EWTN Wins Three Gabriel Awards Including Religious Television Station of the Year

Irondale, AL (EWTN) – EWTN Global Catholic Network has been awarded three Gabriels in the 2012 Gabriel Awards Competition sponsored by the Catholic Academy of Communication Professionals. Two of the Gabriels are for television programs: “Saints Alive! Saint Robert Bellarmine” (Episode 1), produced for EWTN by Arcadia Films, was awarded a Gabriel in the category of Religious – National Release; while “The Way of the Cross for Kids” was awarded a Gabriel in the category of Children’s – National Release.

A third Gabriel for “Religious Television Station of the Year” honors EWTN for its total programming and community service. EWTN shares this honor with Boston Catholic Television Center’s CatholicTV. “As a non-profit seeking to live the Catholic values we espouse, community service is especially important to the Network,” said EWTN President and Chief Executive Officer Michael P. Warsaw.  

EWTN operates nine television networks that broadcast 24/7 worldwide, including three (EWTN, EWTN Español, and EWTN HD), which originate in the U.S. While EWTN has a global reach, it cares very much about the local community in which it is headquartered. When tornados ravaged the Birmingham, Alabama metro area last year, Warsaw not only made a substantial contribution to Birmingham Bishop Robert J. Baker’s Tornado Relief Fund, but authorized all EWTN employees to volunteer up to three paid days of service to the community. EWTN employees helped the diocese to coordinate tornado relief efforts, cleaned up debris, distributed food, raised millions of dollars for the Bishop’s Tornado Relief Fund, and more.

Also, last year, Father Ho Lung, founder of the Missionaries of the Poor, credited the Network with bringing his work feeding, housing, and educating the poorest of the poor to the attention of the world. Father Ho Lung was awarded a 2011 Guzi Peace Prize, which is said to be the equivalent of Norway’s Nobel Prize or America’s Pulitzer Prize. A write-up of Father’s extraordinary work on the Gusi website says: “Father Ho Lung has been in the forefront of the modern media, especially the tele-evangelism of EWTN, which has offered hundreds of hours of interviews, homilies and portrayals of the mission and the vision of the mission and the vision of the Missionaries of the Poor since the year 2000. Father Ho Lung appears regularly on EWTN in the program: ‘Church and the Poor,’ witnessing to the words of Jesus: ‘Whatever you did to the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it unto Me’ (Mt. 25:40).”

The Gabriel Awards, which are open to all television and radio stations and producers in the U.S. and Canada, will be presented Thursday, June 21 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Indianapolis, Ind. According to the Catholic Academy, “the single most important criterion of a Gabriel winning film or program is its ability to uplift and nourish the human spirit.  A Gabriel-worthy film or program affirms the dignity of human persons; it recognizes and upholds universally-recognized human values such as community, creativity, tolerance, justice, compassion and the dedication to excellence.”

Said Warsaw: “We are honored that the Catholic Academy has recognized EWTN for upholding such values.”

EWTN may be watched or listened to live via cable or satellite (www.ewtn.com/channelfinder), streaming audio or video on the Intranet (http://origin.ewtn.com/audiovideo/index.asp), shortwave (http://www.ewtn.com/radio/freq.htm), EWTN mobile (http://www.ewtn.com/mobi/), on the EWTN Radio Network via our affiliates (http://www.ewtn.com/radio/amfm.htm), or on satellite radio (http://www.sirius.com/ewtn).

EWTN Global Catholic Network, in its 30th year, is available in over 200 million television households in more than 140 countries and territories. With its direct broadcast satellite television and radio services, AM & FM radio networks, worldwide short-wave radio station, Internet website www.ewtn.com, electronic and print news services, and publishing arm, EWTN is the largest religious media network in the world.

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