AMERICA/BRAZIL - Two seminars to analyze how to improve relations between the Church and the media, enrich communications with themes concerning religion and the Church

Sao Paulo (Agenzia Fides) - “Quality Religious Information: How to meet the demands of consumers” and “Communications in the Church: Methods, Values, and Professionalism,” are the titles of two seminars that the Department for Communications at the International Social Sciences Institute will offer September 8-11. The seminars will be an effort to open a debate among professionals, Bishops, and journalists in analyzing how to improve relations between the Church and the media and will also be an opportunity to discuss how to improve and enrich communications with religious and Church themes. Both seminars are being supported by the Bishops' Pastoral Commission for Culture, Education and Social Communications of the Brazilian Bishops' Conference, as well as the Archdiocese of Sao Paulo. They will be attended by professionals such as John Allen (Vatican expert and commentator of CNN) of the USA; Ari Goldman from Columbia University (USA); Diego Contreras, Director of the Department for Communications at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross (Italy); Juan Vicente Boo, Director of Rome Reports (Italy); Luiz Paulo Hosta, journalist of “O Globo” (Brazil), among others. Other participants also include Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer, Archbishop of Sao Paulo (Brazil) and Archbishop Raymundo Damasceno Assis of Aparecida (Brazil), President of the Latin American Bishops' Council (CELAM).
“Quality Religious Information: How to meet the demands of consumers” will take place September 8-9 and “Communications in the Church: Methods, Values, and Professionalism,” September 10-11. The first seminar is geared towards journalists specializing in covering religious matters and the second is for media professionals working in Latin American Archdioceses and Dioceses.
The International Institute of Social Sciences is located in Sao Paulo (Brazil) and is an institution with university-level courses, offering degrees in various areas, including Health Sciences, Communications, Law, Humanities, and Education. They also have accords with many American and European universities. It has been active in Brazil since 1972 and has formed over 12,000 professionals (RG) (Agenzia Fides 16/7/2009)