ARCHDIOCESE OF MELBOURNE RELEASE
Catholic Voices: Jack Valero and Austen Ivereigh
Kairos Volume 24 Issue 10
Fiona Basile
THREE years ago, Jack Valero and Austen Ivereigh were sitting in a London pub, ‘heads in hands’, lamenting the results of a public debate that had just taken place. The debate topic had been that the Catholic Church is a force for good in the world. A poll was taken at the start of the debate and showed that two-thirds of the audience were against the Catholic position. By the end of the debate, when another audience poll was taken, almost all the audience were against the Catholic position. ‘In other words,’ Austen said, ‘the more the Catholics spoke, the more people turned away from the Church’s position.’
Around the same time, Pope Benedict XVI announced that he was to visit Britain later in the year. Knowing the controversy this visit would cause, Austen and Jack, who both have a background in media and communications, sprang into action and created Catholic Voices UK.
Catholic Voices aims to improve the Church’s representation in the media, especially in news programs and debates. ‘It’s about effectively communicating and presenting the Church’s perspective in the public square,’ Austen said. The initiative is independent of the Catholic bishops or Church hierarchy and authority, but is ‘doctrinally faithful’. The ‘voices’ are well-formed and informed Catholics who learn the necessary skills to present the Church’s case effectively in the media.
Austen and Jack spent six months training the original 24 lay people and one priest to become ‘voices’ in the public square, who were available for comment in the media during the Pope’s visit. Austen explained: ‘In our training, we focus on the “neuralgic” issues—the neuralgic points on the body are those places, that when you press them, you go “ouch”. And that’s what happens when Church and society clash, and that’s what drives the news stories; it also drives the conversations you have in the pub, in the work place, or in the park. It’s that point when someone says to you, “You’re Catholic, how can you justify something so outrageous?” And at that point, most Catholics shrink and think, “I’d rather be anywhere else than here right now”.
‘But what we’re saying is, that’s precisely where you want to be, that’s where you need to be, because that’s where people are turning and saying, “talk to us, tell us”. So, the whole project is about being present at the place of tension between the Church and society, in order to relish it, to welcome it and to prepare for it, because we see it as a great opportunity for evangelisation.’
Jack and Austen have adopted a method in their training called ‘reframing’.
‘Reframing is about enabling the communication and the understanding to take place by moving the frame from where it very firmly is—where you don’t get listened to and understood—and you move the frame somewhere else, which allows the conversation and the truth to take place,’ Austen said.
‘It’s about changing the frame of the conversation from one place to another so that you can tell the truth. And the result of that is often a very positive one. People often realise we have shared values, though we come at it from different angles.’
During the Pope’s visit to Britain, Catholic Voices members appeared on more than 100 media programs, including radio and television, providing opportunities to ‘reframe’ the Church’s message and thus share its perspective. ‘It was a huge media success’, Jack said, ‘from both the Church’s perspective and the media’s, as the media understood that there was a group of people they could call on for comment.’
Catholic Voices was so successful that the bishops asked Austen and Jack to conduct further training in other parts of Britain, and they also started receiving calls from people in other countries who wanted to start something similar.
Fast-forward to 2013, and Catholic Voices is now in Ireland, Spain, Poland, Lithuania, the US, Mexico, Chile, Brazil and, most recently, Australia.
Austen and Jack were in Melbourne on 16–19 May to conduct the first round of training for the Melbourne contingent of the Catholic Voices Australia team, although some of the members had already received local training and appeared on television and radio interviews at the time of the papal conclave in March. The current team includes nine lay people from various professions and backgrounds and are aged between 20 and 42.
‘Catholic Voices is a movement,’ Jack. said ‘We have a dream that many Catholics recognise that if they’re good at communication, this could be their vocation, and that after five or 10 years there will be hundreds of thousands of lay people speaking, and the Church will wake up and we will be communicating. We will be switching on televisions and you will be seeing these wonderful lay people, all around the world, explaining things and the Church will be alive.’
For more information on Catholic Voices Australia:http://www.catholicvoices.org.au
Follow Catholic Voices Australia on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CatholicVoicesAU and on Twitter: @CathVoicesAU
Photos: (Top) Founders of Catholic Voices UK Jack Valero and Austen Ivereigh.
(Middle) The Catholic Voices Australia Melbourne voices team, from left: Natasha Marsh, Theresa Chamoun, Paul Sheehan, Peter McCumstie, Christina Kennedy, Dominic Meese, Robert Dugdale, Danielle Lupi and Andrew Milne. Below: Natasha Marsh practising her radio interview techniques. By Fiona Basile.
