Distance no object
Fr General recently expressed strong interest in setting up a studio in the Curia for video-conferencing. An excellent studio already exists in the Bellarmino in Rome, and on 30 July, the in-coming Rector of the Bellarmino, Irish Jesuit Michael Paul Gallagher, is showing the potential of this approach at a seminar for Catholic educationalists. 600 of them will be gathered in Wellington, New Zealand. They already have some 30 images which Michael will control with Powerpoint from a video-conferencing studio in Blackpitts, Dublin. He will talk on: “The courage to be different: educating a Christian imagination in today’s culture”. Despite the 12-hour time-gap and the planetary divide between speaker and audience, they hope for a lively exchange. Perhaps the days of flying to international meetings in costly carbon-spewing airplanes are numbered.