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WASHINGTON (January 25, 2006) — "Sounds of the Future" will be the theme of the 2006 Catholic Media Convocation, meeting in Nashville's Loews Vanderbilt Hotel, May 24-26, co-sponsored by the Catholic Press Association and the Catholic Academy of Communications Arts Professionals.
Sessions will focus on the future of the Church in the United States and the world and on Catholic publishing and communications. Planners also have included programs on subjects relating to Catholic media today.
Among major speakers will be Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, who has been asked to speak on Catholicism in the American pluralistic experience; Daughter of Charity Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, who will address health care in this country and particularly Catholic-provided health care; Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien, from the Archdiocese for the Military Services, who will talk about the review of American seminaries, a process that he heads, and pastoral needs of Catholics in the military; and Msgr. Francis J. Maniscalco, Secretary for Communications of the USCCB, who will speak on the Catholic media today and what is projected for the future.
The Vocations staff of the USCCB will discuss vocations to the priesthood, deaconate, and consecrated life.
Hispanics and immigration issues also will be on the schedule.
Archbishop John P. Foley, president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communications, will address Catholic News Service subscribers at a breakfast and will celebrate the Catholic Press Association's Annual Memorial Mass, both on May 25.
Pre-convention focus seminars on Wednesday morning, May 24, will center on advertising, the internet, intellectual property concerns, magazine design, photography, and reporting, as well as issues of the day in the Church and society.
The movie, "The Da Vinci Code," will have opened in theaters across the country four days before the convocation. Included in the program will be a critical review of the film.
As usual, Friday night's session will be the CPA Awards Banquet.
Planners for this second joint meeting of the CPA and the Catholic Academy identified constituencies in each organization and have scheduled individual seminars to look in depth at matters of interest to these groups.
For Catholic publishers, in addition to news opportunities with the major speakers, seminars throughout the meeting will discuss writing news stories, features, and columns; photography; design of small newspapers; advertising; managing personnel and bookkeeping for smaller publications; resources, and other topics.
Attention will be given to diocesan publications, magazines, national publications, and books.
Planners intend to utilize resources in Nashville, which is a center for Protestant communications. It also is the principal center in America for for-profit health care organization and future planning, has two medical schools, one concentrating on health care for minorities and the poor, and, of course, is best known for the music industry, with its intense examination of likes and dislikes of the American public.
The Loews Vanderbilt Hotel is located across the street from Vanderbilt University, and from the Cathedral of the Incarnation. All liturgies will be in the Cathedral.