Pope Francis’ first message for World Communications Day
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Pope Francis: Communication must promote culture of encounter
(Vatican Radio) It’s no good trying to communicate the Gospel if we are not open to
encounter the lives and the truth of others’. That’s the theme at the heart of Pope
Francis’ message for the 48th World Communication Day which was presented
at a press conference in the Vatican on Thursday. Entitled ‘Communication at the service
of an authentic Culture of Encounter’, the document says effective Christian witness
is not about bombarding people with religious messages but about respectfully engaging
with their questions and their doubts.
Philippa Hitchen takes a closer look…..
This is the Pope Francis’ first message for World Communications Day and it
offers a profoundly personal and Franciscan vision of the way that modern media technology
must help us, not just to connect virtually, but to promote a real encounter with
people and ideas that are often very different from own. That’s according to Archbishop
Claudio Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications which
helps in the drafting of this annual message. A culture of encounter demands that
we be ready not only to give, but also to receive and the internet, the message says,
offers immense possibilities for encouraging encounter and solidarity. Noting the
continuing “scandalous gap between the opulence of the wealthy and the utter destitution
of the poor”, the Pope says media can help create a stronger sense of the unity of
the human family.
While acknowledging that the internet can isolate and create
barricades between people, Pope Francis says the Church must respond with fresh energy
and imagination to the challenges of the ongoing technological revolution. He uses
the parable of the Good Samaritan to explain how we must see ourselves as true neighbours,
ready to take responsibility for the needs of others. Returning to one of his favourite
themes, the Pope says our streets are teeming with people who are often hurting and
looking for a sign of hope and salvation. It’s not enough to be passersby on the streets
and digital highways of our world: rather we must keep open the doors of our churches
and our digital environments so that people can enter and the Gospel message can reach
to the ends of the earth.
Archbishop Celli says the message reflects some
fundamental guidelines of Pope Francis’ vision for a Church which is truly open to
the lives and needs of men and women today
Listen: 
Please find below the full text of the Message for World Communications
Day 2014
48th World Communications Day
Communication at the Service
of an Authentic Culture of Encounter
1 June 2014
Message of His Holiness
Pope Francis
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today we are living
in a world which is growing ever “smaller” and where, as a result, it would seem to
be easier for all of us to be neighbours. Developments in travel and communications
technology are bringing us closer together and making us more connected, even as globalization
makes us increasingly interdependent. Nonetheless, divisions, which are sometimes
quite deep, continue to exist within our human family. On the global level we see
a scandalous gap between the opulence of the wealthy and the utter destitution of
the poor. Often we need only walk the streets of a city to see the contrast between
people living on the street and the brilliant lights of the store windows. We have
become so accustomed to these things that they no longer unsettle us. Our world suffers
from many forms of exclusion, marginalization and poverty, to say nothing of conflicts
born of a combination of economic, political, ideological, and, sadly, even religious
motives.
In a world like this, media can help us to feel closer to one
another, creating a sense of the unity of the human family which can in turn inspire
solidarity and serious efforts to ensure a more dignified life for all. Good communication
helps us to grow closer, to know one another better, and ultimately, to grow in unity.
The walls which divide us can be broken down only if we are prepared to listen and
learn from one another. We need to resolve our differences through forms of dialogue
which help us grow in understanding and mutual respect. A culture of encounter demands
that we be ready not only to give, but also to receive. Media can help us greatly
in this, especially nowadays, when the networks of human communication have made unprecedented
advances. The internet, in particular, offers immense possibilities for encounter
and solidarity. This is something truly good, a gift from God.
This is
not to say that certain problems do not exist. The speed with which information is
communicated exceeds our capacity for reflection and judgement, and this does not
make for more balanced and proper forms of self-expression. The variety of opinions
being aired can be seen as helpful, but it also enables people to barricade themselves
behind sources of information which only confirm their own wishes and ideas, or political
and economic interests. The world of communications can help us either to expand
our knowledge or to lose our bearings. The desire for digital connectivity can have
the effect of isolating us from our neighbours, from those closest to us. We should
not overlook the fact that those who for whatever reason lack access to social media
run the risk of being left behind.
While these drawbacks are real, they
do not justify rejecting social media; rather, they remind us that communication is
ultimately a human rather than technological achievement. What is it, then, that
helps us, in the digital environment, to grow in humanity and mutual understanding?
We need, for example, to recover a certain sense of deliberateness and calm. This
calls for time and the ability to be silent and to listen. We need also to be patient
if we want to understand those who are different from us. People only express themselves
fully when they are not merely tolerated, but know that they are truly accepted.
