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Pope Francis’ address to the Dicastery for Communication
Clementine Hall – Thursday, 31 October 2024
Dear Brothers and Sisters of the Dicastery for Communication
I greet the Prefect, Dr Ruffini, and the other Executives; I greet the Cardinals and Bishops present and all of you who make up this great community of work.
In today’s liturgy we read this exhortation: ‘Stand firm, therefore: around your hips, the truth; wearing, the breastplate of righteousness; your feet, shod and ready to propagate the gospel of peace’ (Eph 6:14-15).
This could also be the identikit of the good communicator, don’t you think?
Indeed, yours is a vocation, it is a mission!
With your work and creativity, with the intelligent use of the means that technology makes available, but above all with your heart: you communicate with your heart.
You are called to a great and exciting task: that of building bridges, when so many erect walls, the walls of ideologies; that of fostering communion, when so many foment division; that of allowing yourselves to be involved in the dramas of our time, when so many prefer indifference.
This culture of indifference, this culture of ‘washing one’s hands’: ‘it’s not my turn, let them make do’. This hurts so much!
In these days of your Plenary, you have asked yourselves how to foster a communication that is ‘constitutively synodal’.
The Synod on Synodality that we have just concluded now becomes an ordinary path to follow
– a path that comes from the time when St Paul VI created the Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops -;
it becomes the style with which in the Church we live communion, a synodal style.
In every expression of our community life, we are called to reverberate that divine love that in Christ attracted and attracts us.
And this is what characterizes ecclesial belonging: if we reasoned and acted according to political, or corporatist categories, we would not be Church.
This is wrong!
If we applied worldly criteria or reduced our structures to bureaucracy, we would not be Church.
Being Church means living in the awareness that the Lord loves us first, calls us first, forgives us first (Rom 5:8 – God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.).
And we are witnesses of this infinite mercy, which has been freely poured out upon us, changing our lives.
Now you might ask me: but what does this have to do with our work as communicators, as journalists?
It has to do with it, and a lot!
Precisely as communicators, in fact, you are called to weave ecclesial communion with truth around your hips, with justice as your armor, with your feet shod and ready to propagate the Gospel of peace. Let me tell you my dream.
I dream of communication that can connect people and cultures.
I dream of a communication capable of telling and enhancing stories and testimonies that happen in every corner of the world, putting them into circulation and offering them to all.
This is why I am happy to know that – despite the economic difficulties and the need to reduce expenses, I will speak about this later – you have made an effort to increase the offer of the more than fifty languages with which the Vatican media communicate, adding the Lingala, Mongolian and Kannada languages.
I dream of communication from heart to heart, letting ourselves be touched by what is human, letting ourselves be hurt by the dramas that so many of our brothers and sisters live.
That is why I invite you to go out more, to dare more, to risk more, not to spread your ideas, but to tell reality with honesty and passion.
I dream of a communication that knows how to go beyond slogans and keep the spotlight on the poor, the last, the migrants, the victims of war.
A communication that promotes inclusion, dialogue, the search for peace.
How urgent it is to give space to peacemakers!
Do not tire of telling their testimonies, in every part of the world.
I dream of a communication that educates people to renounce themselves a little in order to make room for the other;
(I dream of) a communication that is passionate, curious, competent,
(I dream of a communication) that knows how to immerse itself in reality in order to be able to tell it.
It does us good to listen to stories with an evangelical flavor, which today, as two thousand years ago, tell us about God as Jesus, his Son, revealed him to the world.
Brothers and sisters, do not be afraid to get involved, to change, to learn new languages, to tread new paths, to inhabit the digital environment.
Always do this without allowing yourselves to be absorbed by the tools you use, without making the tool become a ‘message’, without trivialising, without ‘substituting’ real, concrete, person-to-person human relationships in the online encounter.
The Gospel is a story of encounters, of gestures, of glances, of dialogues in the street and at the table.
