On Ascension Sunday we celebrated World Communications Day, a day that has its roots in the Second Vatican Council. The Decree Intermirifica (18) states: "In order to further strengthen the Church's multiform apostolate on the means of social communication, a day should be celebrated each year in all the dioceses of the world, at the discretion of the bishops, to enlighten the faithful on their duties in this matter, to invite them to pray for this cause and to contribute alms for this purpose, which will be used entirely to support and foster, according to the needs of the Catholic world, the institutions and initiatives promoted by the Church in this field".
The Church has seen in the social media a great opportunity to spread the Gospel to all corners of the world.
Celso Morga Iruzubieta. Archbishop of Mérida-Badajoz
Historically, the Church has seen in the means of social communication a great opportunity to spread the Gospel to all corners of the world. Alongside this is the love of the truth, which will set us free (Jn 8:32). Both these things, the conviction that truth sets us free and the desire to build a society based on Christian values, have often led the Church to launch a multitude of general or thematic communication projects, to use current terms.
It was a pioneer in the written press, continued after the discovery of radio, we were less active in television and, nowadays, we have been able to jump on the bandwagon with the Internet.
Along with its own media, as a group of special relevance, the Church has the right to have a social presence through the public media, which emphasize in their DNA the role of public service. The retransmission of the Sunday Eucharist or weekly religious programs find their justification there. This social weight should also move the ecclesial presence in the private media, with heterogeneous audiences among which there are many believers who have the right to be reflected in the grids.
The phenomenon of the Internet is particularly striking because it turns us all into communicators. I am not going to say journalists, because that would be false and, incidentally, unfair to true journalists, who, with their signature, give "denomination of origin" to the information that circulates in every corner.
Today, legions of people of faith are putting themselves at the forefront, reaching audiences in the millions on social media.
Celso Morga Iruzubieta. Archbishop of Mérida-Badajoz
If traditionally believers, and people in general, have been mere spectators when it comes to the press, nowadays there are legions of people of faith who put themselves on the front line, reaching audiences in the millions on social networks, attached to the Church like the vine to the vine shoot. They have been able to make of their ability a service to the Gospel without tutelage or official referents, often discredited before a good part of public opinion, who see in these Christians of heart and action, the only window that shows them the beauty of the Gospel. This phenomenon is radically new and gives us all a capacity, until recently unheard of, to carry out an explicit proclamation of the Gospel or to show a form of social construction in accordance with a Christian humanist model.
If economic means are indispensable for the implementation of means of communication, nowadays a telephone is an authentic mobile unit that is activated simply by the will to be present in the areopagus. For this, it is also necessary to grow as Christians, to water our existence as believers in the opportunities that the Church offers us for the formation and living out of our faith, because you cannot communicate what you do not have.
