For Immediate Release From Vatican News!
(A Ten-Minute Read)
Pope's Communications Day Message: ‘Disarm Communication’ To Foster Hope And Unity
On the World Day of Social Communications, Pope Francis releases his annual Message, in which he calls for a transformation in the way we communicate. By Linda Bordoni
In a world “characterized by disinformation and polarization, as a few centres of power control an unprecedented mass of data and information,“ it is ever more urgent, writes Pope Francis, to “disarm communication” and purify it of aggression.
In his Message released to mark the 59th World Day of Social Communications, the Pope notes that "Too often today, communication generates not hope, but fear and despair, prejudice and resentment, fanaticism, and even hatred.”
Lamenting the fact that communication often simplifies reality to provoke instinctive reactions, using words as weapons and spreading false or distorted information, he warns that such practices create division and prevent the possibility of building genuine hope.
“All conflicts start when individual faces melt away and disappear‘. We must not surrender to this mindset.”
The Risks Of Aggressive Communication
The Pope highlights several troubling trends in modern communication, including a tendency towards competition and domination that prevails in many forums.
“From television talk shows to verbal attacks on social media, there is a risk that the paradigm of competition, opposition, the will to dominate and possess, and the manipulation of public opinion will prevail,” he writes. “Identifying an ‘enemy’ to lash out against appears indispensable as a way of asserting ourselves.”
This approach, the Holy Father says, erodes community and undermines the common good.
And warning against the “programmed dispersion of attention” caused by digital systems that prioritize market-driven profiling, he explains that this phenomenon fragments interests, weakens social bonds, and hampers our ability to listen and empathize. The result, he says, is a society increasingly isolated, incapable of collaborative action, and urgently in need of hope.
Hope As The Antidote
Hope, the Pope continues, referencing the Gospel message and the current Jubilee Year, is not an easy virtue but a “risk that must be taken.”
Drawing on the words of French author and WWI soldier, Georges Bernanos, who called hope “a hidden virtue, tenacious and patient,” he points out that for Christians, hope is essential and transformative.
As Pope Benedict XVI notes in his encyclical Spe Salvi
https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xv... “The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life.”
“The one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life.”
Thus, Pope Francis urges Christian communicators to “always be ready to make [their] defence to anyone who demands from [them] an accounting for the hope that is in [them]; yet do it with gentleness and reverence” (1 Pet 3:15-16).
By embodying gentleness, closeness, and respect, communication, he continues, can foster openness and friendship rather than defensiveness and anger.
Transformative Communication
“I dream of a communication capable of making us fellow travellers,” Pope Francis writes in his Message, describing an approach that walks alongside others, especially in moments of struggle.
Such communication, he adds, should focus on beauty and hope, generating empathy and commitment even in seemingly desperate situations.
“Communication should focus on beauty and hope, generating empathy and commitment even in seemingly desperate situations.”
Reiterating his belief in the need for a culture of care, the Pope calls for “stories steeped in hope” that inspire trust and solidarity.
He points to the “slender but resistant flower” of hope found in unexpected places—from parents praying for their children’s safe return from conflict zones to “the hope of those children who somehow manage to play, laugh, and believe in life even amid the debris of war and in the impoverished streets of favelas.”
Building A Culture Of Hope
In this Jubilee Year, in which we are all called to become pilgrims of hope, Pope Francis draws his message to a close by urging communicators to “spread hope, even when it is difficult.”
“The Jubilee reminds us that those who are peacemakers ‘will be called children of God’” he says, adding that “in this way it inspires hope, points us to the need for attentive, gentle, and reflective communication, capable of pointing out paths of dialogue."
Encouraging communicators to “discover and make known the many stories of goodness hidden in the folds of the news,” the Pope reiterates his call to "seek out such seeds of hope and make them known. It helps our world to be a little less deaf to the cry of the poor, a little less indifferent, a little less closed in on itself: May you always find those glimmers of goodness that inspire us to hope.”
“This kind of communication,” he concludes, “can help to build communion, to make us feel less alone, to rediscover the importance of walking together.
“This kind of communication can help to build communion, to make us feel less alone, to rediscover the importance of walking together.”
