John Paul II recognized as “pope of the media”

SIGNIS - the World Catholic Association for Communication pays tribute to Pope’s ministry of the media

The extraordinary coverage of the final illness and death of the Pope in the press, in the audiovisual media and on the internet indicates the respect in which he was held by Catholics, Christians and the world at large. He himself was an acknowledged master of media communication. Symbolically, on Good Friday, the world watched him on television watching ceremonies on his television set. It is as if the world were being invited in to look (literally) over the media Pope’s shoulder as he prayed by means of the media.

When John Paul II was elected Pope in 1978, the news was mainly communicated by radio, television and the press. The world was on the verge of a video revolution in the 1980s, the internet in the 1990s and the greater access to information through digitization. Ceremonies in St Peters, papal audiences and the events during his frequent and varied travels were so much more readily available than with any previous Pope. His long pontificate, as could be gauged by the programs screened at his death, provided more than ample material for news features, documentaries and collages of visits to colorful places and meetings with a wide range of public figures.

Tributes were spoken about his role in the collapse of Communism, of his dealings with international figures from Nelson Mandela to Fidel Castro, and of his encounters with American presidents, more latterly in connection with the war in Iraq and his campaign for peace.

The Pontifical Council for Social Communications in the Vatican had a heavy task for some decades handling the numerous radio and television requests and making arrangements with networks wanting to cover ceremonies and travels.

John Paul II gave singular attention each year to World Communications Day. These days provided an occasion for him to highlight a media theme or a justice theme in the context of media for universal attention and prayer. In 1992, he authorized the publication of Aetatis Novae, The Dawn of a New Age, where the Pontifical Council for Social Communications gathered together reflections on the significance of the media in the latter part of the 20th century. It also had an important exhortation and directive, that all dioceses and religious institutions should have a pastoral media plan as part of their overall ministry. Other documents from the Council include Ethics in Advertising, Ethics in the Media and Ethics and the Internet. At his annual address to this Council, he ranged over many media topics, in English, speaking of videotapes, of internet and contemporary communications. In 2001, he pressed ‘Send’ on his computer so that the report of the Synod for Oceania could be distributed at once to all countries of the Pacific.

In his addresses to cinema groups, especially in 1999, he spoke of the range of genres of movies, from animation to science fiction, and declared that cinema provided one of the best forums for dialogue, especially for peace.

His whole approach to media and his willingness to collaborate with the media (and his own abilities in facing and using the media) is seen in his Gospel perspective. For John Paul II, and he repeated this, media must be regarded positively, as ‘gifts of God’. He believed in the power of evangelization of these gifts of God, not in any forced or proseletysing manner but, rather, in the manner of St Paul in his encounter with the Athenians. The Pope was keen to remind people that, just as Paul dialogued with the Athenians in terms of their own culture, the dialogue now was in the ‘new Areopagus’ of the media.

SIGNIS, as the World Association for Communication, supports Catholics who work in the media and being a bridge between the Church and the professional world.