Fiona Basile
THREE years ago, Jack Valero and Austen Ivereigh were sitting in a London pub, ‘heads in hands’, lamenting the results of a public debate that had just taken place. The debate topic had been that the Catholic Church is a force for good in the world. A poll was taken at the start of the debate and showed that two-thirds of the audience were against the Catholic position. By the end of the debate, when another audience poll was taken, almost all the audience were against the Catholic position. ‘In other words,’ Austen said, ‘the more the Catholics spoke, the more people turned away from the Church’s position.’
Around the same time, Pope Benedict XVI announced that he was to visit Britain later in the year. Knowing the controversy this visit would cause, Austen and Jack, who both have a background in media and communications, sprang into action and created Catholic Voices UK.
Catholic Voices aims to improve the Church’s representation in the media, especially in news programs and debates. ‘It’s about effectively communicating and presenting the Church’s perspective in the public square,’ Austen said. The initiative is independent of the Catholic bishops or Church hierarchy and authority, but is ‘doctrinally faithful’. The ‘voices’ are well-formed and informed Catholics who learn the necessary skills to present the Church’s case effectively in the media.
Austen and Jack spent six months training the original 24 lay people and one priest to become ‘voices’ in the public square, who were available for comment in the media during the Pope’s visit. Austen explained: ‘In our training, we focus on the “neuralgic” issues—the neuralgic points on the body are those places, that when you press them, you go “ouch”. And that’s what happens when Church and society clash, and that’s what drives the news stories; it also drives the conversations you have in the pub, in the work place, or in the park. It’s that point when someone says to you, “You’re Catholic, how can you justify something so outrageous?” And at that point, most Catholics shrink and think, “I’d rather be anywhere else than here right now”.
‘But what we’re saying is, that’s precisely where you want to be, that’s where you need to be, because that’s where people are turning and saying, “talk to us, tell us”. So, the whole project is about being present at the place of tension between the Church and society, in order to relish it, to welcome it and to prepare for it, because we see it as a great opportunity for evangelisation.’
Jack and Austen have adopted a method in their training called ‘reframing’.
‘Reframing is about enabling the communication and the understanding to take place by moving the frame from where it very firmly is—where you don’t get listened to and understood—and you move the frame somewhere else, which allows the conversation and the truth to take place,’ Austen said.
‘It’s about changing the frame of the conversation from one place to another so that you can tell the truth. And the result of that is often a very positive one. People often realise we have shared values, though we come at it from different angles.’
During the Pope’s visit to Britain, Catholic Voices members appeared on more than 100 media programs, including radio and television, providing opportunities to ‘reframe’ the Church’s message and thus share its perspective. ‘It was a huge media success’, Jack said, ‘from both the Church’s perspective and the media’s, as the media understood that there was a group of people they could call on for comment.’Catholic Voices was so successful that the bishops asked Austen and Jack to conduct further training in other parts of Britain, and they also started receiving calls from people in other countries who wanted to start something similar.
Fast-forward to 2013, and Catholic Voices is now in Ireland, Spain, Poland, Lithuania, the US, Mexico, Chile, Brazil and, most recently, Australia.
Austen and Jack were in Melbourne on 16–19 May to conduct the first round of training for the Melbourne contingent of the Catholic Voices Australia team, although some of the members had already received local training and appeared on television and radio interviews at the time of the papal conclave in March. The current team includes nine lay people from various professions and backgrounds and are aged between 20 and 42.
‘Catholic Voices is a movement,’ Jack. said ‘We have a dream that many Catholics recognise that if they’re good at communication, this could be their vocation, and that after five or 10 years there will be hundreds of thousands of lay people speaking, and the Church will wake up and we will be communicating. We will be switching on televisions and you will be seeing these wonderful lay people, all around the world, explaining things and the Church will be alive.’
For more information on Catholic Voices Australia:http://www.catholicvoices.org.au
Follow Catholic Voices Australia on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CatholicVoicesAU and on Twitter: @CathVoicesAU
Photos: (Top) Founders of Catholic Voices UK Jack Valero and Austen Ivereigh.
(Middle) The Catholic Voices Australia Melbourne voices team, from left: Natasha Marsh, Theresa Chamoun, Paul Sheehan, Peter McCumstie, Christina Kennedy, Dominic Meese, Robert Dugdale, Danielle Lupi and Andrew Milne. Below: Natasha Marsh practising her radio interview techniques. By Fiona Basile.
SHARED FROM ARCHDIOCESE OF MELBOURNE
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