Silence and Word: path of evangelization - a contradiction?

That's the theme chosen by Pope Benedict XVI for the Church’s 46^th World Day for Communications, celebrated each year on the Sunday before Pentecost - on May 20^th this year.
The Pope traditionally releases his message for the occasion on January 24, the feast day of St. Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers.
Fr. Jean-Pierre Ruiz is a biblical scholar and Theology professor at St. John's University in new York, and an expert in new media. He says the Pope’s choice of “silence and word” as a theme for evangelization and communication is “strangely eloquent…because we live in a world where words in a certain sense have become a cheapened commodity and where people say very often much less than they actually mean.”

Fr. Ruiz reminds us that “the Church has been about communicating - not only by words - for a very long time; in fact, from the beginning.”

He explains “the Church’s liturgy for example is not just reading, it’s not just text, it’s not merely just what we say – it’s also the attitude of our bodies, it’s also sound without words in terms of instrumental liturgical music.”

“It involves the use of all of our senses: our sense of smell in terms of incense and the flowers used to decorate the sanctuary for the Eucharistic liturgy. So I think if we were to reduce communications to just mere words, I think we would be impoverished.”

Listen to Fr. Ruiz’s comments in this interview by Tracey McClure: