EWTN stunned many media watchers when it aired a 14-minute exclusive interview with Pope Francis just before his inaugural Mass! How, some wondered, did EWTN manage to get such an interview – much less get it on the air so quickly!

Were we just lucky? Hardly!

Enrique Duprat (headphones) and Spanish crew in Rome!

If you are a viewer of EWTN’s English language programming, you may not be aware that EWTN has two Spanish-language television networks — EWTN Español (U.S. Spanish) and EWTN El Canal Católico (Latin America). We also have a Spanish-language radio network (EWTN Radio Católica Mundial). All of them broadcast 24 hours a day – and have since June 4, 1999 on the television side and Dec. 28, 1992 on the radio side! These media outlets have their own programming and their own hosts.

Enrique Duprat, EWTN’s Director of Spanish-language Programming and Production, decided to launch a new series last year called “La Voz del Pastor” or “Voice of the Pastor.” He hired Fernando Verano, a former EWTN Producer who now does freelance producing for EWTN, to interview Cardinals and Archbishops across Latin America. One of the Cardinals who agreed to be interviewed in his own office in Bueños Aires was none other than Jorge Mario Bergoglio — now Pope Francis!

Was that luck?

“Cardinal Bergoglio doesn’t give that many interviews,” Duprat said. “I believe he accepted our invitation because he knows who we are and trusts that we will present what he said as he said it and not try to spin it for our own ends.”

After the election, EWTN’s Spanish-speaking team swung into action. The interview, from November 2012, first had to be located in our archives. While EWTN Español could re-air the piece as is, much had to be done to make it available to our English-speaking audience.

The original Spanish interview was transcribed and translated into English by Spanish Producer Pablo Pilco with the assistance of John Elson, Director of Acquisitions and Co-Productions, and Spanish Translations Coordinator Nancy Osinski, and the translation was reviewed by EWTN’s Theology Department to ensure that the English translation was theologically sound! Elson was also tapped to do the English language voiceover.

The audio then had to be edited to “fit” the original video – which means it had to be synced so it didn’t get too far ahead or too far behind the Cardinal’s own voice. Finally, the program had to be processed by our Quality Control and TOC or Television Operating Center, which reviewed the tape to ensure there were no technical problems.

Doug Keck

While all that was happening, Executive Vice President Doug Keck and Peter Gagnon, Director of Production and Programming on the English side, who was in Rome at the time, had to decide when the interview would air and the tape had to be loaded into our system so it was ready to roll.

The two executives also decided to make the interview available in German as well as on EWTN’s YouTube channels, which required yet another set of translators and online gurus to encode the video for the web! If you missed this fabulous interview, it can still be seen in English at http://www.YouTube.com/ewtn, and in Spanish at http://www.youtube.com/ewtnespanol. Please feel free to download the video and use it on your own site – with attribution to EWTN of course!

The German translation will appear shortly on EWTN’s German website, http://www.ewtn.de, and will also be posted on our soon-to-launched German YouTube channel. Stay tuned for details on that!)

Fun Video From the “Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist”

Want to see some fun video? You may remember that the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist appeared on “Oprah,” several years ago This popular order has continued performing some mighty works of evangelization! Most recently, several of the sisters became contestants on “The American Bible Challenge,” which airs at 9 p.m. ET, Thursdays, on the Game Show Network (GSN).

They won! I would say “of course,” except that the game requires more than just Biblical knowledge! See snippets of it here:

The prize? $25,000 and a chance to play in the semi-finals, for an ultimate prize of $100,000. What charity were they playing for? Their own Sisters’ Retirement Fund. We liked this episode so much, we didn’t even care that it was on another network!