Catholic journalists and newspapers must adapt to the digital world with enthusiasm in the cause of the new evangelisation, Pope Francis has said.
Changing social habits and the emergence of new technologies meant that it vital for print and broadcast media to move with the times if they were to successfully preach the Gospel and protect human dignity, the Holy Father told Italian Catholic journalists.
The Pontiff told them to learn from the example of Blessed Carlo Acutis, who as a teenager, he said, “knew how to use the new communications technology to transmit the Gospel, to communicate values and beauty”.
The remarks of Pope Francis came in an address to a delegation of the national Federation of Catholic Weeklies, of the Italian Periodical Press Union, of the “Corallo” and “Aiart – Cittadini mediali” associations.
The Pope said the epochal changes in the media world require a renewed “commitment to the promotion of people’s dignity, to justice and truth, to legality and educational co-responsibility”.
He reminded them that communication is essentially “sharing, weaving threads of communion, creating bridges without raising walls”.
The 21st century, he said, was characterised by great “communication highways”, increasingly faster and overloaded with information.
This required a renewed commitment to education, which is vital because “the future of society is at stake”.
Education was the way to connect old and young generations who today are immersed in the digital culture, the Pope said.
“Prudence and simplicity are two basic educational ingredients for navigating today’s complexity, especially on the web, where it is necessary not to be naive and, at the same time, not give in to the temptation to sow anger and hatred,” he continued.
Catholic newspapers and magazines play a crucial role in this, he said, because “they don’t just give the news of the moment, but they convey a human and Christian vision aimed at forming minds and hearts”.
“You have the vocation to remind people that beyond the news and scoops, there are always feelings, stories, real people who are to be respected”, Francis told the journalists.
“Communicating is educating society” to respect and care, including in affective relationships between men and women.
The Catholic Press also had a responsibility to protect the weakest groups in society, including minors, the elderly and disabled people “from the invasiveness of digital media and the seductions of provocative and polemical communication”.
He said: “Don’t just play defence but, remaining ‘small inside’, think big, because you are called to a great task: to protect, through words and images, the dignity of people, especially the little ones and the poor, God’s favourites.”
The Pope said: “Testimony is prophecy, it is creativity, which frees and pushes us to leave our comfort zones to take risks.”
He added: “Fidelity to the Gospel postulates to go against the grain: to talk about fraternity in an individualistic world, of peace in a world at war, of attention to the poor in an impatient and indifferent world.”
The remarks of the Holy Father came as a leading African bishop warned Catholics that the Church must go digital if it wants to cope with what he described as a 21st century “Babel mediascape with no gatekeepers”.
“The Church in Africa would do well to come to terms with the fact that linear media models that allowed for more centralised and regulated government control were over,” said Bishop Bernardin Francis Mfumbusa of Kondoa in Tanzania.
Mfumbusa said that the era in which the church could control the flow of information, through instruments such as the Nihil Obstat and the Imprimatur – both certifications that a publication is a free of doctrinal or moral error – is over.
“It is in this media environment of fake news; misinformation and doxxing that a revitalized CEPACS will need to find its place,” he said, referring to the Pan African Episcopal Committee for Social Communications, which recently marked its 50th anniversary during a conference in Lagos, Nigeria.
In the argot of the digital world, “doxxing” refers to revealing personal information about someone online, such as their real name, home address, workplace, phone, financial, and other personal information.
Mfumbusa warned that today’s media climate is now dominated by “the young, sometimes untrained Influencers and content creators.” In that context, he said the church must develop its own laity, Priests and Sisters “who are conversant with programming and have coding skills.”
“Increased cooperation and guidance with young Catholic influencers could also be explored,” he said.
Bishop Lucio Andrice Muandula of Xai-Xai in Mozambique explained that digital communication technologies have changed learning processes as well as the perception of time, space, bodies, and interpersonal relationships.
“Whether we call the new digital forms of media an ‘environment’ or a ‘culture,’ the fact remains that it offers the Church both a powerful tool and an opportune moment for promoting inclusivity and enhancing an ecclesial outreach to members of the Church who feel marginalised, especially in Africa,” he said.
Muandula said millions of young people in Africa are currently finding solace in digital communication amid a sea of governmental dysfunction, economic hardship, cultural alienation, and social unrest, including violence and conflict.
He challenged the Church to harness the media to reach out to Africa’s youth in new and innovative ways.
Archbishop Andrew Nkea of Cameroon complained that many “dioceses in sub-Saharan Africa still have to arise from the lethargy which is not alert to what is happening in the media world.”
“There are many priests and bishops who are not on Facebook, Twitter (X), WhatsApp and other new media platforms,” he said, adding that clerics could get assistants to manage their social media accounts if they are too busy.
“We don’t necessarily have to do everything ourselves,” Nkea said.
He challenged the church in Africa to equip members of the clergy and women and men religious with digital skills in order to enable them to take up the apostolate full time.
“Today, we need priests and religious who are well-trained media specialists and who are given full-time ministry,” Nkea said.
(Additional reporting by Ngala Killian Chimtom in Cameroon)
(Photo by CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images)
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.