SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : Lobbying Effort Earns Easter Week Coverage

Just in time for Holy Week, thousands of South Orange County Catholics have successfully lobbied Cox Communications to carry highlights of Good Friday services and the Pope’s Easter message on a local cable-TV station.

After years of trying to persuade cable operators to carry religious programs produced for Catholics, San Juan Capistrano resident Phillip Weissburg helped organize a petition drive in cooperation with Catholic schools across Orange County. Their efforts produced about 5,000 letters in support of his cause, Weissburg said.

With Catholics accounting for about a third of the county’s residents, Weissburg said, there was considerable interest in seeing the pontiff’s annual Easter message. “It’s beamed all over the world, but it was not going to be received in south Orange County,” he said. “We’re very pleased we didn’t have to form picket lines, which we were prepared to do.”

Leo Brennan, vice president and general manager of Cox Communications, said Friday that his company cannot yet carry such programming on a permanent basis, however, because of limited channel capacity.

Holy Week programming began at 2:30 p.m. Thursday and will continue to 7:30 p.m. Sunday in the cities served by Cox. Capistrano Beach resident Frances Monaghen helped with the petition drive at the urging of her priest at Our Lady of Fatima Church in San Clemente.

“It’s really beautiful to see it on television at last,” she said.