MORE than 300,000 viewers heard the familiar toll of the Angelus bell on RTE at 6pm last night calling them to pause for prayer, but were entertained by a new image of a silent Dublin street artist painting praying hands.The scene presented Martin McCormack, a chemist by trade from Finglas, deep in heavenly contemplation as he sketched supplicant hands on Dublin's College Green, oblivious to passing traffic and people bustling past.
This was the first of a new seven-part format for the Angelus, which was first broadcast from Dublin's Pro-Cathedral for radio in 1950, and extended to television in the 1960s.
The broadcasts began as a Holy Year initiative blessed by then Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, to promote devotion to the Virgin Mary.
But in recent decades RTE's fidelity to the Angelus has become a source of constant controversy as an allegedly sectarian feature of Irish broadcasting, and there have been calls for it to be dropped from the national airwaves.
According to RTE religious programmes editor, Roger Childs, the new format of seven visual reflections aims to encourage viewers to take time out from "the weariness, the fever and the fret" of contemporary life.
Mr Childs said he hoped the new Angelus would "continue to be valued by many people as a moment of grace and peace".
The new scenes include a mother in Sixmilebridge, Co Clare, polishing a memorial stone to her drowned son; grandparents Tess and Pascal Finn feeding fussy swans on the Shannon in Limerick; and Enniscorthy fisherman John Keating out at sea in his trawler.
Another reflection shows Namucana Nyambe, from Zambia, gazing towards the Phoenix Park from her office near Heuston Station.
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