February 2, 2025 // National
Catholic Communication Must Engage with the World, Pope Says
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Church communications cannot exist in an “enclosure” in which Catholics merely talk among themselves and do not engage with the outside world, Pope Francis said.
“Catholic communication is the open space of a witness that knows how to listen and intercept the signs of the Kingdom,” the pope said on Monday, January 27, during a meeting with the presidents of bishops’ communications committees and the directors of communications for bishops’ conferences.
The true power of communications, he said, lies in building connections and crafting “narratives of our hope,” rather than focusing on “self-promotion” or “the
celebration of our own initiatives.”
“Our network is the voice of a Church that only by coming out of itself finds itself and the reasons for its hope,” Pope Francis said. “The Church must come out of itself.”

Pilgrims make their way through St. Peter’s Square toward the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica during the Jubilee of the World of Communications at the Vatican Jan. 25, 2025. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)
The gathering followed a weekend of events for the Jubilee of the World of Communications, which included an audience with Pope Francis and a papal Mass on the Sunday of the Word of God.
Meeting the officials of the bishops’ conferences, the pope said that Christian communication “conveys harmony” and should offer an alternative to the disorder of modern communication, which he likened to “new towers of Babel” where “everyone is talking, and they don’t understand each other.”
Pope Francis urged Christians to develop “a different model of communication, different in spirit, different in creativity, in the poetic power that comes from the Gospel and which is inexhaustible.”
“Every Christian is called to see and tell the stories of good that bad journalism claims to erase by giving space only to evil,” he said, urging communicators not to hide or deny evil but involve all people and forms of communication to ensure problems spark dialogue and a search for solutions.
The Holy Year, he said, is a good time for Church communicators to make an “examination of conscience.”
“Let us ask ourselves then: How do we sow hope in the midst of so much despair that touches and challenges us? How do we cure the virus of division, which also threatens our communities? Is our communication accompanied by prayer? Or do we end up communicating the Church by adopting only the rules of corporate marketing? We need to ask ourselves all these questions,” he said.
“Communicating, for us, is not a tactic, not a technique. It is not repeating catchphrases or slogans, nor is it merely writing press releases,” he said. “Communicating is an act of love,” which involves engaging all people and sowing hope among them.
Drawing on the biblical image of fishing nets, Pope Francis highlighted the need for communicators to create networks of solidarity, likening their work to that of fishermen who cast their nets for the good of all.
To create a net is to “network skills, knowledge and contri-butions so that we can inform properly and thus all be rescued from the sea of despair and misinformation,” the pope said.
That objective can be advanced through new digital tools, such as artificial intelligence, “if instead of turning technology into an idol we were to put more effort into creating networks.”
“Only together can we communicate the beauty we have encountered: not because we are skilled, not because we have more resources, but because we love one another,” he said.
At a news conference marking the beginning of the three-day Jubilee of the World of Communications, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the chief Vatican organizer of the Holy Year 2025, said the hope and grace that come from taking part in a Jubilee celebration is not a personal privilege but must be communicated and shared with others.
“This is why the first big event (after the beginning of the Holy Year) is with the world of communications,” he told reporters during a briefing marking the beginning of the three-day Jubilee of the World of Communications.
If people are able to experience the jubilee and its events firsthand, “well, then they are also able to recount it, to share, to talk about it with others. This is what we are hoping for,” he said on Friday, January 24, the feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists.
About 10,000 people from 138 countries signed up to take part in the events January 24-26 in Rome for the special jubilee for writers, communicators, and those working in media.
Maria Ressa, a Filipino and U.S. journalist, told reporters that a jubilee, which is only celebrated once every 25 years, is “so extremely needed in our world today.”
“It feels like the right time to come together and go back to our values, a period of grace, remember the good, and then gain strength and courage and hope from that. That’s why I’m here,” said Ressa, who was awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with a Russian journalist for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression.
When asked how journalists are supposed to be better at telling stories of hope without ignoring important news, too, the archbishop said, “even bad news must be full of hope, otherwise we fall into desperation.”
For a person of faith, he said, everything is filled with hope, beginning with waking up in the morning, “the first thing that accompanies us is hope.”
The Diocese of Rome offered journalists an evening penitential liturgy on January 24 in the Basilica of St. John Lateran. Archbishop Fisichella said the communicators were to be the only large jubilee group to be offered the special liturgy, which featured more than 60 stations available for confession.
Comboni Father Giulio Albanese, an Italian journalist, offered a brief reflection, highlighting the importance of true conversion. The risk Catholic communicators face, he said, is “to betray God’s dictates, miserably becoming, it should be said, mercenaries of the words of others.”
For one’s love for God to be authentic, it must translate into love for others, he said.
“Let us ask ourselves whether our way of communicating … expresses God’s love or whether it sometimes reflects mindsets that are spurious, mercantile, worldly, offensive, indeed, against God and against the human person,” he said.
– Justin McClellan contributed to this article.
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