Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2009 / Local Albanians help effort for Catholic radio in homeland
Local Albanians help effort for Catholic radio in homeland
by Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published November 20, 2009
Detroit - Local Albanian Catholics are taking part in the effort to give the Catholic Church in Albanian a permanent radio voice.
About 700 gathered Nov. 8 to hear Fr. Prenk Lazraj, general director of Albanian Radio Maria, and to contribute about $25,000 to the cause at a dinner at St. Paul (Albanian) Parish in Rochester Hills.
The effort will also seek the participation of members of the Albanian diaspora in the New York City area and other places in the U.S. and Canada, says Kanto Dushaj, president of the local support organization for Albanian Radio Maria, which produces a one-hour local show, Saturdays 3-4 p.m., on WLQV Radio (1500 AM).
By using the internet, the program has participants in both here and in Albania, and is likewise heard in both countries.
Dushaj, a member of St. Paul Parish, explained that the Albanian Catholic radio station is already broadcasting, but must lease its facilities and airtime from the station's owner. Having its own station will allow the Church to do a better job of evangelizing the Albanian people, he added.
Back in the early 1990s, not long after the fall of communism in Albania, local Albanian Catholics helped raise the money for the Church in Albania to have its own printing press to publish various catechetical materials needed by the emerging effort to restore religious education, which had been illegal under the post-World War II communist government.
Anyone interested in assisting the effort to establish the radio station may send donations to Albanian Radio Maria, P.O. Box 1378, Sterling Heights 48311.
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