If we are genuinely attentive in listening to others, we will learn to look at the
world with different eyes and come to appreciate the richness of human experience
as manifested in different cultures and traditions. We will also learn to appreciate
more fully the important values inspired by Christianity, such as the vision of the
human person, the nature of marriage and the family, the proper distinction between
the religious and political spheres, the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity,
and many others.
How, then, can communication be at the service of an authentic
culture of encounter? What does it mean for us, as disciples of the Lord, to encounter
others in the light of the Gospel? In spite of our own limitations and sinfulness,
how do we draw truly close to one another? These questions are summed up in what
a scribe – a communicator – once asked Jesus: “And who is my neighbour?” (Lk 10:29).
This question can help us to see communication in terms of “neighbourliness”. We
might paraphrase the question in this way: How can we be “neighbourly” in our use
of the communications media and in the new environment created by digital technology?
I find an answer in the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is also a parable about
communication. Those who communicate, in effect, become neighbours. The Good Samaritan
not only draws nearer to the man he finds half dead on the side of the road; he takes
responsibility for him. Jesus shifts our understanding: it is not just about seeing
the other as someone like myself, but of the ability to make myself like the other.
Communication is really about realizing that we are all human beings, children of
God. I like seeing this power of communication as “neighbourliness”.
Whenever
communication is primarily aimed at promoting consumption or manipulating others,
we are dealing with a form of violent aggression like that suffered by the man in
the parable, who was beaten by robbers and left abandoned on the road. The Levite
and the priest do not regard him as a neighbour, but as a stranger to be kept at a
distance. In those days, it was rules of ritual purity which conditioned their response.
Nowadays there is a danger that certain media so condition our responses that we fail
to see our real neighbour.
It is not enough to be passersby on the digital
highways, simply “connected”; connections need to grow into true encounters. We cannot
live apart, closed in on ourselves. We need to love and to be loved. We need tenderness.
Media strategies do not ensure beauty, goodness and truth in communication. The world
of media also has to be concerned with humanity, it too is called to show tenderness.
The digital world can be an environment rich in humanity; a network not of wires but
of people. The impartiality of media is merely an appearance; only those who go out
of themselves in their communication can become a true point of reference for others.
Personal engagement is the basis of the trustworthiness of a communicator. Christian
witness, thanks to the internet, can thereby reach the peripheries of human existence.
As
I have frequently observed, if a choice has to be made between a bruised Church which
goes out to the streets and a Church suffering from self-absorption, I certainly prefer
the first. Those “streets” are the world where people live and where they can be
reached, both effectively and affectively. The digital highway is one of them, a
street teeming with people who are often hurting, men and women looking for salvation
or hope. By means of the internet, the Christian message can reach “to the ends of
the earth” (Acts 1:8). Keeping the doors of our churches open also means keeping
them open in the digital environment so that people, whatever their situation in life,
can enter, and so that the Gospel can go out to reach everyone. We are called to
show that the Church is the home of all. Are we capable of communicating the image
of such a Church? Communication is a means of expressing the missionary vocation
of the entire Church; today the social networks are one way to experience this call
to discover the beauty of faith, the beauty of encountering Christ. In the area of
communications too, we need a Church capable of bringing warmth and of stirring hearts.
Effective Christian witness is not about bombarding people with religious
messages, but about our willingness to be available to others “by patiently and respectfully
engaging their questions and their doubts as they advance in their search for the
truth and the meaning of human existence” (BENEDICT XVI, Message for the 47th World
Communications Day, 2013). We need but recall the story of the disciples on the way
to Emmaus. We have to be able to dialogue with the men and women of today, to understand
their expectations, doubts and hopes, and to bring them the Gospel, Jesus Christ himself,
God incarnate, who died and rose to free us from sin and death. We are challenged
to be people of depth, attentive to what is happening around us and spiritually alert.
To dialogue means to believe that the “other” has something worthwhile to say, and
to entertain his or her point of view and perspective. Engaging in dialogue does
not mean renouncing our own ideas and traditions, but the claim that they alone are
valid or absolute.
May the image of the Good Samaritan who tended to the
wounds of the injured man by pouring oil and wine over them be our inspiration. Let
our communication be a balm which relieves pain and a fine wine which gladdens hearts.
May the light we bring to others not be the result of cosmetics or special effects,
but rather of our being loving and merciful “neighbours” to those wounded and left
on the side of the road. Let us boldly become citizens of the digital world. The
Church needs to be concerned for, and present in, the world of communication, in order
to dialogue with people today and to help them encounter Christ. She needs to be
a Church at the side of others, capable of accompanying everyone along the way. The
revolution taking place in communications media and in information technologies represents
a great and thrilling challenge; may we respond to that challenge with fresh energy
and imagination as we seek to share with others the beauty of God.
From
the Vatican, 24 January 2014, the Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales.
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