The Vatican Television Center “contributes to bringing the Church closer to the world, bridging distances, taking the word of God to millions of Catholics, even to places where often professing one’s faith is a courageous choice.” These were the words of Pope Francis in a message commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the Vatican Television Center (CTV).
The message, which was sent to CTV director, Msgr. Dario Edoardo Vigano, was read at conference celebrating the founding of the television center. The Holy Father stated that the anniversary date also coincides with another important date: the 50th anniversary of the Conciliar decree “Inter Mirifica”. The decree, he noted, “numbers among the marvellous gifts of God the tools of social communication including, indeed, television”.
“During these decades technology has advanced at great speed, creating unexpected and interconnected networks. It is necessary to maintain the evangelical perspective in this type of ‘global communication highway’ in presenting events, your approach must be not worldly, but ecclesial”.
Recalling his meeting with journalists shortly after his election, the Holy Father wrote that the media’s role has grown significant in transmitting historical events to the world.
“All this is also reflected in the life of the Church. But if it is not easy to narrate the events of history, it is even more complex to report the events linked to the Church,” the Pope said.
“This requires a special responsibility, a great capacity for interpreting reality in a spiritual light. Effectively, the events in the life of the Church have a special character: they are governed by a logic that is not primarily that of, so to say, ‘worldly’ categories, and precisely for this reason it is not easy to interpret and communicate them to a broad and varied public.”
Pope Francis went on to write that CTV does not fulfill a documentary function in relating events, but as a means of bringing the Church closer to the world, “even to places where often professing one’s faith is a courageous choice.”
“Thanks to the images [it transmits], CTV walks alongside the Pope in bringing Christ to the many forms of solitude of contemporary man, even reaching sophisticated technological peripheries,” he said. “In this, your mission, it is important to remember that the Church is present in the world of communication, in all its varied expressions, first and foremost to lead people to the encounter with Jesus Christ”.
