For a media literacy educator who tries to help Catholics integrate their faith and values into their interactions with media, the World Communications Day messages from the Popes have always been a wealth of great insight and helpful quotes.
There is something amazing about the messages for Communications Day that have come from Pope Francis. Instead of looking at “communication” from the perspective of “social communication” i.e., media and media technologies, Pope Francis’ messages have come from a much more fundamental place: looking at the act of communication itself, what that means for the human person, and how we encounter each other.
The titles of the WCD messages from 2022, 2023, and 2024 all have one word in common: heart. In these messages, the Pope uses the understanding of the heart as the core of a human being, what makes us human and where we find our most authentic selves. If we listen, speak, and seek wisdom from our hearts, then we’re already on the road to an open, respectful communication that builds communion among peoples. That’s a message that our society needs desperately to hear, and the Pope keeps putting it out there.
Here’s one of my favorite quotes from Pope Francis’ World Communications Day messages (although I could pull a couple from every message!):
“In order to overcome prejudices about migrants and to melt the hardness of our hearts, we should try to listen to their stories. Give each of them a name and a story. Many good journalists already do this. And many others would like to do it, if only they could. Let us encourage them! Let us listen to these stories! … But in any case, we would have before our eyes not numbers, not dangerous invaders, but the faces and stories, gazes, expectations and sufferings of real men and women to listen to” (2022 World Communications Day Message: Listening with the Ear of the Heart).
The Holy Father uses migrants as an example, but I think this applies to any one person or group of people. If we meet people who we might consider “enemies” in any sense of the word, stopping and listening to their stories helps us to see them, not strictly as enemies but as people just like us with hopes, joys, and sufferings just like our own. If we can help our society stop seeing others as the “enemy” or the “stranger,” we could make great strides in becoming a more just and compassionate people. This is what true communication brings about if we open our hearts, as Pope Francis reiterates over and over again. This is the communication that brings us closer to each other and to Jesus Christ, the perfect communicator.
Image Credit: Image by Annett_Klingner from Pixabay