Papal Pop
Spreading the gospel with music and slick marketing, Pope John Paul II will hit the airwaves and music shelves next week with the first-ever papal music CD.
CBS News Correspondent Richard Roth reports that the 11-track CD is artfully packaged and accompanied by something brand new: a video of The Lord's Prayer.
Sony, which produced the disc, will pay royalties to the Vatican and churches that aid in the marketing effort. The CD goes on sale next week at a price of $16.98.
The record company is confident that it has a hit on its hands.
"Our hope is that it will appeal to the worldwide audience of Roman Catholics. But also, because the music is so strong on its own, it will appeal to an audience that goes way beyond Catholics," a Sony spokesman said.
The last time the Vatican turned out a papal CD, it went platinum. And that was just the voice of John Paul reciting the rosary.
The pope got his copy, the first one produced, at his general audience Wednesday in St. Peter's Square.
Culled from Vatican Radio recordings over John Paul's 20-year papacy, Abba Pater features the pope reciting psalms, gospels and other inspirational passages, and occasionally singing.
Mixed in the recording studio, the world-beat music background is as eclectic as it is ecclesiastic - everything from chants from Uganda with African percussion, to Slavonic liturgy from Bratislava, to Celtic flutes to classical.
Abba Pater (one of the cuts on the CD as well as the title) is the Aramaic and Latin for "Father."
For a pope who already has embraced the Internet, the pop CD, singles, and video are just another way of spreading the word, church officials said at a Vatican news conference with the president of Sony Classical.
"His mission is essentially the transmission of the message," said Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, president of the Vatican's committee for 2000 Jubilee celebrations.
The production is a mix of God and mammon, however. Sony will pay royalties to Radio Vatican and the religious media firm Audiovisivi San Paolo. Sony Classical President Peter Gelb and church officials deflected repeated questions at the packed news conference about just how any profits will be split.
The pope has ventured into the commercial world of mass media before with his book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope. He earmarked his royalties from the book to charity.
For his pop debut, the pope had no direct involvement; all the work used existing recordings.
"Even though several trade magazines said we had signed the pope, unfortunately, that is not true," Gelb said.
©1999 CBS Worldwide Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report