President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications

Speaking notes of Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli,

President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications,

2014 Catholic Media Conference - #CMC14

Charlotte, NC, U.S.A., 19 June 2014

My Dear Friends in Christ,

It is a pleasure to be here with you once again for this annual conference bringing together Catholic media professionals from across North America. I make a point of being here whenever possible, since it is a privileged occasion to meet many of you face-to-face, something I believe is essential. I would like to compliment the organizers on the rich program of meetings and workshops you have prepared. It’s always good to see the emphasis you place on ensuring ongoing formation and practical work sessions to help everyone keep up-to-date;given the ever-changing dynamics, trends and ways of working in the field of communication. The changes we are witnessing are profound and rapid; it is difficult to know where things are going. We can, however, shareour experiences and expertisein order to become more attentive, knowledgeable and flexible so as to respond better to our calling as Church communicators, who share the Gospel message through our personal and professional lives.

This year’s conference has a particular focus on social media. The current technologies are radically changing the way we communicate; they have transformed our communications culture and given birth to new languages. This is a challenge to Catholic media, we have to be present and make the necessary changes. I am very appreciative of your efforts at this conference to create a social media hub (#CMC14) which facilitates the flow of information and the exchange of ideas through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, and so forth.

In the first part of my talk this morning, I would like to reflect with you on some of the particular challenges posed by social media. In the second part, I will share with you some of the experience of the Holy See in working with these media.

This new culture of communicationsaffects every dimension of our lives – personal, professional, and institutional. I have recently noted a report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalismwhich deals with changes in how news is being disseminated, viewed and discussed today. Their survey, which is particularly attentive to the reality of developed countries, highlights the nature of these changes. I would like to share with you some of the findings of this study:

· There has been a rapid growth in both mobile and tablet use for news, with 37% of the respondents accessing news from a smartphone every week;

· Online presence must be simple, portable and multi-platform to maintain an audience;

· Social networking sites are key drivers in disseminating information, with Facebook being the prime platform, and Twitter following it;

· Newer platforms are also emerging, such as Google Plus and WhatsApp,and they are increasingly important;

· Individual journalists continue to have a pivotal role; respondents were inclined to trust individual journalists more than the organizations or the institutions for whom they work;

· There is an ever-widening gap in the ways young people engage with media and news compared to their parents or grandparents.

In the midst of this transformation, the key question for Catholic media professionals is to consider how best we can be present in this emerging digital arena. Pope Francis in his message for this year’s World Communications Day on the theme, “Communication at the Service of an Authentic Culture of Encounter”, recognized the extraordinary potential for good which digital media can have in bringing people closer together. They can create a greater sense of unity and solidarity within the human family and they can serve to promote respect for the dignity of every human person. He notes: “Good communication helps us to grow closer, to know one another better, and ultimately, to grow in unity”, but insists that “the walls which divide us can be broken down only if we are prepared to listen and learn from one another.” He stresses that communication should always be understood as a human rather than a technological achievement and that social networks are ultimately constituted by people rather than wires or cables.

Notwithstanding, the “newness” or “difference” of the digital arena, the Church must endeavour to be present if the Word of God is to encounter people fully in this dimension of their lives. In his message, Pope Francis encourages believers to be present and to join their fellow pilgrims on life’s journey. Drawing on the story of the Apostles on the road to Emmaus, he says: “We have to be able to dialogue with the men and women of today, to understand their expectations, doubts and hopes, and to bring them the Gospel, Jesus Christ himself, God incarnate, who died and rose to free us from sin and death. We are challenged to be people of depth, attentive to what is happening around us and spiritually alert.” The Pope highlights the figure of the Good Samaritan in his response to the question as to what it means to be a “good neighbour” in the digital arena. He says: “May the light we bring to others not be the result of cosmetics or special effects, but rather of our being loving and merciful ‘neighbours’ to those wounded and left on the side of the road”.

In this context, the Pope stresses the significance of dialogue. Dialogue is only possible where there is a fundamental attitude of openness to the other, a willingness to listen to his or her deepest questions and to respectfully share with them our own hopes and joys. Together with other people of good will, we will attempt to understand the fullness of what it means to be a human person and how we can create a society where all are valued. When meeting with Brazil’s Bishops last year, Pope Francis noted: “In many places, generally speaking, due to the economic humanism that has been imposed in the world, the culture of exclusion, of rejection, is spreading. There is no place for the elderly or for the unwanted child; there is no time for that poor person in the street. At times, it seems that for some people, human relations are regulated by two modern “dogmas”: efficiency and pragmatism. … Have the courage to go against the tide of this culture of efficiency, this culture of waste. Encountering and welcoming everyone, solidarity – a word that is being hidden by this culture, as if it were a bad word – solidarity and fraternity: these are what make our society truly human.”

Too often in social media, the tone of the debates can be very critical or very negative. Here Pope Francis stresses a positive approach, in saying: “We need to resolve our differences through forms of dialogue which help us grow in understanding and mutual respect. A culture of encounter demands that we be ready not only to give, but also to receive. Media can help us greatly in this, especially nowadays, when the networks of human communication have made unprecedented advances.”

