Asia’s Church, Communicating Joy says Archbishop Celli

(25 Feb 10 - RV) The President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, has recently returned from a visit to South Asia, to promote evangelisation in the digital world.

The Archbishop returned to Rome full of praise for the initiatives of the bishops of India and neighbouring Bangladesh in training religious and lay in the use of new technologies to communicate the Christian message.

This despite the fact that in both countries Christianity is a minority religion, and Christians are often the target of extremist anger.

Archbishop Celli spoke to us about how new technologies offer an opportunity to improve relations between people and contrast the logic of confessional fundamentalism.

“We were stressing quite clearly that the presence of the church in the field of communication is not a moment of proselytism, but the church has to communicate the Word of God to announce what we have in our heart. And I think that the Catholic community in India is quite well involved in such a pastoral activity”.

Q: And yet this pastoral activity can be quite a dangerous task if we think of the areas of India were there have been sectarian violence..

 
“It is true but I would say that the Catholic community has adopted a respectful attitude. We are not making propaganda or proselytism, but we cannot be silenced. I always refer here to the passage from St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians; Paul says “we are collaborators of your joy”, and I think that the Church with its communicative activity must collaborate in bringing joy to the people of today. The human being is walking on the streets of today, and in many circumstances he encounters solitude, loneliness and difficulties. I like to repeat to myself what Paul was saying, we are collaborators in the joy of our people”.