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Los Angeles Catholic reveals stories of faith and hope
Pablo Kay, the Editor-in-Chief of Angelus News in Los Angeles, describes the incredible stories of faith and hope that hint at the miraculous, while shedding light on the gravity of what he calls a 'humanitarian disaster' that has struck the Californian city and which has drawn Pope Francis' repeated attention.
By Deborah Castellano Lubov
The Editor-in-Chief of Angelus News in Los Angeles, Pablo Kay, is grateful for Pope Francis' closeness to the fire-devastated US city, and describes himself as "very fortunate."
"The fires didn't affect me or my family directly as we were at a safe distance from where the fires happened," he noted.
However, as he recounts the dramatic situation in an interview with Vatican News, as a sort of 'humanitarian disaster,' he recognizes how it has affected his work dramatically to provide around-the-clock coverage, and not only of what is going on in terms of the destruction, but also of countless stories and initiatives, especially of the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest US Archdiocese with about 300 parishes.
During this conversation, Mr. Kay demonstrates that despite the dramatic destruction, lives lost, and looming 'insurance crisis,' that he manages to maintain hope this Jubilee, especially after having seen almost-seemingly-miraculous episodes in the midst of the suffering, driven by faith and hope.
Q: Could you describe to us, being in Los Angeles, the situation? We know of the intense suffering and Pope Francis repeats that the people of Los Angeles are in his heart. What is the situation? What are the greatest challenges, and what is needed?
Well, we are a city that's suffered a lot the last few weeks. Right now, there's kind of hope in the air because there's rain on the way in a few days. It's not a ton of rain, but they say it's enough that would keep us out of fire danger for at least a couple of weeks. But the situation right now is is still one of shock. The city has been on edge, even though the two major fires are under control. Several other small ones have popped up and the conditions have not been favorable, with strong winds, very low humidity, and this ongoing lack of rain.
The biggest challenge I think right now is that it's still a humanitarian disaster in many ways, not just people who have lost their homes, but families that in some ways have been separated by these fires. Livelihoods completely lost, jobs, places of work and so forth, and the institutions that they belong to, as well, have been affected. Of course, there has been the loss of churches, of schools.
What is needed right now? I don't know where to start. I do know, even from some personal friends that have been affected by the fires that it looks like there's going to be a huge insurance crisis in which insurers, for example, are now reluctant or backing out out of the property that they insured because there has been so much that has been lost that there may not be ways for them to cover it.
So then the state has to step in with its own kind of support. But is that enough? It's just another layer of bureaucracy. So even people who you would think are financially stable, who have some sense of financial security, for example, may find themselves with a very difficult not just weeks or months, but years ahead of them.
“Even people who you would think are financially stable, who have some sense of financial security, for example, may find themselves with a very difficult not just weeks or months, but years ahead of them.”
Read the full article HERE:
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/20... ********
South Africa: The Jubilee Year will bring Catholics closer to Christ, says Archbishop Buti
Archbishop Emeritus and Apostolic Administrator of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Johannesburg, Buti Joseph Tlhagale OMI, has said the 2025 Jubilee Year is an occasion "for all Catholics to renew their faith." By Sheila Pires – Pretoria
In an interview with the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) Communications Office, Archbishop Buti said the launch of the 2025 Jubilee Year in the Archdiocese of Johannesburg on 1 February will be "an encouragement, an occasion, an event for all Catholics to renew their faith."
A Spiritual Journey Leading To Christ
The Jubilee event will be an opportunity for the Christian faithful, "To renew their way of life as Christians, to promote those virtues that have been demonstrated by Jesus Christ during his life here on earth," he said.
He went on to say that the Jubilee Year is "a spiritual journey" that will bring Catholics "closer to who Christ is." He continued, "Not only are we to know more about Christ, but we are called to to imitate his lifestyle here on Earth."
The Jubilee Year will be launched in the Archdiocese of Johannesburg at the Cathedral of Christ the King.
Enthronement of the Sacred Heart Image
Archbishop Buti also spoke about the significance of the recent enthronement of the Image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the blessing of the statue of Mary at the Mother of Mercy Shrine in Magaliesburg.
