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Pope Francis encourages Catholic journalists and communicators gathered in Rome for the Jubilee of the World of Communication to be courageous truth and hope-tellers in our world marred by conflicts, division and misinformation.
ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
TO THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE JUBILEE OF COMMUNICATION
Paul VI Hall
Saturday, 25 January 2025
_________________________________
Improvised words of the Holy Father
Address of the Holy Father delivered
______________________________
Improvised words
Dear sisters and brothers, good morning! And thank you very much for coming!
In my hands I have a nine-page speech. At this hour, with my stomach starting to move, reading nine pages would be torture. I will give this to the Prefect. Let him communicate it to you.
I just wanted to say a word about communication. Communicating is going out of yourself a little to give something of myself to the other. And communication is not only the going out, but also the encounter with the other. Knowing how to communicate is a great wisdom, a great wisdom!
I am happy about this Jubilee of communicators. Your work is a work that builds: it builds society, it builds the Church, it makes everyone move forward, as long as it is true. “Father, I always say the true things…” – “But you, are you true? Not only the things you say, but you, in your interior, in your life, are you true?”. It is such a great test. Communicating what God does with the Son, and the communication of God with the Son and the Holy Spirit. Communicating something divine. Thank you for what you do, thank you so much! I am happy.
And now I would like to greet you, and first of all give the blessing.
____________________________
Dear sisters and brothers, good morning!
I thank all of you for having come in so many and from so many different countries, from far and near. It is truly beautiful to see you all here. I thank the guests who spoke before me – Maria Ressa, Colum McCann and Mario Calabresi – and I thank Maestro Uto Ughi for the gift of music, which is a way of communication and hope.
This meeting of ours is the first major event of the Holy Year dedicated to a “vital world”, the world of communication. The Jubilee is celebrated at a difficult time in the history of humanity, with the world still wounded by wars and violence, by the shedding of so much innocent blood. For this reason, I want to first of all say thank you to all the communication workers who risk their lives to seek the truth and tell the horrors of war. I would like to remember in prayer all those who have sacrificed their lives in this last year, one of the most lethal for journalists [1]. Let us pray in silence for your colleagues who have signed their report with their own blood.
I would also like to remember with you all those who are imprisoned only for having been faithful to the profession of journalist, photographer, video operator, for having wanted to go and see with their own eyes and having tried to tell what they saw. There are so many of them! [2] But in this Holy Year, in this jubilee of the world of communication, I ask those who have the power to do so to free all journalists unjustly imprisoned. May a “door” be opened for them too, through which they can return to freedom, because the freedom of journalists increases the freedom of all of us. Their freedom is freedom for each of us.
I ask – as I have done many times and as my predecessors have done before me – that freedom of the press and of expression of thought be defended and safeguarded, together with the fundamental right to be informed. Free, responsible and correct information is a heritage of knowledge, experience and virtue that must be safeguarded and promoted. Without this, we risk no longer distinguishing truth from lies; without this, we expose ourselves to growing prejudices and polarizations that destroy the bonds of civil coexistence and prevent us from rebuilding fraternity.
Journalism is more than a profession. It is a vocation and a mission. You communicators have a fundamental role for society today, in reporting the facts and in the way you report them. We know: language, attitude, tones, can be decisive and make the difference between a communication that rekindles hope, builds bridges, opens doors, and a communication that instead increases divisions, polarizations, simplifications of reality.
Yours is a special responsibility. Yours is a precious task. Your working tools are words and images. But before them, study and reflection, the ability to see and listen; to put yourself on the side of those who are marginalized, those who are neither seen nor heard and also to revive – in the hearts of those who read you, listen to you, watch you – the sense of good and evil and a nostalgia for the good that you tell and that, by telling, you bear witness to.
In this special meeting, I would like to deepen the dialogue with you. And I am grateful to be able to do so starting from the thoughts and questions that two of your colleagues shared a little while ago.
Maria, you spoke of the importance of courage to initiate the change that history demands of us, the change necessary to overcome lies and hatred. It is true, to initiate change, courage is needed. The word courage comes from the Latin cor, cor habeo, which means “to have a heart”. It is that inner drive, that strength that comes from the heart that enables us to face difficulties and challenges without being overwhelmed by fear.
