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PDF versionA six-point program for church communications
by John L Allen Jr on Sep. 10, 2009
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
São Paulo, Brazil
Archbishop Raymundo Damasceno leads the Aparecida archdiocese in Brazil, home to the famed Our Lady of Aparecida sanctuary visited by Pope Benedict XVI in May 2007. A former secretary general of the Brazilian bishops’ conference, he is now the President of the Latin American Episcopal Council, or CELAM, which opened its fifth General Conference in Aparecida with the papal visit.
All this makes Damasceno a fairly big deal in Latin American Catholicism, even if in person he’s actually fairly short and unassuming.
Damasceno, 72, spoke today at a seminar on church communications in São Paulo. He ticked off a six-point program for communications which, he said, a Colombian journalist had once offered to CELAM:
1. Overcome the idea that the means of communications are themselves communication. In other words, building TV networks, radio stations, and web sites is all well and good, but if you don’t have something compelling to say, building new and better ways to say it won’t accomplish much.
2. Stop thinking that modern means of communication are “secular.” (Damasceno actually used the term “profane,” but he meant it in the literal sense of being outside the temple.) In other words, TV, the Internet, etc., are not somehow alien to the church. Instead, Damasceno said, quoting the Colombian journalist, they are neutral, and everything depends on how they’re used.
3. Understand that communications and preaching are not the same thing. Preaching is one form of communication, but there also has to be space for providing basic information and responding to questions in a fashion distinct from catechesis or moral exhortation.
4. Understand that every pastoral act is a form of communication. The church is always communicating something about itself to the outside world, even at the level of how people are treated when they have contact with the church.
5. Accept that effective communication happens between equals. Just as Christ emptied himself to become human, Damasceno said, the church must not presume an attitude of superiority when it’s trying to communicate with the world.
6. Realize that communications is not the same thing as PR. Ultimately, Damasceno said, the point is not just to project a better image of the church, but rather to share something of Christian life and to help people see their lives and the world from within a Christian frame of reference.
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Addressing an audience largely composed of people who handle communications for dioceses, religious orders, and other Catholic groups, Damasceno said what the church needs is an approach that’s “clear, informative, consistent and ethical.”
“We must not simply speak in the name of the Lord,” Damasceno said. “We must also act like the Lord.”
During a brief Q&A session, a Venezuelan asked Damasceno about how to handle church communications in an atmosphere like that in her country, where church/state tensions encourage journalists to highlight conflicts between bishops and the government of Hugo Chavez. (She said Venezuelan newspapers love to write stories suggesting that Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino of Caracas wants the government to fall, even if he hasn’t actually said that.)
The risk, she said, is that people come to see the church more as a political pressure group than as a primarily spiritual presence in society.
“Venezuela is living through a very particular situation right now,” Damasceno said. “In that situation, it’s important that we make our identity clear … we can’t reduce our message solely to political themes.”
In part, Damasceno said, the problem may be that church leaders still need to assimilate the teaching that it’s the laity, not the hierarchy, who should take the lead role in political life. In part, too, Damasceno said, sometimes journalists like to ask bishops political questions hoping precisely to keep church/state tensions boiling, because it’s a good way to sell papers.
In the end, he said, “the church cannot forget to announce its full social message.”
Let me know when this bishop
Let me know when this bishop gives the same presentation here in the United States. I'd like to nominate the editor of THE RECORD, the newspaper of the Louisville archdiocese, to attend. Hell, I'd like to nominate his boss, the AB, to attend, as well.
They might not apply anything learned, but they won't be able to plead ignorance on the important suggestions shared with listeners in Brazil.
(Of course, learning is one thing, and application is another matter altogether. I'm not at all convinced these two guys would apply Damasceno's lessons. Some might argue that sending them to this presentation would be a waste of money, but --- hey --- at least they'd be spending people's money for necessary training rather than shelling out millions of dollars in sexual abuse settlements brought about by a clerical culture that Pope Benedict is determined to continue.)
Every now and then, wisdom rears its head in the Church of Rome. I don't see Bishop Damasceno getting a pallium or red hat anytime soon.
Nonetheless, good advice, Bishop!
God Bless the work of
God Bless the work of Archbishop Damasceno
Thanks for posting this piece
Thanks for posting this piece on communications.
Regarding point 2 and the neutrality of the means of communication. I used to think this as well, but seeing the processes of production, use of natural resources, underpaid labor, and the economic advantage of consumers over the underpaid, unprotected workers who either produce, assemble, or take apart televions, iPods, computers, cell phones, DVD's CD's, video game devices when consumers are done with them, it is not possible to say that the intruments are "neutral" either in the material world, the world of ideas, or human reality. Ever.
By the very act of possessing these instruments as consumers, content producers, and so forth, we are communicating that we have the wealth and leisure to buy and use them - and others do not. This creates a situation of those with voices and those without. To possess the means is a "message" of power.
Overall, the Archbishop made some good points. But he missed a chance to address the issue of story-telling in and by the Church as well as entertainment in the world at large. This is probably because the Church does not do leisure well - and I daresay there is a lack of integration between information and entertainment by Church members, leaders and all others. Once again, communication is seen as the transmission of information. It would benefit us all to consider "communication" in all its dimensions - information and entertainment - if we wish to engage in the modern world in meaningful ways.
Communication is culture. How we communicate is what we communicate.
Point number seven: Get real.
Point number seven: Get real.
Cardinal Christop Schoenborn
Cardinal Christop Schoenborn practises what Archbishop Raymundo Damasceno preaches. Vienna's "Stadthalle" may be compared to San Francisco's Mosconi Centetr, Right before visiting John L. Allen Jr, column on CRonline I happenend to read archbishop's weekly column in Heute, the German word for today. Imperial Austrian capiatal huge Gothic Cathedral can't accomodate tha crowds a Marian celevration on the feast of Our Ladyy"s name draws. "Stadthalle becomes a C athedra;' reads the Cardinals title.
As the Notre Dame controversy tore the United States apart of Prof. Ratzinger gifted student choose the conciliatory title "don't condem! Help!" for his weekly column.
Archbisop Damasceno can't be much shorter then the Napoleon du jour. Tg
hough unfamiliar with Brzil I admire his bottom line: "the church cannot forget to announce its full social message. Amen: That's the way to go.
Pray tell me how to correct
Pray tell me how to correct Cardinal Schoenborn's first name, Pushing 79 I make unfortunately more mistakes and typos than I used to make. Alas, the preview function doesn't let me remedy them. To make matters worse I couldn't return my blog from preview nimbo to where it belongs. Nevertheless the Archbishop of Aparecida Raymundo Damasceno is right: "The Church cannot forget to announce its full social message."
Kindly consider the headline Vienna's Archbishop Cardinal Christof Graf Schoenborn chose for his 4.9.09 HEUTE column. DON'T CONDEMN! HELP!"
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