Facts about World Communications Day

World Communications Day takes place this year on Sunday 17 May 2015 – the Feast of the Ascension of our Lord. This is the day when Catholics are asked to reflect on the necessity of fulfilling the command of Jesus to preach the Good News of the Gospel to the whole world. A key to communicating with “the whole world” is the world of the media and its demands for news relating to every aspect of the life of the Church and its people. This year’s theme is “Communicating the Family: A Privileged Place of Encounter with the Gift of Love”.

What is it?

World Communications Day was established by Pope Paul VI in 1967 as an annual celebration that encourages us to reflect on the opportunities and challenges that the modern means of social communication (the press, motions pictures, radio, television and the internet) afford the Church to communicate the gospel message.

Where did it come from?

The celebration came in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, which realised it must engage fully with the modern world. This realisation is expressed in the opening statement of the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes on “The Church in the Modern World”, which says: “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anguishes of the people of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted in any way, are the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anguishes of the followers of Christ as well.”

Why it is celebrated every year?

In setting it up on Sunday 7th May 1967, less than two years after the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI, knowing that the Church is truly and intimately linked with mankind and its history, wanted to draw attention to the communications media and the enormous power they have for cultural transformation.

Source: Catholic Ireland