Vatican City, 19 September 2013: “More than 9,300,000 followers and, thanks to re-tweets,
at least 60,000 million people on their smartphones and tablets are reached by the
Holy Father’s tweets”; as well as the “10,260,000 people every month who visit our
pages in the various languages through the portal www.news.va via Facebook”, said
Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.
These are Pope Francis’ record statistics on social networks of the first six months
of his pontificate; a media success of which “few other global leaders can boast”,
added the Archbishop. Archbishop Celli revealed these statistics in an interview with
Vatican’s newspaper L’Osservatore Romano on Wednesday, on the eve of the Pontifical
Council’s Plenary Assembly.
The annual plenary assembly on Thursday morning
focuses on the priorities of Church communicating the Gospel through social networks.
Members and consulters from around the world are taking part in the three day meeting
which is scheduled to conclude with a meeting with Pope Francis on Saturday morning.
When
asked about what innovations has Pope Francis’ style introduced in the world of the
Vatican media, Archbishop Celli said that the major innovation consists in Pope’s
ability to make himself understood by people of every origin. This is the main lesson
we have sought to apply to our way of functioning.
The Archbishop said that
Bergoglio’s style of communication can be summed up in four clearly defined characteristics.
First, he uses a simple, direct, colloquial language, a language that people today
understand perfectly. Second, he has a content that poses questions to people’s consciences
and hearts, responding to human suffering and the human yearning for inner seeking,
for the Pope knows what man’s human heart contains. This also explains his success
with non-believers, with the people from other religions and with very many distant
Christians. The third element is the way he gestures. Pope Francis does not only say
certain things, he makes gestures that are able to convey this human richness, bound
coactively to a profound spirituality. Lastly he also knows how to spark the human
imagination and sensitivity through recourse to figurative language. Such as, for
example, when he uses colourful expressions which communicate more than the words
actually say, using simple sentences to express even difficult concepts. Who could
forget his appeal to priests and bishops to acquire the “smell of their sheep”? Source:
L’Osservatore Romano