Catholic News Service Director and Editor in Chief Is Named Consultor to Pontifical Council for Social Communications
WASHINGTON (November 3, 2006)Pope Benedict XVI has appointed Anthony J. Spence, Director and Editor in Chief of Catholic News Service (CNS), to a five-year term as a Consultor to the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.
Other Americans named were Carl A. Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, and Msgr. Owen F. Campion, associate publisher of the Catholic publishing firm Our Sunday Visitor.
Media experts from throughout the world lend advice and expertise to the Pontifical Council whose President is Archbishop John P. Foley. The Vatican body deals with a wide variety of topics, including advertising, the Internet, pornography and violence, and communications ethics, as they relate to the mission of the Church.
A Tennessee native, Anthony Spence is former President of the Catholic Press Association. He was editor and chief and general manager of The Tennessee Register, Inc., which publishes the Tennessee Register, newspaper of the Nashville diocese, from 1989 to 1998. He also served as the dioceses communications director in 1992-98. He was Executive Director for Advancement Communications for Vanderbilt University in Nashville when he was named to direct CNS in December, 2003.
Mr. Spence served on the communications committee for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and on its subcommittee for planning which devised the Conferences strategic plan for communications. He also served as a member of the Advisory Board of the Catholic Communication Campaign (CCC).
Catholic News Service, serving since 1920 as a news agency specializing in reporting on the Church and other religious news, is the primary source of national and world news that appears in the U.S. Catholic press and in other media in more than 60 countries throughout the world. It is part of the Communication Department of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).