Indian Church launches communication training programme

(February 15, 2010) A top Vatican official last week launched a national programme in social communications for the training of seminarians, religious and lay leaders in India. Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for Social Communications on Friday launched the training programme by releasing three books and DVD resources for teachers at the headquarters of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) in New Delhi. The release was part of a 3-day meeting of bishops and secretaries of social communication in the 13 regional bishops’ councils and experts in communication in the Church in India. Calling the initiative a ‘big investment’, Archbishop Celli expressed satisfaction that the Church in India was s creating the new path especially for formation in Social Communications. He complimented the CBCI Commission for Social Communications and the Don Bosco Communications, India, for the remarkable achievement. The project code named Communication for Pastoral Leadership (CPL) was spearheaded by Salesian priest, Fr George Plathottam, secretary for the commission for Social Communications. Archbishop Celli called the project a profitable tool for the Church in other countries too. Norbertine priest Dr Joseph Murickan has been appointed national coordinator for the programme. An interactive website, communicationformation.com, has been launched for the project, and a team of 25 experts in communication and formation has been set up to assist the implementation of the programme. Plathottam lamented that out of India’s 160 dioceses, only 77 had websites. Some of these are not regularly updated or maintained well. He urged the need to have better planning, linkages between sites and coordination of data and information.