‘A PRAYER FOR WORLD PEACE’ : DIRECTOR TONY VERNA PUTS HIS DREAMS ON TV

Tony Verna still has dreams about “Live Aid.”

“Live Aid (was) almost two years ago, but I still wake up in the night saying, ‘I think I’ll put another camera behind Tina.’ And I wake up and say, ‘Stop it, it’s over!’ ” said the veteran television director.

Verna will have a chance to stock up on material for a new set of dreams Saturday when he directs the worldwide TV and radio broadcast of “A Prayer for World Peace,” a recitation of the rosary by Pope John Paul II in honor of the Virgin Mary.

The program, which the 53-year-old Philadelphia native is also producing through his Global Media Ltd., will feature the Pope’s recitation in Rome and the response of churchgoers in 17 countries--as far away geographically as the Philippines and as politically distant as Poland.

In Southern California, the program will start at 9 a.m. on Channels 5, 8 and 34, three of more than 90 television stations across the country (mostly network affiliates) that are carrying the one-hour prayer program.

Radio networks such as Vatican Radio, the Armed Forces Radio-TV Services and Voice of America--along with other radio stations in the United States--will carry the prayer as well, and short-wave broadcasts will go out in 35 languages.

(Those without access to a TV or radio can call a special telephone number to listen to the proceedings: 1-900-410-3200. The call will cost 50 cents for the first minute and 35 cents for each additional minute, which adds up to $21.15 for the entire broadcast.)

The telecast comes the day before the start of the Marian Year, a 14-month period of devotion honoring the Virgin Mary, which the Pope proclaimed on Jan. 1. The Roman Catholic Church will observe this special year until the feast of the Assumption of Mary on Aug. 15, 1988.

Verna said that he had been looking for a way to combine his international broadcasting techniques with religion, and presented his idea for a global prayer to the Vatican shortly after the Pope’s announcement about the Marian Year.

“The ability to use television (was something the Pope) was able to understand immediately,” Verna said. “He understood how he could administer to his flock around the world . . . (and) the two ideas fused into one.”

“The church has always been interested in artists (as a means of spreading the Word). Today the No. 1 method--as it was in the Renaissance with art--is television,” he said.

Verna said that “A Prayer for World Peace,” though shorter than the “Live Aid” concert or his other international-relief broadcast, “Sport Aid,” will be the most technologically complex production he has ever done.

During the program, Verna will have to coordinate images from 17 countries, relayed over 18 satellites to his multi-monitor control center in London’s Limehouse Studios. In preparation for this task, he has memorized camera commands in seven languages and has run special training sessions so his London crew will not freeze up under the stress of the moment.

Part of the $2-million broadcast is being funded by the Bic Corp. of Connecticut and the Lumen 2000 International Foundation, a Dutch Catholic organization that promotes Catholic programming.

Global Media hopes to recoup its expenses by selling a book and a videocassette of the broadcast, Verna said. Any profit from the book and cassette sales above the cost of the broadcast will be given to the Catholic Media Foundation, another Catholic programming organization that was formed in March.

Despite the religious nature of the program, Verna, himself a Catholic, will not discuss doctrine or the theological side of the broadcast. “I’m not in the religious end of it--I’m a producer/director. I will do this for Muslims, Jews--give me a people. . . . I mean, that’s what I do.

“I’m a television guy; I’m not a theologian.”

Nevertheless, he is not without a belief in the broadcast’s message.

“Do you understand that unless you all think you’re brothers and sisters in this world, you have no shot at peace?” he said. “If you understand that principle, you’ll understand why it’s so important for countries to interact this way. If you don’t understand that principle, you’ll never get it.”

The Pope, speaking in French, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian and a number of other languages, will have a potential audience of more than 1.5 billion. His recitation will be interspersed with shots of respondents in churches across the globe and of “Vatican art and the art from all these beautiful churches, shrines and basilicas,” Verna said.

Father Joseph Battaglia, director of communications for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, said that the recitation of the rosary is a traditional way of honoring the Virgin. Roman Catholics believe that the Virgin called for the recitation of the rosary for world peace in a number of apparitions made around the world, he said.

The rosary is a string of 50 beads divided into five groups, or decades, and joined in a loop above a crucifix. The recitation is a succession of prayers to the Virgin Mary (the “Hail Mary”), with the beads as counters, set apart by a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer before each decade.

The Pope’s decision to broadcast the recitation of the rosary comes from his dedication to the Virgin, his constant call for world peace and “his uncanny ability to use the media like no other Pope has used it,” Battaglia said.