A preview of Pope John Paul II’s...

A preview of Pope John Paul II’s words to Hollywood next September?

Roman Catholic Archbishop Roger Mahony, in hosting a reception for the entertainment industry at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel early this month, honored creative and charitable individuals but also offered what he called challenges to the industry.

The Los Angeles archbishop predictably urged that “the focus

of entertainment move quickly away from that which is divisive, hateful or demeaning, excessively violent or rooted in exploitation for the sake of commercial gain.”

But additionally, according to the Tidings, the archdiocesan newspaper, Mahony appealed for greater access to jobs by minorities, upheld the right of workers to organize, urged greater opportunity for women to have increased influence in programming decisions and criticized the productions that go to other states to obtain casual labor without offering security, health and welfare benefits.

The specific, labor-related concerns are consistent with past papal sympathies with workers’ rights and with the U.S. bishops’ recent economic pastoral letter.

The Pope has picked “communications” as one of two themes (the other is immigrants and refugees) he will address in talks while he is in Los Angeles for two days next September on his 10-day U.S. visit.

Mahony recently got involved in television programming himself. He appears on the half-hour Catholic program, “Heart of the Nation,” produced by Santa Fe Productions. Mahony, who tapes five programs at a sitting, co-hosts the show. It is seen each Friday at 8 a.m.

On Dec. 1, that talk show will move to KDOC-TV, Channel 56, from KIHS, Channel 46, which Santa Fe Communications recently sold to Home Shopping Network. The program, also seen on other weekday mornings and Sunday morning, is distributed primarily to cable television companies elsewhere in the country.

CONGREGATIONS

The fourth in a series of ecumenical celebrations designed to bring black and Korean Christians together and alleviate ethnic tensions in Los Angeles will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday at Wilshire Christian Church. Choirs from First African Methodist Episcopal Church, Korean Union Evangelical Church and the host congregation will perform. Speakers will include Pastor Chun Kuhn Lee of Korean Union Evangelical and Pastor Dumas Harshaw of Trinity Baptist Church. “Representatives of the Korean and black communities felt that if we were to build any sense of trust at the grass-roots level, the church was the place to start,” said Wilshire Christian Pastor James Pierson, who is also president of the Los Angeles Council of Churches.

Thanksgiving week affords an annual opportunity for Christian and Jewish congregations to collaborate on a community worship service. Here are the sites and times of four such services: La Mirada Methodist Church, at 7 p.m., Sunday; Beth Sholom Temple, Santa Monica, and North Hollywood First Presbyterian Church, both at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, and First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, at 10 a.m., Thursday.

DATES

The Assn. of Adventist Women, a national body that hopes to persuade fellow Seventh-day Adventists to approve ordination of women ministers when the question arises again in coming years, opens its annual, three-day conference Friday at Loma Linda University Church in Loma Linda. The perspective and experience of the United Methodist Church, which has long ordained women, is expected to be reflected in the keynote address at 10 a.m. Friday by Mary Elizabeth Moore, associate professor of theology at the Methodist-related School of Theology at Claremont. Also, Methodist guests will discuss their church’s experience at 10 a.m. Friday with Louis Venden, senior pastor of University Church.

MEDIA

George E. Irani, director of USC’s International Student Advisement, has authored “The Papacy and the Middle East, the Role of the Holy See in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1962-1984,” recently published by Notre Dame Press.