Spread the Good News

When Christ sent out his apostles to evangelise the world, the means of communication were their powers of verbal persuasion. In loud market places—often literally—they were able to make themselves heard with the Good News.

Later the nascent Christian Church communicated its nature, purpose and vision in written forms which would be widely distributed. The gospels and the assorted letters and documents that formed the New Testament turned out to be a most potent communications tool, even after almost two millennia.

That combination of written word and verbal preaching has helped the Church spread the Good News through the ages and throughout the world.

In the past century or so, new means of communications and social circumstances created fresh evangelising opportunities. Increasing literacy and improved printing technologies facilitated the wider spread of Catholic newspapers around a hundred years ago.

Later, radio and then television offered even greater opportunities. The Church adopted radio technology especially wholeheartedly. Today Vatican Radio broadcasts worldwide in 45 languages. In many African countries, Catholic radio is well represented and highly respected (which makes the apathy of many South African Catholics for Radio Veritas all the more incongruous).

In the past decade or so, Internet technology has revolutionised communication even further. The media revolution is still on-going, and it continues to catch even the experts off their guard.

But there are some certainties. For organisations such as Church bodies, a functioning and regularly updated website is no longer a question of luxury.  It is now expected that a credible body should have a credible presence on the Web. There can be no excuses for Catholic dioceses, for example, to fail this simple requirement.

It is also clear that a great deal of pastoral activity is taking place on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. This week we report on the experiences of one priest (albeit one without a parish) who says that most of his pastoral work takes place on Facebook. Youth vicars especially would echo that experience.

Social networking sites are a good way of turning on its head the worn-out assumption that the people should come to the Church, not the Church to the people. Like the marketplaces of ancient Corinth, Antioch and Rome, the Internet is a neutral place where people can meet and evangelise one another.

It would be a grave mistake, however, to see the Internet as the only fruitful medium by which to communicate and evangelise. Traditional means of social communications—newspapers, radio and good preaching—still have a vital role to play.

Earlier this year, Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh said: “A Catholic newspaper today is not a luxury. It is a necessity [and] remains the best vehicle for adult faith formation that we have.”

Preaching remains a potent form of social communications. Research in the United States has shown that poor homilies are a leading cause of young Catholics abandoning their Church.

Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation, counsels: “If the priest is able to give a message that is both intelligent and able to touch people’s hearts, it is a very important example of new evangelisation.”

He says that this is even more effective when a priest preaches at services attended by lapsed or non-Catholics, such as weddings, baptisms and funerals.

It makes excellent missionary sense, therefore, to relax parochial restrictions on permitting the celebration of such occasions. Indeed, the desire of inactive Catholics to be married or to bury their loved ones in a Catholic ceremony should be seen as a golden opportunity to communicate the Good News to them (and their friends).

The Church must make best use of all means of social communications, from low-tech preaching to traditional media to the Internet.