessions: Broadcasting and !asic Education in Latin America and Africa.
* 1965: Rome: The theme of the Assembly's study sessions: The Christian Conscience and Radio and Television in a World Characterized by Change.
* 1968: Munich
* 1971: New Orleans