SUNDAY, June 5

Pope Benedict XVI Visits Croatia

EWTN, CATHOLICTV This second and final day of Pope Benedict’s apostolic visit is the National Day of Croatian Catholic Families. The Holy Father will celebrate Mass in the Zagreb Hippodrome, lunch with Croatia’s bishops, and celebrate vespers in Zagreb’s cathedral and pray at the sarcophagus of Blessed Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac (1898-1960), who died from the effects of years of imprisonment by dictator Josip Tito’s communist regime and whom Pope John Paul II beatified as a martyr in 1998. Times for EWTN’s live coverage are TBD. CatholicTV will air the Mass at noon and vespers at 8pm.

SUNDAY, June 5, 8pm

Nature: Underdogs

PBS Trainer Larry Allen turns oft-rejected bloodhound Holly into a sniffer K-9 Corps dog for the Massachusetts State Police, and trainer Barbara Sykes tries to orient rowdy bearded collie Herbie toward herding sheep. A re-airing.

TUESDAYS, June 7 and 14, 10pm

How the States Got Their Shapes

HISTORY Series host Brian Unger asks both experts and locals about their states’ borders. On June 7, he visits Nevada, Florida, Kansas and Georgia. On June 14, he invades the District of Columbia, Ohio and Missouri. Interesting facts and connections are unveiled in each episode. Advisory: TV-PG.

SATURDAY, June 11, 5pm

Belmont Stakes

NBC Post time is 6:32pm for the 142nd running of this final leg of thoroughbred horse racing’s Triple Crown. In 1973, Secretariat ran this race in 2:24, still the course — and world — record for a mile and a half.

SUNDAY, June 12, 8pm

Nature: Wild Balkans

PBS The largely untouched Balkan wilderness is home to dramatic scenic views and rare species such as mink, lynx, wild boar and griffon vultures. This documentary tours Montenegro’s Durmitor Mountains and Tara River Canyon, Croatia’s Kopacki Rit forests and wetlands, Lake Skadar on the Montenegro-Albania border, Macedonia’s Tikves Plain, Bulgaria’s Dobrudza region and the Danube Delta. A re-airing.

TUESDAY, June 14, 8am

Early Show: Town Hall

CBS This news special will air a town-hall meeting held the previous night in which GOP Sens. Tom Coburn (Okla.) and Jeff Sessions (Ala.), Congressmen Paul Ryan (Wis.) and Allen West (Fla.), and Gov. Nikki Haley (S.C.) were to speak about the economy and then answer questions.

FRIDAY, June 17, 6:30pm

Our Lady of the Lily: A Meeting Point of Art and Faith

EWTN This documentary visits Venice’s Church of St. Mary of the Lily (Santa Maria del Giglio), also called Santa Maria Zobenigo, and spotlights its Venetian Baroque facades and its paintings by Tintoretto, Rubens and other masters.

Dan Engler writes from
Santa Barbara, California.