The sentiments of Pope Francis in this regard echo the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI who in his message for WCD 2103 “Social Networks: portals of truth and faith; new spaces for evangelization.”, had emphasized that: “The social media thus need the commitment of all who are conscious of the value of dialogue, reasoned debate and logical argumentation…‘Given the reality of cultural diversity, people need not only to accept the existence of the culture of others, but also to aspire to be enriched by it and to offer to it whatever they possess that is good, true and beautiful’. This quotation is itself an elaboration of the profound insight that Benedict had expressed in 2010Lisbon when meeting with the world of culture: “The Church, in her adherence to the eternal character of truth, is in the process of learning how to live with respect for other “truths” and for the truth of others. Through this respect, open to dialogue, new doors can be opened to the transmission of truth”.

I would now like to change our focus to a consideration of some of the concrete initiatives with which I have been involved at the Holy See. Over the years the Holy See has entered into the world of communication and has adopted the different technologies as they have emerged. We have the Vatican newspaper, “L’Osservatore Romano”, the Vatican Radio, the Vatican Television Center (CTV) and the Internet Office which manages Vatican.va. All these media initiatives were createdin response to what was then a new type of media. In the last decade, however, we have seen massive changes in the media landscape and the way people communicate and relate. Moreover, in common with all those who work in media, we have had to take account of the forms of convergence that are necessary if we are to be effectively present in the world of digital media.

· In 2009, the Vatican established an official channel on YouTube, which continues today. This channel has proven itself to be of exceptional importance. We have had to learn to communicate using images and video because increasingly we are dealing with people who are less inclined to read or to analyse long texts.

· In 2011, Pope Benedict XVI launched the web portal www.news.va, a news website which serves as a hub for all the Vatican’s media content gathered in real time in one place with a new look and user-friendly graphics format. The portal is managed by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. The site now has five languages – English, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese.Through our experience with this portal, we are learning that it is not enough simply to take content and place it on a digital platform. We are learning that such material will only attract a wider audience if it is genuinely multimedia and thoroughly social (by that I mean, that it is easily shared by those who are engaging with it).

· In 2013, we launched the mobile and tablet version of news.va, called “The Pope App”, which I hope you all have already installed on your Apple or Android devices and consult regularly! There have been well over four hundred thousand downloads of the app. I am happy let you know that we have a major update to the App underway which is due to be launchedby the end of this month. The update includes a total redesign and reprogramming from scratchfor Apple and Android platforms, and a number of new features. Again, our experience is teaching us that when working with mobile platforms, it is necessary to prioritize visual and more succinct forms of presentation.

· Since 2011, news.va has been on Facebook and has grown considerably with the Spanish and English profiles generating the most discussion. The five language profiles together have approximately 370,000 likes, but the most interesting statistic is that our average weekly reach is over five million and the number of people talking about the content is over half a million. We have noted that with our Facebook profile the major interest tends to focus on spiritual and reflective content rather than on strictly news items.

· In 2012, the @pontifex Twitter presence was launched. I need not bother you with the details, but the numbers of followers of the combined accounts (almost 14 million), is adequate testimony to the value of this initiative. However, even more significant is the high rate of engagement by these followers. Twitter has identified the Pontifex accounts as having the highest level of retweeting for any public figure. This means that the Pope’s short messages of hope, joy and encouragement, are reaching a huge public, beyond those who have explicitly signed up for them.

· At News.va, we continue to experiment with different media platforms. Over the last year, we have experimented with Google Plus, Flickr, Instagram. It is important that we maintain this flexibility as social media platforms are continually evolving and from a strategic point of view, we must be able to change as necessary in order to ensure that our presence is sufficiently dynamic.

I am conscious that many commentators have noted a lack of cohesion in the Vatican’s overall approach to social media. I like to say that the Vatican is particularly faithful to the instruction of Jesus that the left hand must not know what the right is doing. In time, however, it is to be hoped that a more structured organization of all the Vatican’s media will result in a more coordinated and unified presence in the social media arena.

As many of you are aware, December last marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of the Council document Inter Mirifica. The key achievements of that decree were,

1. To clearly establish the centrality of the theme of communication in the life of the Church;

2. To establish structures to implement the vision set out in the document;

3. To intuit the centrality of the social dimension of communications.

I am happy that 50 years on, the theme of communications continues to be ever more present in the Church’s reflection on its mission in the world. I am glad that the structures wished for by the Council, such as the renewal of our Pontifical Council, World Communications Day, the establishment of diocesan national and continental communications offices, have provided the Church with a network of resources which facilitate our presence in social media. The Council Fathers could never have anticipated the transformations we have seen over the last decade, but they had prophetically insisted on the realization that communication is not simply about the exchange of information, but about the development of good human relations. Communication is always social.

In his World Communications Day message, Pope Francis calls on us to boldly become citizens of the digital world. He echoes the calling and the challenges formulated in a different way in the landmark Inter Mirifica Decree: “The Church needs to be concerned for, and present in, the world of communication, in order to dialogue with people today and to help them encounter Christ. She needs to be a Church at the side of others, capable of accompanying everyone along the way. The revolution taking place in communications media and in information technologies represents a great and thrilling challenge; may we respond to that challenge with fresh energy and imagination as we seek to share with others the beauty of God.”