He said the celebration was "an occasion for renewing our belief, our faith, and our belief in the kindness, the mercy, and the compassion of Jesus Christ."
Over 5,000 Catholics gathered at the Marian Shrine in Magaliesburg on Saturday, 18 January, for the event.
In his homily inspired by Pope Francis' fourth encyclical on the human and divine love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ – Dilexit nos (He Loved Us, Archbishop Buti said Saturday's celebration was a "good opportunity to re-emphasise the message of the Holy Father" and encouraged all Catholics to obtain a copy of the encyclical.
The Archbishop further invited the Catholic faithful to visit the Shrine and "celebrate the mercy of the Sacred Heart of Jesus."
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Jubilee of the World of Communications: Colum McCann
The Irish author and co-founder of "Narrative 4", a global network that offers educators creative tools to teach compassion through our Story Exchange, Artists Network, Learning Resources, and Civic Engagement. By Colum McCann
A PILGRIMAGE OF REPAIR
Almost a hundred years ago, a series of letters went back and forth between Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. Einstein, the scientist, “the father of relativity,” was interested the Theory of Everything. And Freud, known as the “father of psychoanalysis,” was interested in exploring the brain and the body.
Together Einstein and Freud were the bellwether minds of their times. But a curtain of darkness had descended. Europe had emerged from one devastating war and, although the eminent scientists didn’t know it for certain, the world seemed on the cusp of another disaster. Einstein wanted to explore humanity’s “lust for hatred” and so he wrote to Freud to ask him if he thought it might be possible to “guide the psychological development of man so that it can become resistant to the psychoses of hate and destruction, thereby delivering civilisation from the menace of war?”
A big, brave question. How might we deliver civilisation from the rubble of war, and perhaps even cultivate the idea of a world peace? When Freud eventually replied, he told Einstein that, sadly, all his life he had been telling people truths that were difficult to swallow. In his opinion, there was very little likelihood of humankind being able to counteract the vast evils of war. Humanity, he said, has always had an active instinct for hatred and destruction, and it would not, in his opinion, be ever possible to eradicate it. Still, there was a crack of light. Ending war might be impossible in the absolute, but standing up against it, and fighting for peace and justice, was not impossible. “Anything,” Freud said, “anything that creates emotional ties between human beings must inevitably counteract war.” What should be sought by humanity, said Freud, was “a community of feeling,” and “a mythology of the instincts.” A community of feeling. A mythology of the instincts .... what we might simply call today... a story or a parable.
_____
We live in the most and least human of times. On the one hand, we have made spectacular leaps forward in science, medicine, art and technology. We have instant access to one another. We can recognise the textures of other lives from great distances. Our phones work. Our switches work. Our taps work. Our satellites work. Our medicines work. The machines of our lives blink on and off constantly.
Yet, on the other hand -- and at the exact same time -- we are living through an epidemic of loneliness and isolation. Often we refuse to listen to one another. Our curtains get drawn. Our windows get closed. We create divides between us. We refuse to cross the street to help one another. We remain rooted in our own narrow canals of certainty. We tumble into the anonymity of our machines. The tiny spaces that exist between one another grow wider with every tick of the clock.
The tension stretches the endpoints. It stretches … and stretches … until the snap occurs. The times break.
Almost a whole century on from Einstein and Freud, we are still asking ourselves the same questions: How do we avoid the wars that threaten to annihiliate us? How do we counteract the effects of climate change? How do we ease the great geographic pressures of migration? How can we deal with issues of identity and belonging? How can we recognise one another across the increasing divides? How can we use our undoubted brilliance – our technology, our medicine, our artificial intelligence, our faith – to communicate with one another?
If the world is built of molecules and atoms, it is also built of stories.
The least distance between any of us is not a millimetre or even a picometer … it is a story. This is how we find one another. Our lives touch. Our ideas touch. We spin off one another. We create new energy. The quarks of our experience make new building blocks. We cast a wide net of understanding. The world becomes more deeply patterned. Stories matter. They can change the course of history. They can rescue us. Stories are the glue that hold us together: we are nothing if we can’t communicate.
