Rome (Italy). From 24 to 26 January 2025, the Jubilee of the World of Communication was held in Rome, the first of the great events of the Holy Year dedicated to the different categories of people who will come on pilgrimage to Rome.
The event was preceded – on 22 and 23 January – by the Global Jubilee Conference with religious women: “Weave communion through communication”, organized by the Vatican Dicastery for Communication under the patronage of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. It was attended by Sister Ausilia De Siena, General Advisor for Communication of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, with the Sector collaborators.
The aim of the conference was to bring together religious from all over the world and from different Congregations working in communication, to offer new ideas, to deepen themes, and share experiences and approaches to communicate hope more effectively in the contemporary media environment.
The first day was dedicated to guided tours of Palazzo Pio, the headquarters of the Vatican Media, the Historical Museum of Vatican Radio, inside the Vatican Gardens, the Basilica of Saint Peter, and the Vatican Museums, with the Sistine Chapel, through which the extraordinary human potential – in different technical, architectural, and artistic forms – to transmit beauty, the yearning for the divine, and messages of hope and closeness to people were contemplated.
In the splendid setting of the Vatican Apostolic Library, the second day was introduced by the Prefect of the Dicastery, Dr. Paolo Ruffini, who invited us to take this time to “build together hope” and “find new ways of bringing life” by incarnating the Spirit of Pentecost, “to weave the warp of communication that unites us. Our communication works if it is interwoven.”
There were then several testimonies and in-depth sessions, the first of which – “Sisters who communicate communion with the marginalized” – moderated by Sister Alessandra Smerilli, FMA, Secretary of the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development. Through experiences from the professional and religious world of guests from all over the world, they then talked about synodality, storytelling, and participated narrations, communication through “traditional media” and social media and, with Father Paolo Benanti, Franciscan, expert in bioethics and ethics of technologies, artificial intelligence. (To learn more: Vatican News)
The two days, which ended with enriching sharing among the participants, prepared the ground for living even more intensely the great jubilee event, officially started on January 24 in the Basilica of St. John in Lateran with the penitential celebration led by Father Giulio Albanese, Director of the Office for Social Communications of the Vicariate of Rome, and the International Holy Mass on the liturgical memory of Saint Francis de Sales, patron of journalists and media workers, presided by Cardinal Baldo Reina, Vicar of the Pope for the Diocese of Rome. In his homily, the Cardinal called for “being communicators of hope, to disarm communication” following the example of Jesus. For the occasion, a precious relic of the heart of the Saint of Annecy was exhibited, exceptionally brought from the Monastery of the Visitation in Treviso, where it is kept since 1913.
The morning of 25 January began early, with a pilgrimage by language groups to the Holy Door of Saint Peter’s. Hundreds of journalists, editors, media workers, priests, and members of the Communication Offices, religious women, communicators, set out with great recollection along the Via of the Reconciliation. They followed the Cross in this first Jubilee gesture that, beyond any professionalism and belonging, leads to crossing the Door that is Christ, heart of communication and source of hope, in order to be able to communicate it to the world with renewed trust.
The pilgrim communicators gradually filled Paul VI Hall in the Vatican, to participate in the dialogue moderated by the Italian journalist Mario Calabresi, with Maria Ressa, a Filipino journalist, Nobel Peace Prize 2021 and director of the Rappler platform, and Colum McCann, Irish writer and co-founder of the network Narratives 4, an organization that educates to empathy with storytelling.
“We are here to question how – and if – it is still possible to communicate hope in a world in crisis, in a world at war. How to hope for communication between people and not machines; how technology can – and must be – guided, guaranteed freedom, and shared knowledge; on how difficult the search for truth is and how easy it is to spread falsehoods; how important dialogue is and how powerful it can be to share our stories; how the stories change each other; how communication can be the glue or poison of our communities and of all humanity. These are issues that challenge our personal and collective responsibility.”
These are the words with which the Prefect, Paolo Ruffini, introduced the debate, in which the guests, starting from their concrete experiences, even dramatic ones, proposed concrete ways of hope towards change, to be implemented communally.
A brief concert by the great Maestro Uto Ughi, with violin, accompanied by his orchestra, prepared for the arrival of Pope Francis who, in words spoken extemporaneously, said: “To communicate is getting a bit out of oneself, talking to another. And communication is not only going out, but also meeting with the another. To know how to communicate is great wisdom.”
In his Discourse, given by the Prefect, he then reiterated the appeal to communicators around the world: “Tell stories of hope, stories that nourish life. Your storytelling is also hopetelling. When you tell about evil, leave room for the possibility of resewing what is torn, for the dynamism of good that can repair what is broken. Sow questions. Recounting hope means seeing the crumbs of good hidden even when everything seems lost; it means allowing to hope against all hope. It means to notice the sprouts that appear while the earth is still covered by ashes. Recounting hope means having a gaze on what transforms things, makes them become what they could be, what they should be. It means making things move towards their destiny.”
In the afternoon, journalists and communicators were distributed in different locations for the “Dialogues with the city”: meetings of a cultural and spiritual nature in which to deepen the topics and dialogue with some witnesses.
The Jubilee concludede on 26 January with the participation of 40 new Readers at the Mass in St Peter’s Basilica, presided by the Pope, on the Sunday of the Word of God. After the Angelus, the Pope greeted journalists and communication workers, urging them “to always be narrators of hope”.
For the General Councilor, Sister Ausilia De Siena, the work continued with the Global Conference of Catholic Institutional Communicators – from 27 to 29 January at the Pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome – organized by the Dicastery for Communication of the Holy See, in collaboration with the Dicastery for Evangelization, together with 200 participants, including Bishops, Presidents of the Episcopal Commissions of Communication, Directors of Communications Offices, representatives of religious Congregations, and leaders of Catholic communication agencies from around the world. (News InfoANS)
On 27 January at the Audience at the Apostolic Palace, Pope Francis left them with especially the words, “together” and “network” and encouraged them thus:
“Sisters, brothers, the challenge is great. I encourage you to strengthen synergy among yourselves at the continental and universal levels. Build a different model of communication, different in spirit for its creativity and for its poetic strength that comes from the Gospel and is inexhaustible. Communicating is always original. When we communicate, we are creators of languages, of bridges.”
