A Catholic Journalist’s Rome Adventure: The Church Up Close Seminar

Top & Bottom Left: At the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross’ terrace. Top right: The Church Up Close 2024 seminar. Bottom right: The Holy Door at St Peter’s Basilica that Pope Francis will open on 24 December 2024

By Kati Dijane – As a media enthusiast, particularly for church media and communications, I was fortunate to have been made aware of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, based in Rome, Italy, earlier this year by Southern Cross journalist Daluxolo Moloantoa and Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference communications officer Sheila Pires. The courses its School of Church Communications offers include the ‘The Church Up Close’ – Covering Catholicism in the Age of Francis Seminar.  This seminar gives journalists an insight into the nature of the Catholic Church and the inner workings of the Vatican.

In June, I was accepted into the seminar and began the administrative process of planning my trip to Rome, the land where my Catholic ancestry is rich.

On the day of my departure at OR Tambo International Airport, on September 6, the bubble of excitement burst into gratitude for this grace from God. Two planes and over 12 hours in the sky later, I safely landed at Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport in Rome on Saturday, September 7, then joined a two-hour queue snaking its way to the passport control booth. Sister Ana Silvia, who belongs to the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of Saint Charles Borromeo, mostly known as the Scalabrinians, waited for me to take me to their residence – a 10-minute walk to the Vatican City! The arrangement for accommodation was thanks to the help of Scalabrinian Sr Marizete Garbin, the HOD for pastoral care for migrants and refugees in the Archdiocese of Johannesburg.

Despite my exhaustion, I couldn’t wait to make my way to St Peter’s Square in the Vatican City. When I got there, one thought rang in my head: Welcome home! Besides the course that I was looking forward to, there were landmarks I also wanted to see during my stay in Rome: The Colosseum, some of the basilicas, including the Archbasilica of St John Lateran (the cathedral of Rome and the official seat of the pope) and the Papal Basilica of St Mary Major, as well as the Trevi Fountain (I got to see all of them and more)!

The next day, on the birthday of Mother Mary, whose patronage I invoke, I met with Fr Richard Stonier, a diocesan priest from the Archdiocese of Johannesburg, at the Vatican Obelisk at St Peter’s Square. He is currently studying in Rome at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. Fr Stonier gave me a tour guide of the city, sharing not only about the significance of the obelisks, particularly the one we were looking at, which would have been one of the last things St Peter saw before he was crucified, but also about the history of the building of St Peter’s Basilica on the site of St Peter’s tomb during Emperor Constantine’s reign in the fourth century. As we walked around the city, he eventually helped me tick one of my bucket lists: seeing The Colosseum. He then showed me my way to the university, then we sat at a restaurant across, where I had my first taste of Italian pizza. Another highlight of the day was also visiting the Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio di Loyola (The Church of St Ignatius of Loyola), known for its aesthetic architecture, picturesque view and ‘fake dome’. I experienced a taste of heaven through the places I saw in the “Eternal City”. What a way to start the week.

The Church Up Close

On the warm morning of Monday, 9 September, a handful of journalists and communicators stood in the registration queue. Moments later, approximately 38 of us officially began the programme with Fr John Wauck, the organising committee president of the seminar, welcoming us. He explained the inspiration behind the seminar: “The Church Up Close is a condensed, intensified and amplified version of the class that has been tailored for journalists from around the globe.”

The day started with a talk from Fr Paul O’Callaghan, a theological anthropology professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. His topic was Nature and Mission: What Is the Catholic Church? The theme revolved around deepening our understanding of our Catholic roots and identity. The church, he says, is called the ‘mystical body of Christ’, whose nature is expressed through, “proclaiming the word of God, celebrating the sacraments and exercising the ministry of charity.”

Regarding the profession of those present, he encouraged, “The thing that makes your faith grow is giving it, passing it on to other people. This is why it’s important for a Christian to dialogue with people from different backgrounds.”

The next topic, by Cardinal Michael Czerny SJ, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, was the thoughts of Pope Francis, a peek into how His Holiness relates with the world and church. His Eminence shared about how the church is called to serve, especially the poor, “the ones who need me”, he elaborated. He echoed the words of Pope Francis in his Spes Non Confundit, the Bull of Indiction for the Holy Year: “Let us not forget: the poor are almost always the victims, not the ones to blame.”

Archbishop Rino Fisichella, Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelisation, touched on the Jubilee Year taking place in 2025.

Themed “Pilgrims of Hope”, next year’s Jubilee Year is that of hope for a world suffering the impacts of war, the ongoing effects of Covid-19 and the climate crisis. “A Jubilee is a special year of grace, in which the Catholic Church offers the faithful the possibility of asking for a plenary indulgence, that is, the remission of the temporal punishment due for sins for themselves or for deceased relatives.”  It begins on Christmas Eve and ends on the Epiphany of the following year. This will be Pope Francis’ second Jubilee, as he initiated the extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy in 2015. One of the questions Archbishop Fisichella answered was that for pilgrims who cannot travel to Rome in 2025, bishops around the world are expected to designate their cathedrals or popular Catholic shrines as special places of prayer for Holy Year pilgrims.

The day ended with a guided tour of the city by John and Ashley Noronha a wonderful couple who are professors and art and architecture guides.

This is but a glimpse of some of the topics and experiences that were covered during the first day of the weeklong course.

Throughout the week, conference sessions were combined with personal encounters and on-site visits. A number of issues were discussed, including Human Trafficking and Migrants, with Fr Fabio Baggio CS, the Undersecretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, the role of women in the church with Prof María Dolores Sánchez Galera of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development and the Church in Africa with Archbishop Fortunatus Nwachukwu, the Secretary of the Dicastery for Evangelisation.

Some of the on-site visits included the Venerable English College, where the rector of the college, Father Stephen Wang, talked about the history of this oldest English-speaking institution outside of Britain. During the visit, he talked about the seminary, which he said is a holistic formation of one to be a spiritual father to the lay people. We also visited the Barracks of the Pontifical Swizz Guard next to St Peter’s Square. The Swiss Guards are Swiss soldiers responsible for the safety of the pope. Another visit was to the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel (where the pope is elected), guided by Dr Elizabeth Lev, an art historian, as well as the Vatican Observatory at Castel Gandolfo.

What stood out for me were the lunch sessions we had with Andrea Gagliarducci, a Vatican analyst and journalist, Alessandro Gisotti, the deputy editorial director of the Dicastery for Communications and John Allen, the editor of Crux, which reports on the Vatican and the Catholic Church.

It was an intense week of learning, discussions and understanding how reporters and communicators from around the world highlight many challenging issues the church faces. Through the grace of God, Africa was present at this instalment of the ‘Church Up Close Seminar’, I hope I represented you well.

On my flight back home, I reflected on the many things about this trip that I was grateful for: my encounter with Fr Stonier, who helped make Rome feel like home, the networks I have built, seeing three of the four basilicas and paying an unexpected visit to the Scala Sancta (Holy Stairs) across the St John Lateran Basilica. Tradition says this was the staircase that Jesus climbed to the praetorium (palace) of Pontius Pilate before his crucifixion. The 28-stairs climb on the knees was a humbling and quite painful devotional experience. The biggest highlight though was not only praying the angelus in the presence of Pope Francis on Sunday, 15 September, but also seeing the tomb of St Peter, the church’s first pope and the saint whose intercession I invoked to make this trip and experience possible.