World Communications Day and Catholic journalism’s role to ‘guide and inspire’

On the Sunday before Pentecost the Catholic Church celebrates the role of communications media and focuses on how it can best use such platforms to promote the Gospel values.

World Communications Day, also know as Communications Sunday, was established by Pope Paul VI in 1967 as an annual celebration to “encourage us to reflect on the opportunities and challenges that the modern means of social communication [can] afford the Church to communicate the gospel message,” Patrick Duffy writes for CatholicIreland.net.

When Duffy wrote that, he listed the modern means of communication as including the “press, motion pictures, radio, television and the Internet”. Now, of course, we have to add to that list all manner of social media platforms as well as what many claim is the great game changer that is Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is already making an impact on how Catholicism is communicated.

By establishing the celebration on the Sunday of 7 May 1967, less than two years after the Second Vatican Council, Duffy says that Pope Paul VI, knowing that the Church is truly and intimately linked with mankind and its history, wanted to draw attention to the communications media and the enormous power they have for cultural transformation.

Pope Paul VI and his successors have consistently recognised the opportunities the communications media afford for enriching human lives with the values of truth, beauty and goodness, but also the negative effects of spreading less noble values and pressurising minds and consciences with a multiplicity of contradictory appeals.

Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Redemptoris missio 37 addressed the power of media, drawing a parallel with the role of the Areopagus, the earliest council of ancient Athens:

“The world of communications is the first Areopagus of the modern age, unifying humanity and turning it into what is known as a ‘global village’. The communications media have acquired such importance as to be for many the chief means of information and education, of guidance and inspiration for many people in their personal, family and social behaviour. In particular, the younger generation is growing up in a world conditioned by the mass media.”

Increasingly aware of the world as a global village and the power of the media as a free market place for philosophies and values, Duffy highlights how the Church has sought to be involved in that free market place with its message and to use the media to proclaim the values it sees are beneficial for human development and for the eternal welfare of people.

As a result, following the emergence of the internet, in 2002 the Pontifical Council for Social Communications produced two documents on this seismic shift in communications. The first was an analysis of the opportunities and challenges the Internet presents for evangelisation, entitled The Church and Internet. The other set out an ethical code which should guide the use of the Internet, entitled Ethics in Internet.

Today, the Vatican is having to address the emergence of AI. The Rome Call for AI Ethics, a document by the Pontifical Academy for Life, underlines the need for “algor-ethics”, which, according to the text, is the ethical use of artificial intelligence according to the principles of transparency, inclusion, accountability, impartiality, reliability, security and privacy.

The call states there are three requirements for “technological advancement to align with true progress for the human race and respect for the planet”: it must be inclusive, have the good of humankind at its core, and care for the planet with a highly sustainable approach.

Pope Francis established the RenAIssance Foundation in April 2021 as a Vatican nonprofit foundation to support anthropological and ethical reflection of new technologies on human life. The Pope also chose artificial intelligence as the theme of his 2024 peace message, which recommended that global leaders adopt an international treaty to regulate the development and use of AI.

Increasingly, as mainstream media has become alarmingly conformist and amoral – most recently demonstrated during its coverage of Covid and lockdowns – Catholic journalism is experiencing a renaissance as it stands out as a genuinely counter-cultural voice that speaks up for the oppressed and vulnerable, while addressing issues that many media simply won’t dare touch or interrogate in an honest and open-minded fashion.

To celebrate the power of communication and the role that Catholic journalism has to play, between Communications Sunday and Pentecost Sunday – arguably the ultimate demonstration of the power of communication to spread the Gospel message – the Catholic Herald is offering a trial subscription to its magazine at a special discounted rate. 

A Prayer for Communications Sunday 

O God, whose word is truth
and in whose light we see light,
guide those who tell the story of our times through word and image.
Make them seekers after truth and advocates of human dignity.
Grant discernment to all who rely on their labours,
and, as we confront the pain and promise of this world,
awaken in us a sense of wonder at your presence
and of longing for your peace.

Photo: Pope Paul VI listening to President Shazar reading a welcome address on his arrival in Israel, at Megiddo during a peace pilgrimage to the Holy Land, 6 January 1964. (Photo by European Press Photo/Central Press/Getty Images.)