With the Social Communicators

At 12:30pm today, in the Sala Clementina of the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father, Pope Francis received in audience, those participating in the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications which is taking place in Rome from September 19-21.  The theme of this gathering is The network and the Church.

Speech of the Holy Father, Pope Francis

to participants in the Plenary Assembly

of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

I greet you all and wish to thank you for the service you provide in an important sector, that of communication, but after having listened to Monsignor Celli, I should cancel the word sector … and replace it with an important existential dimension … I thank Monsignor Claudio Maria Celli for the greeting he has offered me in your name.  I wish to share a few thoughts with you.

First: the importance of communication for the Church.  This year marks fifty years since the Conciliar Decree inter mirifica was approved.  It is not only a matter of memory; that document expresses the attention of the Church toward communication and toward its instruments, equally important from an evangelizing dimension.  But the tools of communication; communication is not an instrument!  It is something else … In the most recent decades the means of communication have greatly evolved, but this concern remains, assuming new sensitivity and new forms.  For many people, communication has become little by little a living environment, a network where people communicate, while expanding the boundaries of their knowledge and their relationships (cf. Benedict XVI, Message for the World Day of Social Communications, 2013).  I wish to highlight above all these positive aspects, even though we are also aware of the limitations and the harmful aspects which also exist.

In this context – and here is the second thought – we must ask ourselves: what role should the Church play in the world of communication, given its operational realities?  In every situation, even beyond the question of technology, I believe that the objective is to know how to enter into dialogue with the men and women of our day.  To know how to enter into dialogue with the men and women of our time in order to comprehend their expectations, doubts and hopes.  They are men and women who are at times a little disappointed by a Christianity which seems to be sterile, and which finds it difficult to communicate in a meaningful way the deep sense of faith.  In fact, we are witnessing even today, in an era of globalization, a growing sense of disorientation and of solitude; we see a growing sense of confusion about the meaning of life, an inability to make reference to a home, and efforts to weave deep links.  It is important then that we should know how to enter into dialogue with discernment, even regarding creative ambitions for new technologies, including social networks in order that a presence may emerge, a presence capable of listening, dialoguing and encouraging.  Don’t be afraid to be this presence, bringing with you your Christian identities in the midst of the citizens of this environment.  A Church which accompanies the journey knows how to walk with everyone!  There is an ancient rule of pilgrims, that Saint Ignatius assumes, this I know!  In one of his rules, he says that the one who accompanies a pilgrim, who travels with the pilgrim must walk in step with the pilgrim, not ahead of him and not holding him back.  And this is what I want to say: a Church which accompanies the journey and who knows how to be a pilgrim, knows also how to walk the road today.  This pilgrim rule will help us to inspire.

The third: is a challenge which we all face together in this context of communication, and the problem is not primarily a technical one.  We must ask:  are we capable, even in this field, to bring Christ into the picture, or better to bring others to Christ?  Are we able to walk with the existential pilgrim, as Jesus walked along with the pilgrims of Emmaus, warming the heart, helping them to find the Lord?  Are we able to communicate the face of a Church which is a home for all?  We speak about the Church with closed doors.  But this is more than just a Church with open doors; it’s more!  We must find ways together to create a home, to make the Church a home.  A Church with closed doors, a Church with open doors.  This is what we are: journeying together, we are the Church.  A challenge!  To rediscover through the means of social communications, as well as through personal encounter, the beauty of the encounter with Christ.  Even in the context of communication, the Church serves when it bears heat, to enflame the heart.  Does our presence and our initiatives respond to this desire or is our role simply a technical one?  We have a precious treasure to transmit, a treasure that bears light and hope.  We need them so much!  But all this responsibility requires effort and qualified formation of priests, religious men and women and laity, even in this sector.  The great digital continent is not only a matter of technology; it is made up of real men and women who carry with them that which they have within, their hopes, their sufferings, their anxieties, the search for truth, for beauty and for goodness.  We must be able to point out and to bring Christ to this world, sharing our joy and our hope like Mary who carried Christ at the heart of man; we must know how to enter into the fog of indifference without getting lost; we have to know how to rise above the darkest nights without becoming invaded by the darkness and getting lost ourselves; we need to listen to the illusions of so many others without allowing ourselves to be seduced; we must welcome disappointments, without falling into bitterness; touching the disintegration of others without allowing them to dissolve and break down their own identity (cf Discourse with the Bishops of Brazil, July 27, 2013, paragraph 4).  This is the journey.  This is the challenge.

Dear friends, it is important that the Church be present in and attentive to the world of communication, in order to dialogue with men today and in order to bring all people toward an encounter with Christ, but the encounter with Christ is a personal encounter.  We cannot manipulate it.  In our time, we have a great temptation in the Church: spiritual confrontation (harassment): the manipulation of conscience; a theological brainwashing which in the end will take us toward an encounter with a purely nominal Christ, not with the person of the living Christ.  In the encounter of a person with Christ, there is Christ and the person!  Not the one who wants to spiritually manipulate.  This is the challenge.  We must carry others toward an encounter with Christ through awareness, however we are only the means and the real problem is not the acquisition of sophisticated technology, even if it is necessary for a true and valid encounter.  It should always be well understood that the God in whom we believe, a God who is deeply in love with us, wants to show himself to others through our efforts, even if we are poor, because He is the one who is at work, He is the one who transforms, He is the one who saves men’s lives.

Our prayer, for all of us, is that the Lord may warm our hearts and sustain us in the fascinating mission of bringing Him to the world.  I ask you to pray for me, because even I have this mission, and I willingly impart my blessing to all of you.