Since 1958, on August 11, the television day. However, this day is not about recording the first television phenomenon or the invention of the first television set. Such a day refers to the death of St. Clare of Assisi, responsible for the foundation of the Franciscan female order and who died in 1253. But what does Santa Clara have to do with Television Day?
On February 14, 1958, Eugenio Pacelli, then Pope Pius XII, thought it best to pay homage to Santa Clara de Assis, relating the memory of her death day with the popularization of television. This is because, according to Catholic tradition, Santa Clara, once unable to attend the morning mass on Christmas Day, stayed in her room, in São Damião, meditating and praying to the baby Jesus. Miraculously, it is said that Santa Clara was able to hear and “watch”, that is, to visualize, in a physically inexplicable way, everything that happened at the aforementioned mass.
For the Catholic Church, such a story is worthy of faith. In this sense, Pope Pius XII, who saw in the television phenomenon something extraordinary and comparable to the miracle lived by Santa Clara, suggested commemorating Television Day on the day when the saint's death is remembered, given that TV makes present, through image and sound, phenomena that are physically absent from the senses.
The 1950s were marked by the spread of television. Brazil itself received the first TV models and had the first television companies created in that decade. The initiative of Pope Pius XII to create a day for television, therefore, was well thought out in apostolic terms (within the understanding that this term has in the Catholicism), given that, in the case of a vehicle of mass communication, it would be important to have TV as a symbol associated with a saint Catholic.
In this sense, Santa Clara is understood by many today as the “Patroness of Television”.
By Me. Cláudio Fernandes
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/datas-comemorativas/dia-televisao.htm
