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.