Learning new languages

"The Culture of Communications and New Languages" is the theme being discussed at this week’s plenary assembly of the Pontifical council for Culture. Participants who include not just the council members but also lay representatives from the world of culture are discussing the challenges posed by communicating the Christian message in our increasingly technological contemporary society. The Council’s President, Cardinal designate Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi says the Church must attempt to captivate a broader audience by finding new language skills to reach out to as many people as possible. One of the participants at the assembly is Father Lloyd Baugh, professor of film studies and theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He spoke to Susy Hodges about why this theme is so timely and important.
“I think the Council is saying the old languages don’t work any more… and now is one of those moments when new languages really need to be experimented and used.”
Father Baugh says the participants at the assembly “are getting a chance to hear about these new languages, see them in action and discuss how they might be best used in their own local areas and in the universal Church.”
As Pope Benedict himself has said, Father Baugh stresses that “we have to find other ways to re-evangelize a world which to some extent has been de-evangelized, in many parts of the former Christian world we live in a neo-pagan situation.”