When a Catholic communicator is guided by the Truth, he explained, “what he announces in his message becomes something good for the people. Communication has this very important characteristic, and communicators must pay attention to this.”
When communication is aligned with the Truth, Bishop Camuto emphasized, the communicator becomes a bearer of “joy, peace; (he) can help people to get out of poverty, to get out of misery. This is the importance of communication.”
“Today, information must help society to develop; it must help people to get out of bad living conditions. This is why communication is very important and good in a country, in a society,” he said.
A representative cross section of Catholic communicators, journalists and media professionals is gathering in Rome for multiple conferences organized in the context of the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year.
The conferences included the January 22-24 biennial professional seminar for Church communication offices that the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome organized in collaboration with the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), the January 22-23 Global jubilee conference with Religious Sisters, and the January 24-26 jubilee of the world of communications.
Participants in the international Conference for Catholic Institutional Communicators, who include Presidents of Episcopal Communication Commissions and Directors of National Communication Offices in Catholic Bishops’ Conferences met from January 27-29 in closed-door sessions.
In an interview with ACI Africa on the sidelines of the professional seminar for Church communication offices, Fr. Joel Nkongolo of the Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (CMF), who coordinates communication in his Religious Order from Rome challenged Africa’s Catholic Church leaders to grow the digital evangelization budget.
Catholic Bishops in Africa and those at the helm of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (ICLSAL) on the continent, Fr. Nkongolo said, “must know” that digital media offer opportunities to reach a significant congregation “today and that they cannot be overlooked or undermined.”
In the January 26 interview with ACI Africa in Rome, Bishop Camuto recognized the need for Catholic Church leaders in Africa to invest in digital evangelization.
He acknowledged gaps in the efforts on the part of the Church in Angola to evangelize through the means of communication, including infrastructural limitations and limited budget lines posing a challenge in sustaining Catholic Church media personnel.