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Catholic Communicators “must” Align with the Truth, Bishop in Angola Says, Advocates for Constructive Journalism

Bishop Maurício Agostinho Camuto of the Catholic Diocese of Caxito in Angola. Credit: ACI Africa

Catholic communicators and media practitioners have the duty to seek the Truth in their effort to gather and distribute information, the Local Ordinary of Angola’s Catholic Diocese of Caxito has said.

In an interview with ACI Africa in Rome, Bishop Maurício Agostinho Camuto weighed in on the inaugural set of activities to mark the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year at the Vatican, the jubilee of the world of communications.

“The greatest communicator was Jesus Himself; he was the greatest communicator,” Bishop Camuto said, adding that Christians, as His followers, become communicators after His example. 

According to the Angolan member of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit (CSSp./Holy Ghost Fathers/Spiritans), Catholic communicators “must” align their gathering and distribution of information with Jesus Christ, who identified Himself as the way, the truth, and the life.

“What must guide the communication is the Truth,” Bishop Camuto emphasized during the January 26 interview in Rome.

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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.

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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.

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“At home, in my Diocese, I am always worried about this,” the Local Ordinary of Caxito Diocese since Episcopal Consecration in August 2020 said, referring to the challenge of sustaining evangelization through the means of communication.

“The problem is that we do not have a lot of money; we do not have a lot of resources,” he said about the Diocesan Radio station, adding that he has solicited funds from donations.

“We make appeals for donations. Yes, there are people who contribute; there are people who donate, but we need even more. We need even more because we also need to think about the remuneration of the journalists,” the Angolan Spiritan Bishop said. 

In the January 26 interview, Bishop Camuto weighed in on the assertion that Africa is the hope of Catholicism.

“I think it is God Himself who guides the history of humankind, the history of the Church and the history of evangelization. Previously, the West provided missionaries, who came to Africa to evangelize. Today, we see that the Westerners have abandoned their faith,” he said.

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The Angolan Spiritan Bishop expressed the hope that the West will have the humility to accept natives of Africa in their midst as evangelizers. “Today, surely they must open the doors of their churches so that Africans come to evangelize them,” Bishop Camuto told ACI Africa during the January 26 interview.

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.