For Communications Day, B16 Seeks "Silence" First

Keeping with Vatican custom on this feast of Christianity's first great communicators -- the Archangels -- this morning the Holy See announced B16's choice of theme for the global church's next World Communications Day....

And the winner is: "Silence and Word: path of evangelization."

Traditionally marked on the Seventh Sunday of Easter -- which, fittingly, is now observed as Ascension Day in most of the Catholic world -- the annual papal message for the next WCD will, again per custom, be released on the feast of the patron of journalists, St Francis de Sales, 24 January.

Here, an English translation of this morning's Vatican announcement:

The extraordinarily varied nature of the contribution of modern communications to society highlights the need for a value which, on first consideration, might seem to stand in contra-distinction to it. Silence, in fact, is the central theme for the next World Communications Day Message: Silence and Word: path of evangelization.

In the thought of Pope Benedict XVI, silence is not presented simply as an antidote to the constant and unstoppable flow of information that characterizes society today but rather as a factor that is necessary for its integration. Silence, precisely because it favors habits of discernment and reflection, can in fact be seen primarily as a means of welcoming the word. We ought not to think in terms of a dualism, but of the complementary nature of two elements which when they are held in balance serve to enrich the value of communication and which make it a key factor that can serve the new evangelization.

It is clearly the desire of the Holy Father to associate the theme of the next World Communications Day with the celebration of the forthcoming Synod of Bishops [in October 2012] which will have as its own theme: The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith.

World Communications Day is the only worldwide celebration called for by the Second Vatican Council (Inter Mirifica, 1963).

In layman's terms, meanwhile, it seems the next WCD theme can fittingly be seemingly be summed up in the words of a longtime house favorite....


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