Pope Francis: Communication must promote culture of encounter
January 23, 2014: 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 of the Vatican Radio
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.
The text of the message:
Pope’s
message for 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.