Televised Mass

[Book_Worm]

Recently I helped a friend deliver something’s to her church, which is a fairly new building. She proudly showed me around the building, including the nursery, which I noticed had a TV.

I don’t know if that’s used to show appropriate videos for the little ones or if the Mass is broadcast in there for parents who are with their children. But it made me wonder if that’s a possibility. I know that watching the Mass on television does not fulfill the Sunday obligation but I wondered if it would if you were in the actual church building during the celebration similar to being in a crying room separated by a wall with a window as many churches have.

My friend has no idea why the television is there since her children and even her grandchildren are long past the stage of being in the nursery during Mass.

Would this be a valid way to attend Mass?

 

[Hopey]

That was discussed before and I believe if you were on the grounds, but unable to be in the sanctuary, viewing via TV as in the World Youth Masses, yes, it would be valid.
EWTN has big screen TVs for their overflow area attached to the Chapel which is quite small. When I went to mass there, this is where we sat. We also chose the areas because we had a toddler.

 

[pianistclare]

In our rather small parish office building, every space that is large enough to serve as a meeting place has a tv/dvd combo installed.
Remember that many of these spaces serve in other capacities during the week. If we get locked out of the school across the driveway, I’ve been know to put sacramental prep classes in the nursery, if the main meeting space is booked, our finance council or women’s bible study has moved in there…first weds of every month the Bridge club of older ladies meets in there. Cheaper to plan for multiple uses than to build extra rooms.
I wouldn’t lose sleep wondering of people are watching Mass on TV too much. Have you got television camera in the church?

 

[Book_Worm]

I wasn’t losing any sleep over this. I just wondered if it was a possibility.

I didn’t think of the possibility until a day or so later, long after it would have been possible to notice I there were any cameras in the church.

I find the way the Church is adopting and adapting modern technology to be interesting. I was fascinated to have a priest use an iPad while he said Mass on a cruise ship.

And then there’s CAF.

 

[pianistclare]

Those apps are handy!

 

[dconklin]

I am on staff at a large parish and besides being the Asst DRE, I am the resident A/V guy. For Christmas and Easter we hold concurrent Masses in out church and our parish life center. In both buildings we set-up overflow seating in classrooms. I set up closed-circuit TVs so the people who sit in these rooms can see. They join the Communion queue with everyone else.

We should be opening our new church between the coming Christmas and Easter.

 

[thistle]

Recently I helped a friend deliver something’s to her church, which is a fairly new building. She proudly showed me around the building, including the nursery, which I noticed had a TV.

I don’t know if that’s used to show appropriate videos for the little ones or if the Mass is broadcast in there for parents who are with their children. But it made me wonder if that’s a possibility. I know that watching the Mass on television does not fulfill the Sunday obligation but I wondered if it would if you were in the actual church building during the celebration similar to being in a crying room separated by a wall with a window as many churches have.

My friend has no idea why the television is there since her children and even her grandchildren are long past the stage of being in the nursery during Mass.

Would this be a valid way to attend Mass?

We have a parish of around 14,000 people. Because we have about 80% Mass attendance we have 10 Masses every Sunday to accommodate everyone. However, at the more popular Mass times the Church is full to over-spill and many many people stand outside the Church in the street listening to the Mass over speakers. At Communion time they enter the Church and go into the Communion line.

 

[Digitonomy]

I think the way it should be looked at is whether the congregation is physically there as one community. If the second location is in a basement a block away from the church without any physical interaction between the two, I think they might as well be watching from a continent away. In dconklin’s case, even though there are separate buildings there is one communion line. On the other hand, when the pope said mass at Yankee Stadium there were not the same communion lines, most of the hosts were actually preconsecrated and stored at the ready in a number of tabernacles throughout the stadium, and I don’t think the ministers of holy communion were even in or near the sanctuary, but were instead prepositioned like the hosts throughout the congregation. But because it was clearly one continuous assembly of people, even those in the concourses under the outfield stands, several blocks from the altar, were truly part of the same congregation.