Rome (Fides Service) - To give some brief reflections on a National Convention "Parabole mediatiche" which closed in the Vatican on November 9, Fides Service spoke with Andrea Piersanti, president of the Italian Government Entertainment Body, who for years has been in front line to promote fundamental human and spiritual values.

Dr Piersanti, in the light of the convention, what are the challenges facing the Church in the field of communications?
The Parabole Mediatiche convention was a manifestation of Catholic pride, pride in belonging to a bi-millennial community anxious to shed an unjustified sense of inferiority. This in itself was important and positive. The real challenge lies within the Catholic world itself. The most interesting address in this regard was the closing talk given by Dino Boff, editor of the Catholic daily Avvenire. Boff launched a slogan which can be fully under-signed: "enough with omissions, let transmissions begin". Boffo put his feet in the dish. He identified the real problem. Many of our fellow Catholics, he said, still think that good communication is always elsewhere, in the giant secular media and thus doing they belittle themselves and the tools which have been so laboriously built up over the years. The challenge is within our reach and the convention organised by the CEI, the Italian Catholic Bishops' Conference, focussed on the problem without ambiguity. What is lacking in the process of the inculturation of the Gospel is active collaboration on the part of Catholics in this country. With daily witness at work in daily life, careful thought about the choice of newspapers to read or television programmes to watch, the challenge is not so impossible.

What relevant novelties emerged and what points were highlighted?
Many participants noted the absence of national communication leaders. Editors of the main newspapers and public and private television companies were not invited to speak. This was the novelty of the event. The initiative was addressed to editors of diocesan papers, those responsible for private radio stations, communications workers in the dioceses. It was a sort of internal convention. But its message was addressed loudly to the outside world. Look out, the Bishops said, we are about to come out of the ghetto built up around us in the last fifty years. We want to take back our rightful place. We want to break the wall of deafening silence surrounding the Word of the New Testament. Not to inoculate the faith (which is a gift from God) but to bear witness to cultural diversity of which the world shows it has growing need. The world of communications, it was said with conviction not rhetoric during the debate, is a land of mission. A territory strongly marked by the absence of the Word and, which, due to its technological nature, Boff underlined, is very similar to the path of stones referred to in the Gospel parable of the sower.

What future do you see between communications and culture?
The future lies in the breaking down of the barrier which has divided these two worlds for too long. This was also said by Cardinal Ruini (President of the Bishops' Conference). Communications produces culture and, at the same time it is the country's immediate and only cultural product. This should not be taken for granted. For many years, not only in the Church but also in large areas of secular culture it was thought and it was said that the media produce only a sort of poor grade of culture. This new awareness of the Italian Bishops is then a fundamental turning point in the dynamics of communication pastoral care. Not by chance, the CEI experts, on indications from the Bishops' Standing Council, set to work on a most important document, "A Directory for Communications". We are sure that when published it will revolutionise the Catholic understanding of communications.

To what focal elements can and must the Church make a contribution?
The truth makes us free, we learn from the Gospel. The authenticity of our witnesses as Christians working in this sensitive sector of communications will be the most effective tool for the Church. A demand for meaning is present in the writing of newspapers and elsewhere. The weight of economic interests crushes the consciences of media workers. Every day journalists and authors find themselves forced to accept compromises ever heavier. Growing unrest is seen in the results. The poor quality of most communications has become a burden for all, believers and non, as it was said by Cardinal Ruini and many other speakers at the Convention. But the Word has the necessary charism to free consciences and restore to communications that dignity and quality of which we all feel the extreme need. To communicate the Gospel represents a general interest and Catholics have, in these difficult times, not only an enormous responsibility but also an extraordinary opportunity. And to grasp it we must be determined and courageous.

Card. Ratzinger said ours is a lacerated culture. What can be done to strengthen the bond that exists between communications, culture and evangelisation?
Our daily effort as individuals working in the sector of communications is like the mustard seed. So we must not let ourselves be overwhelmed by the size of the problem. A small seed, if well planted, can produce many fruits. But it must be added that the soil must be fertilised. For too long, too little importance has been given to communications and there has been no training in those infinite professional qualities necessary for occupying spaces and filling the offices of newspapers and the film and television sets. Now it would seem, if we can give credit to this extraordinary initiative taken by the CEI, that things are changing. Let's hope so.

Dr Boffo said the convention was an appointment with a turning point. Do you think there will be really an immediate change on the part of communications workers?
The real turning point, as Boffo pointed out, was the convention itself. The significance of this initiative by the CEI will not have escaped the most attentive observers. For too long, Catholic communications workers have been left alone to face the problem. Days passed and from the hierarchy there was no signal of interest. Then, seven years ago, a Church Congress in Palermo launched the idea of a Cultural Project and in 1996, Sat2000 Catholic television station was launched. Today with "Parabole Mediatche" all hesitation has been overcome. The bishops have taken their place in the field at the side of journalists and authors. It will take time, but now there is no turning back. We have entered a new era.

The Pope himself addressed the convention. Will his words help discover new paths for evangelisation in the third millennium?
The Pope has said for years now that the media, if used correctly, can help the birth of a new humanism. This anthropological vision of communications and culture, understood and endorsed with conviction by the CEI experts in the field of communications and the cultural project, is destined to revolutionise everything. We keep in our heart the warm encouragement offered by this pontificate: do not be afraid. To open the doors to Christ, including the doors of the media, will not be easy but it is a priority to pursue with courage, and, as the Pope says, without fear. (AP) (Fides Service 11/11/2002)