This is even more applicable when we get a chance to understand the stories of those who are seemingly different and distant to us. We stop. We listen. We become bigger than ourselves. The world is, in fact, made of the stories of others, even those we don’t know, and maybe in particular of those we don’t know, or don’t yet know.
Who can deny the humanity of the person when you have just heard his or her story? Who can slam a missile into a marketplace when you know the story of the woman who owns the fruit stand? Who can allow their politicians to refuse an emergency food truck into a warzone when you have heard the story of the child lying wasting away in the darkness? Who can close the border gate on the wheelchair-bound boy who is travelling for lifesaving treatment? Let us ask ourselves that question. Who? Who? Who? And then let us pause another moment to answer.
The brutal and unfortunate truth is that, in today’s world, increasing numbers of us can.
________
The crux of our contemporary dilemma is not so much silence, as it is the act of silencing. When we refuse to listen to the stories of others, or more poignantly, when we refuse to let others tell their stories at all, or yet even more poignantly still, when we annihilate the stories of others, the world becomes a spectacle of narrowness. Our refusal to step beyond ourselves, or at least those who don’t look like us, or sound like us, or vote like us, is at the core of our possible doom. This dangerous tightening has the capability to shutting us entirely down. Like an artery that becomes blocked, we cut off our life-blood. The heart surrenders. We must retreat into the jail of self. We cannot love our neighbour anymore because we have no neighbour but ourselves. And when we have no neighbour but ourselves, we have no meaning beyond the solipsistic gaze.
Read the full article HERE!:
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/... ********
Communicators Called To Be 'Tidal Wave Of Change For The Good'
On the second day of the Jubilee of Communication, Maria Ressa and Colum McCann challenge media professionals to tell stories of hope in a world marked by conflict.
By Edoardo Giribaldi and Kielce Gussie
“We live in the most and least human of times,” the Irish writer and co-founder of Narrative 4, Colum McCann argued. He pointed out how humanity has made extraordinary advances in science, technology, and medicine. Yet, he said, “we are living through an epidemic of loneliness and isolation.”
On the second day of the Jubilee of the World of Communication, McCann and Nobel Peace Prize laureate and journalist, Maria Ressa, spoke to media professionals from aorund the world in the Vatican's Paul VI Hall about their role in the world as communicators. “Imagine if we all worked together. We just might stem the tide and heal our world,” Ressa said.
Returning To The Roots Of Communication
Paolo Ruffini, Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, introduced the session, moderated by Mario Calabresi, journalist and writer. Highlighting the themes of this special Jubilee, Ruffini explained how “we need to question how to still hope in communication between people and machines, and how technology can and must be guided.”
Read the full article HERE!:
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/... ********
Pope To Catholic Communicators: 'Tell stories That Nourish Hope'
Pope Francis encourages Catholic journalists and communicators gathered in Rome for the Jubilee of the World of Communication to be courageous truth and hope-tellers in our world marred by conflicts, division and misinformation. By Lisa Zengarini
As Catholic communicators from across the world convened to Rome for the Jubilee of the World of Communication this weekend, Pope Fracis urged them to approach their work with courage, integrity, and a steadfast focus on hope, liberating “the inner strength of the heart.“ “Let your storytelling be hope-telling", the Pope said in prepared remarks he addressed on Saturday to the communicators gathered in the Paul VI Hall.
Appeal For The Release Of Detained Journalists
Pope Francis began his address by expressing his deep gratitude to them, acknowledging the many journalists who risk their lives to uncover the truth, particularly in conflict zones.
While honouring those killed, the Pope appealed for the release of those who have been imprisoned “simply for being faithful to their profession”. Noting that the freedom of journalists is essential for the freedom of all citizens he emphasized that "free, responsible, and accurate information is a treasure of knowledge, experience, and virtue that must be preserved and promoted.”
“Free, responsible, and accurate information is a treasure of knowledge, experience, and virtue that must be preserved and promoted. Without it, we risk no longer distinguishing truth from falsehood; without it, we expose ourselves to growing prejudices and polarizations that destroy the bonds of civil coexistence and prevent us from rebuilding fraternity.”
