2015-05-02 09:58:00

Bishop Badejo urges Catholic media to be proactive


Bishop Emmanuel Badejo of Oyo Diocese has called on Catholic Media Practitioners to be more proactive in their apostolate and initiate authentic practical programmes that will facilitate the promotion of family values in the context of the teaching of the Church.

The call is contained in a keynote address to the 2015 plenary meeting of Nigerian diocesan and religious directors of communication. The directors of Catholic media met recently at a training workshop for Catholic Media Practitioners at the Bishop Kelly Pastoral Centre, Benin City, Edo State in Nigeria.

In his address entitled, “The Role of the Media in Communicating Family Values,” the local Ordinary of Oyo Diocese challenged Catholic media practitioners to enhance their knowledge of the teachings of the Church on the promotion of family values in order to be able to influence the position of the secular media in this perspective.

He added, “It is the duty and challenge of Church communicators  at whatever level  to provide access, understanding and acceptance of these teachings and resources in digestible and attractive forms, so that the secular, popular media may be enriched to play their proper role for communicating values within families,” Bishop Badejo said.

Bishop Badejo who is the current Episcopal Chair of communication for the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) declared, “What my address amounts to therefore is to remind us here that the media simply cannot understand their role in the family unless we who are Catholic Media Practitioners help them to do so.” He continued, “We, on the other hand cannot help the media if, we ourselves, do not know the Church’s teaching, perspectives and resources available for supporting the family in that regard,” he said.

While expressing the hope that the training workshop would not just be limited to intellectual reflections that have no bearing on the very pastoral identity of the directors of communication, Bishop Badejo stressed, “It is only by emphasising and enhancing our own identity as Catholic Media Practitioners that we can correctly influence the media world to which we professionally belong,” he concluded.

The three-day training workshop had Pope Francis’ 2015 World Day of Communications message - Communicating the Family: A Privileged Place to Encounter with the Gift of Love as its theme. The event was attended by over 70 diocesan and religious directors of communication as well as other lay Catholic media practitioners from most dioceses of Nigeria.

Papers presentated at the workshop were on “How is the Family is Represented in Nigeria Media” by Fr. Christian Anyanwu, CSN Director of Social Communications and on “Using the Social Media to Promote Family Values” presented by Fr. Walter Ihejirika of the University of Port Harcourt.

 Other speakers and presenters were Fr. Gerald Musa of the Centre for the Study of African Culture and Communication (CESACC), Catholic Institute of West Africa (CIWA), whose paper was premised on “How to Use Radio and Television to Promote Family Values.”  The Administrative Secretary of the Directorate of Social Communications at the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (CSN) Otunba Jide Fadugba-Pinheiro made a presentation on, “Making Catholic Newspapers Family Friendly.”

(Catholic News Service of Nigeria)

e-mail: engafrica@vatiradio.va

 

 

 








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