Rome (Italy). On 24 September 2024, the Vatican Press Office announced the theme chosen by Pope Francis for the 59th World Communications Day (WMDC) to be celebrated in 2025:
Share with meekness the hope that is in your hearts (cf. 1Pt 3:15-16)
Meekness is the communicative style at the center of the theme, in a time when “too often communication is violent, aimed at hitting and not to establish the preconditions for dialogue.” The press office note continues, specifying today’s urgency, “It is therefore necessary to disarm communication, purify it from aggressiveness. From television talk shows to verbal wars on social media, the paradigm that is likely to prevail is that of competition, opposition, and the will to dominate.”
The biblical reference is to the First Letter of Peter, which aims to strengthen the faith in Christians during persecutions, when it is not easy to keep firm and consistent and one is rather tempted to answer with the same coin. “Be always ready to give an account of the hope that is in you… But do it with gentleness and respect” is then the invitation of the author.
Hope is the thread running through the Letter of Peter and, in the Jubilee year that is about to open, with the motto “Pilgrims of hope”, it could not but be also the main object of the Message of Communication, “For us Christians hope is a person and it is Christ,” the note specifies.
A hope that should not be intimist, but shared. For this reason, it “is always linked to a community project. When we talk about Christian hope, we cannot ignore a community that lives the message of Jesus in such a credible way as to make visible the hope it brings with it, and is able to communicate the hope of Christ today with deeds and words.”
The call to the heart marks then continuity with the messages of previous years. Pope Francis defines it in his Message 2024: “The heart, understood biblically as the seat of freedom and of life’s most important decisions, is a symbol of integrity, of unity, but also evokes affections, desires, dreams, and is above all, an interior place of encounter with God.”
And it is always the heart – that has moved to go and see (2021), listen (2022), talk (2023), communicate with humanity (2024), and now share – “that moves us to an open and welcoming communication” (Message 2023), which the world today needs so much.
Messages of Pope Francis for the World Social Communications Days