I dream of a communication that knows how to witness today the beauty of the encounters with the Samaritan woman, with Nicodemus, with the adulteress, with blind Bartimaeus…
Jesus, as I wrote in the new Encyclical Dilexit nos (translated He loves us), ‘pays all his attention to people, to their concerns, to their sufferings’ Dilexit nos. 40).
We, communicators, are called to do the same, because by encountering love, the love of Jesus, ‘we become capable of weaving fraternal bonds, of recognising the dignity of every human being and of caring for our common home together’ (Dilexit nos 217)
Help me, please, to make the Heart of Jesus known to the world, through compassion for this wounded land.
Help me, with communication, to ensure that the world, ‘surviving amidst wars, socio-economic imbalances, consumerism and the anti-human use of technology, can recover what is most important and necessary: the heart’ (Dilexit nos, 31).
Help me with communication that is a tool for communion.
Despite the fact that the world is shaken by terrible violence, we Christians know how to look at the many flames of hope, the many small and great stories of good.
We are certain that evil will not win, because it is God who guides history and saves our lives.
I would also like to mention Mrs Gloria Fontana [applause]. Today is your last day at work, I hope they give you a party! After 48 years of service: she came in on her First Communion day, I think.
“You have done a great service in concealment, dedicating yourself to transcribing the Pope’s speeches”.
And I would like to tell you something: we will have to be a bit more disciplined about money.
You must find a way to save more and look for other funds, because the Holy See cannot continue to help you as now.
I know this is bad news, but it is also good news because it moves the creativity of all of you.
The Jubilee, which we will begin in a few weeks, is a great opportunity to witness our faith and our hope to the world.
I thank you in advance for everything you will do, for the commitment of the Dicastery in helping both the pilgrims who will come to Rome and those who will not be able to travel, but thanks to the Vatican media will be able to follow the Jubilee celebrations feeling united with us.
Thank you, thank you very much!
I heartily bless you all and your work. And please do not forget to pray for me. Thank you!
End of Pope Francis’ address to the Dicastery for Communication
Scriptural Footnotes:
1. Jesus with The Samaritan woman (John 4:1-42) Jesus came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and so Jesus, wearied as he was with his journey, sat down beside the well.
It was about the sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water.
Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”
For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband; this you said truly.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.”
Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things.” 26. Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
27 Just then his disciples came. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but none said, “What do you wish?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28
So the woman left her water jar, and went away into the city, and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” They went out of the city and were coming to him.31 Meanwhile the disciples besought him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32
But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” 33
So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him food?” 34
Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’?
I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest.
He who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor; others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” . . .
Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42
They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”
Footnote 2.
A. Nicodemus came to Jesus by night (John 3:1:21)
Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
This man came to Jesusby night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.[c] Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew.’ The windblows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can this be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand this? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen; but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
B. Officers Are Sent to Arrest Jesus. – There was division amongst them (John 7:43-53)
There was a division among the people over him. 44 Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him. The officers then went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why did you not bring him?” The officers answered, “No man ever spoke like this man!” The Pharisees answered them, “Are you led astray, you also? Have any of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him? 49 But this crowd, who do not know the law, are accursed.” Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and you will see that no prophet is to rise from Galilee.” 53 They went each to his own house,
C. The Burial of Jesus (John 19:38-40)
After this Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him leave. So he came and took away his body.
Nicodemus also, who had at first come to him by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds’ weight. 40 They took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.
Footnote 3. Jesus with the adulteress – John 8:3-22
Early in the morning Jesus came again to the temple; all the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and placing her in the midst. They said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?” 6
This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.
Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7
And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8And once more he bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 9
But when they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10
Jesus looked up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11
She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again.”[a][b]
Footnote 4. Jesus with blind Bartimaeus. Mark 10:46 -52
And they came to Jericho; and as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great multitude, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent; but he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; rise, he is calling you.” And throwing off his mantle he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to him, “Master, let me receive my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.
