Catholic Social Media Summit turns 10

Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the Catholic Social Media Summit returns this month, featuring an array of speakers.

The theme of this year’s conference, Influencer, is an offshoot of CSMS’ themes in the past three years: Activate (2018), Connect (2019), and Transform (2020) or ACT.

And this year, as the Church celebrates the 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines and the Year of St. Joseph, the participants are encouraged to bring ACT into fruition.

Organizers said this means using the various online platforms that would allow them “to experience and initiate a culture of authentic encounter in the digital sphere”.

“We also recognize the need to galvanize a new generation of Catholic communicators and social media influencers to respond to the ever-shifting context of post-covid new normal,” they said.

Running from Dec. 11 to 12, the CSMS will be participated by social communication workers in different dioceses, Catholic bloggers and vloggers, and even priests and the religious.

For the second straight year, the summit will be held online due to the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic.

The CSMS is an initiative of YouthPinoy, a Catholic community of young “online missionaries” whose objective is to evangelize through the digital media as well as forge intellectual and spiritual exchange with the online community.

The group is also under the auspices of the Media Office of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines and Areopagus Communications, Inc.

Over the past 10 years, the CSMA brought to the Philippines some renowned speakers on Catholic media such as Bishop Paul Tighe, who was then secretary of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Social Communications, and Seàn-Patrick Lovett, director of Vatican Radio’s English program. (CBCP News)

A version of this article was first published on CBCP News.