In her presentation titled “Speaking with the Heart: Pastoral Insights for National Communication Offices in the Digital Era”, the Mozambican-born FSP member challenged Catholic institutions to prioritize the creation of content for their respective media platforms, and their regular updating.
“It is only content that will push the people to suggest the platform to others,” she said on August 29, the second day of the workshop organized under the theme, “Communicating the Faith with Joy”.
In her presentation to the Catholic communicators drawn from IMBISA’s nine-member countries that include Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, São Tomé and Príncipe, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, Sr. Massango emphasized the need to remain “faithful” to the teaching of the Church.
“Our social media presence usually focuses on spreading information and along these lines presenting ideas, teachings, thoughts, spiritual reflections and the likes on social media,” she said, adding that Catholic communicators engaging digital platforms “need to be faithful to the Christian tradition.”
The Nairobi-based FSP member went on to caution Catholic communicators from the IMBISA region against the dangers of social media.
She said, “Social Media's constant demand for people’s attention is similar to the process through which any temptation enters into the human heart and draws our attention away from the only one that is really meaningful and life-giving, that is the word of God.”
“Attention itself has become the most vulnerable asset and commodity,” Sr. Massango said, and added, “Along the digital highways, many people are hurt by divisions and hatred.”
She emphasized the need for Catholic communicators to pay attention to the needs of others, saying, “A good communicator, so that he may include everyone, starts his planning from the needs asking himself, how can I answer the needs of this most neglected person?”
“In that way, you can reach all because even the most neglected person can bring a lot of richness and contribution towards communion in their own way,” the FSP member said during the workshop that Bishop José Luis Gerardo Ponce de León, the Liaison Bishop for Communications at IMBISA, opened with the Holy Mass on August 29.
ACI Africa was founded in 2019. We provide free, up-to-the-minute news affecting the Catholic Church in Africa, giving particular emphasis to the words of the Holy Father and happenings of the Holy See, to any person with access to the internet. ACI Africa is proud to offer free access to its news items to Catholic dioceses, parishes, and websites, in order to increase awareness of the activities of the universal Church and to foster a sense of Catholic thought and culture in the life of every Catholic.
