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Message of Pope Francis for the 59th World Day of Social Communications
(It is addressed to journalists and communicators)
Rome, Saint John Lateran, 24 January 2025, – Memorial of St. Francis de Sales
“Reflecting on the Jubilee which we are celebrating this year as a moment of grace in these troubled times,
In this message I would like to invite you to be communicators of hope,
starting from a renewal of your work and mission in the spirit of the Gospel.”
“Share with gentleness the hope that is in your hearts“
“Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.
Always be ready to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you;
but do it with gentleness and reverence”. 1 Peter 3:15-16
Dear brothers and sisters!
In our times, which is marked by disinformation and polarization,
as a few centers of power control an unprecedented mass of data and information,
I would like to speak to you as one who is aware of the importance – now more than ever – of your work as journalists and communicators. Your courageous efforts to put personal and collective responsibility towards others at the heart of communication are indeed necessary.
Disarming communication
Too often today, communication generates not hope, but fear and despair, prejudice and resentment, fanaticism and even hatred.
Too often it oversimplifies reality in order to provoke instinctive reactions; it uses words like a razor; it even uses false or artfully distorted information to send messages designed to agitate, provoke or hurt. On several occasions, I have spoken of our need to “disarm” communication and to purify it of aggressiveness. It never helps to reduce reality to slogans. We all see how, from television talk shows to verbal attacks on social media, there is a danger that the paradigm of competition, opposition, the will to dominate and possess, and the manipulation of public opinion will prevail.
There is also another disturbing phenomenon: what we might call the “programmed dispersion of attention” by digital systems that alter our perception of reality, by profiling us according to the logic of the market,
As a result, we witness, often helplessly, a kind of atomization of interests that ends up undermining the foundations of our existence as community, our ability to unite in the pursuit of the common good, to listen to each other and to understand each other’s point of view.
Identifying an “enemy” to lash out at thus seems essential to our sense of self.
But when others become our “enemies”, when we disregard their individuality and dignity in order to mock and deride them, we also lose the possibility of generating hope.
As Don Tonino Bello observed, all conflicts “begin when individual faces melt and disappear”.
We must not uccumb to this mentality.
Hope is not easy.
Georges Bernanos once said that “only those are capable of hope, who have had the courage to despair of the illusions and lies in which they once found security and which they falsely mistook for hope… Hope is a risk to be taken. It is the risk of risks”.
Hope is a hidden virtue, persevering and patient.
For Christians, it is not an option but a necessary condition.
As Pope Benedict XVI pointed out in his Encyclical “Spe Salvi”, hope is not passive optimism but, on the contrary, a “performative” virtue capable of changing our lives: “The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has received the gift of a new life’ (No. 2).
Accounting with gentleness for the hope that is in us
In the First Letter of Peter (3:15-16), we find an admirable synthesis in which hope is linked to Christian witness and communication: “In your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence”.
I would like to focus on three messages that we can glean from these words.
1. “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts”.
The hope of Christians has a face, the face of the Risen Lord.
His promise to remain with us, always through the gift of the Holy Spirit, enables us to hope even against all hope, and to perceive the hidden goodness that is silently present even when all else seems lost.
2. Always be ready to defend the hope that is in us.
The second message is that we should be prepared to defend the hope that is in us.
Significantly, the apostle tells us to give an account of our hope to everyone who demands it.
Christians are not primarily people who “talk about” God, but who resonate with the beauty of his love and a new way of experiencing everything. Theirs is a lived love that raises the question and demands an answer: Why do you live like this? Why are you like this?
3. Defend it with gentleness and reverence
In the words of St. Peter, we find a third message: our response to this question must be “with gentleness and reverence”. Christian communication – but I would also say communication in general – should be marked by gentleness and closeness, like the conversation of companions on the road.
This was the method of the greatest communicator of all time, Jesus of Nazareth, who, as he walked with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, talked with them and lettheir hearts burn as he interpreted the events in the light of Scripture.
I dream of a communication capable of making us fellow travelers, walking alongside our brothers and sisters and encouraging them to hope in these troubled times.
I dream of a communication capable of speaking to the heart, arousing not passionate reactions of defensiveness and anger, but attitudes of openness and friendship.
I dream of a communication capable of focusing on beauty and hope even in seemingly desperate situations, and of generating commitment, empathy and concern for others.
I dream of a communication that can help us “to recognize the dignity of every human being, and to work together for the care of our common home” (Dilexit Nos, 217).
I dream of a communication that does not peddle illusions or fears but gives reasons for hope.
Martin Luther King once said: “”If I can help someone as I pass by, if I can uplift someone with a word or a song… then my life will not have been in vain””.
To do this, however, we must be healed of our “diseases” of self-promotion and self-absorption, and avoid the danger of shouting over others in order to make our voices heard.
A good communicator ensures that those who are listening, reading or watching can be involved, can get close, can get in touch with the best part of themselves and can enter with that attitudes into the stories being told. Communicating in this way helps us to become “pilgrims of hope”, which is the motto of this Jubilee.
Hope together
Hope is always a communal project. Let us reflect for a moment on the greatness of the message of this Year of Grace.
We are all invited – all of us! – to begin anew, to allow God to lift us up, to embrace us and to shower us with mercy.
The personal and the communal aspects are inseparable: we set out together, we walk alongside our many brothers and sisters, and we pass through the Holy Door together.
The Jubilee has many social implications.
We can think, for example, of its message of mercy and hope for those who live in prisons, or its call for closeness and tenderness towards those who suffer and are marginalized.
The Jubilee reminds us that those who are peacemakers “shall be called children of God” (Mt 5:9 – “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God), and in this way it inspires hope and points us to the need for an attentive, gentle and reflective communication, capable of opening paths of dialogue.
For this reason, I encourage you to discover and make known the many stories of goodness hidden in the folds of the news, imitating those gold prospectors who tirelessly sift the sand in search of a tiny nugget. It is good to seek out these seeds of hope and make them known.
It helps our world to be a little less deaf to the cry of the poor, a little less indifferent, a little less closed in on itself.
May you always find those glimmers of goodness that inspire us to hope.
This kind of communication can help to build communion, to make us feel less alone, to rediscover the importance of walking together.
Do not forget the heart
Dear brothers and sisters, in the face of the amazing achievements of technology, I encourage you to take care of your heart, your inner life. What does this mean? I would like to offer you some thoughts.
1. Be meek and never forget the faces of others; speak to the hearts of the women and men whom you serve in carrying out your work.
2. Do not allow your communication to be guided by instinctive reactions. Always spread hope, even when it is difficult, even when it is costly, even when it does not seem to bear fruit.
3. Try to promote a communication that can heal the wounds of our humanity.
4. Make room for the deep trust that, like a slender but resistant flower, does not succumb to the ravages of life, but blossoms and grows in the most unexpected places. It is there in the hope of those mothers who pray every day for their children to return from the trenches of a conflict, and in the hope of those fathers who emigrate at great risk in search of a better future. It is also there in the hope of those children who somehow manage to play, laugh and believe in life amidst the rubble of war and in the impoverished streets of favelas.
5. Be witnesses and promoters of a non-aggressive communication; helping to spread a culture of care, building bridges and breaking down the visible and invisible barriers of the present time.
6. Tell stories of hope, care about our common destiny and strive to write the history of our future together.
All this you can do, and we can do, with God’s grace, which the Jubilee helps us to receive in abundance. This is my prayer, and with it, I bless each of you and your work.