A Vocation And A Mission
Describing journalism as a vocation and a mission, Pope went on to remark that communicators have a “unique” responsibility that extends beyond the mere reporting of facts. How information is conveyed matters greatly making a difference “between a communication that rekindles hope, builds bridges, opens doors, and a communication that increases divisions, polarizations, and oversimplifications of reality.”
“A good communication, he continued, requires “study and reflection, the ability to see and listen; to stand with the marginalized, those unseen and unheard, and to rekindle—in the hearts of those who read, listen, or watch you—a sense of good and evil and a longing for the good you recount and bear witness to.”
Read the full article HERE!:
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/20... ********
Courage
Central to Pope Francis’ reflection was courage in the pursuit of truth and positive transformation. Recalling the Latin etymology of the word which is “to have heart," he reiterated the call he has repeatedly addressed to communicators in his Messages for the World Communications Days, including this year, “to listen with the heart, to speak with the heart, to guard the wisdom of the heart and to share the hope of the heart.”
Promoting Critical Thinking To Combat The "Brain Not" Caused By Social Media
Pope Francis therefore urged the audience to use this Jubilee year as an opportunity to “free the heart from what corrupts it”, using communication to inspire goodness and positive change. Addressing modern challenges like social media addiction which "rots" minds, he again advocated for media literacy and critical thinking to combat superficial consumption of information. The Pope called for collaborative efforts from media professionals, educators, and innovators to ensure communication serves the common good.
Storytelling And Hope-Telling
Drawing on the example of the Conversion of Paul, he reminded Catholic communicators of their power to ignite positive change through truthful storytelling. “Stories reveal our being part of a living fabric, the intertwining threads that connect us to one another,” he said.
“Not all stories are good, yet they must be told. Evil must be seen to be redeemed, but it must be told well, so as not to wear down the fragile threads of coexistence.”
Bringing his address to a close , Pope Francis encouraged Catholic communicators to “tell stories of hope, that nourish life": “Telling hope,” he said “means allowing people to hope against hope (…) and having a gaze that transforms things, making them what they could and should be.”
Read the full article and listen HERE!:
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/20... ********
Writing Hope: A Conversation With Phil Klay
Vatican News speaks to the American writer Phil Klay about the 2025 Jubilee Year, modern warfare, dehumanisation, faith, and what it means to communicate hope in a context of war. By Joseph Tulloch
This weekend, as part of its 2025 Jubilee Year, the Catholic Church is marking the ‘Jubilee for the World of Communicators’.
The overall theme for the Jubilee Year is 'Pilgrims in hope', and a major question on the agenda at this weekend's Communications Jubilee is what it means to communicate hope in a global context increasingly marked by violent conflict.
To explore the topic, Vatican News spoke with Phil Klay, a US Marine veteran and novelist.
The following transcript has been lightly edited for reasons of style and brevity.
Vatican News: Could you start us off by introducing yourself and the kind of things that you write?
Phil Klay: Sure. I’m Phil Klay, and I write mostly about the American military. My first book was about the Iraq War, and I've written both fiction and non-fiction about that.
Since then, I've gone on to write about other aspects of American military policy and America's presence around the world. At the same time, I am a Catholic, and that's important to me. I'm not just interested in how military policy plays out at the level of geopolitics, but I think that war is a place of extreme urgency – not just moral urgency, but also spiritual urgency. I've always been interested in looking at the spiritual crises and decisions that people make when confronted with violence.
For the Jubilee of Communicators, one particularly urgent question that we're asking is: What does it mean to try to communicate hope in what is really quite a bleak global context - a context of war?
There are always reasons for hope and always reasons for despair. There is really no time in history where you can't point to mass atrocity and horror, and in many ways we're in a better place in that regard than we were in centuries past.
But, nonetheless, there are always people encountering the extremes of suffering and evil. One of the questions for me is: what do people need at those times of extremity? Keith Nightingale, a Vietnam veteran, argued that it's not true that “there are no atheists in the foxholes”, but rather: the experience of war often forces a moment of choosing for people. People either have to decide they must believe in the God who has taken them through such terrible things, or they cannot believe in a God who would allow such things.
I’ve always found that there is a current within Catholicism that is very attuned to that – to moments of extreme pain, extreme horror, to confrontation with the universe that does not always bend itself to your prayers. I find something very beautiful and powerful about that. The Hail Holy Queen is a wonderful prayer in that regard: “To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve, to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears”. It's a devastatingly bleak prayer, and yet, at the same time, it is a prayer. It's not an act of despair. It's reaching out to the divine when you are incapable of prayers that seem to offer false comfort or false hope.
Read the full article HERE:
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/world/news/2... ********
‘Prophetesses Of Hope’: Dedication Of Religious Sisters And Power Of Communication
Religious sisters from around the world share their projects, missions, experiences, and witness at the Global Jubilee Conference with Religious Sisters, organized by the Dicastery for Communication. By Salvatore Cernuzio
The little girl in South America with her legs cut off by a train on its way through Mexico, in front of her mother. Another 8-year-old girl in the Philippines locked in the dark in a room with her aunt selling her little body online. The woman, or rather, the many women impregnated by their tormentors in Uganda, rejected by their families and trained to make weapons. The refugees, the homeless, the teenage victims of violence, the poor families, the malnourished children without education or medical care.
The splendour of the 16th-century frescoes in the Sistine Hall was not enough to soften the impact of the stories and testimonies reported by nuns from all over the world during the Global Jubilee Conference with women religious held Thursday, 23 January, in the Vatican Apostolic Library.
Communication As A Gift
The Conference, promoted by the Dicastery for Communication with the support of the Hilton Foundation (together we collaborate on the Pentecost Project) in the context of the Jubilee dedicated to communicators, was intended to be a platform and a showcase for the experiences, works, and missions of women religious from around the world, and to show how various forms of media – both old and new – are fundamental tools for these experiences, works and missions.
Thanks to social media, radios, websites or simply listening, the little South American girl was taken to a migrant reception centre, then to Tennessee, and where she lost her limbs, she regained her smile; the little Filipino girl was saved from the horrors of the web; the Ugandan women learnt to sew bags and clothes, providing for their personal needs but also for those of the village that had rejected them.
All this was thanks to communication, understood in the etymological sense: "communication as a reciprocal gift of self," as Paolo Ruffini, Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, explained in his opening greeting.
Examples Of ‘Female Genius'
Fifteen speakers (with a large female presence, 12 out of 15) gave engaging testimonies from disaster-stricken areas of Africa, Europe, or South East Asia during the event, which gave the appearance of a cross between a press conference, a training course, and a round table.
Read the full article HERE:
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city... ********
‘Communication Is A way Of Living’: Catholic Sisters Tell Their Stories
Around 80 religious sisters meet in the Vatican to share their belief that communication is not only for media professionals but for everyone, since each of us connects with others through words, gestures, and other forms of expression. By Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
Catholic sisters gathered for a Jubilee conference at the Vatican Apostolic Library on Thursday, January 23, and expressed the need for everyone to recognize that communication is a way of living and not just a specialized technique.
Sr. Polla Moggi, an Italian-born Comboni Missionary Sister, expressed her joy that sisters are enriching people by offering hope, inspiration, and support through communication.
“We see that participants are excellent communicators because they were bringing life to other people,” said Sr. Moggi, who is currently based in South Sudan and is setting up an Institute of Communication and Media at the Local Catholic University.
Speaking to Vatican News at the “Weaving Communion through Communication,” Sr. Moggi noted that communication is not just something for specialists but something everyone should take to heart.
Having received a degree from the Pontifical Salesian University, the religious sister highlighted that each person needs to discern their vocation and communicate best through their own God-given talents.
“Listening to ourselves will help us identify the talents God has given us to be more flourishing in certain areas,” said Sr. Moggi. “For those who have the vocation to serve well in the use of social media or Artificial Intelligence, this is their evangelization task. Others may be more on the listening side, on the mentorship of spiritual direction, it is all communication.”
Read the full article HERE:
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Posted By: agnes levine
Sunday, January 26th 2025 at 3:38PM
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