With the word courage we can recap all the reflections of the World Communications Days of recent years, up to the Message dated yesterday: listen with the heart, speak with the heart, guard the wisdom of the heart, share the hope of the heart. In these last years, it has therefore been the heart that has dictated the guideline for our reflection on communication. For this reason, I would like to add to my appeal for the liberation of journalists another “appeal” that concerns us all: the one for the “liberation” of the inner strength of the heart. Of every heart! It is up to no one but us to take up the appeal.
Freedom is the courage to choose. Let us take advantage of the Jubilee to renew, to rediscover this courage. The courage to free the heart from what corrupts it. Let us put respect for the highest and noblest part of our humanity at the center of the heart, let us avoid filling it with what rots and makes it rot. The choices of each of us count, for example, in expelling that “brain rot” caused by the addiction to continuous scrolling on social media, defined by the Oxford Dictionary as the word of the year. Where can we find the cure for this disease if not in working, all together, on training, especially for young people?
We need media literacy, to educate ourselves and others in critical thinking, in the patience of discernment necessary for knowledge; and to promote personal growth and the active participation of each person in the future of their communities. We need courageous entrepreneurs, courageous computer engineers, so that the beauty of communication is not corrupted. Great changes cannot be the result of a multitude of sleeping minds, but rather begin with the communion of enlightened hearts.
Such a heart was that of Saint Paul. The Church celebrates his conversion today. The change that occurred in this man was so decisive that it marked not only his personal history but that of the entire Church. And Paul's metamorphosis was caused by the face-to-face encounter with the risen and living Jesus. The strength to set out on a path of transformative change is always generated by direct communication between people. Think of how much power for change is potentially hidden in your work every time you bring together realities that – out of ignorance or prejudice – are opposed! The conversion, in Paul, came from the light that enveloped him and from the explanation that Ananias then gave him, in Damascus. Your work can and must also provide this service: finding the right words for those rays of light that can strike the heart and make us see things differently.
And here I would like to connect to the theme of the transformative power of narration, of telling and of listening to stories, which Colum highlighted. Let us return for a moment to Paul's conversion. The event is narrated in the Acts of the Apostles three times (9:1-19; 22:1-21; 26:2-23), but the core remains Saul's personal encounter with Christ; the way of telling changes, but the founding and transformative experience remains unchanged.
Telling a story corresponds to the invitation to have an experience. When the first disciples approached Jesus and asked him, "Master, where are you staying?" (Jn 1:38), he did not respond by giving them his home address, but said, "Come and see" (v. 39).
Stories reveal our being part of a living fabric; the interweaving of threads by which we are connected to one another. [3] Not all stories are good and yet these too must be told. Evil must be seen in order to be redeemed; but it must be told well so as not to wear out the fragile threads of coexistence.
In this Jubilee, I therefore make another appeal to you gathered here and to communicators throughout the world: tell stories of hope, stories that nourish life. May your storytelling also be hopetelling. When you tell stories of evil, leave room for the possibility of mending what is torn, for the dynamism of good that can repair what is broken. Sow questions. Telling stories of hope means seeing the crumbs of good hidden even when all seems lost, it means allowing us to hope even against all hope. [4] It means noticing the shoots that sprout when the earth is still covered with ashes. Telling stories of hope means having a gaze that transforms things, makes them become what they could, what they should be. It means making things walk toward their destiny.
This is the power of stories. And this is what I encourage you to do: tell stories of hope, share them. This is – as Saint Paul would say – your “good fight”.
Thank you, dear friends! I cordially bless all of you and your work. And please don't forget to pray for me.
_________________________________________________
TO THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE JUBILEE OF COMMUNICATION
Paul VI Hall
Saturday, 25 January 2025
_________________________________
Improvised words of the Holy Father
Address of the Holy Father delivered
______________________________
Improvised words
Dear sisters and brothers, good morning! And thank you very much for coming!
In my hands I have a nine-page speech. At this hour, with my stomach starting to move, reading nine pages would be torture. I will give this to the Prefect. Let him communicate it to you.
I just wanted to say a word about communication. Communicating is going out of yourself a little to give something of myself to the other. And communication is not only the going out, but also the encounter with the other. Knowing how to communicate is a great wisdom, a great wisdom!
I am happy about this Jubilee of communicators. Your work is a work that builds: it builds society, it builds the Church, it makes everyone move forward, as long as it is true. “Father, I always say the true things…” – “But you, are you true? Not only the things you say, but you, in your interior, in your life, are you true?”. It is such a great test. Communicating what God does with the Son, and the communication of God with the Son and the Holy Spirit. Communicating something divine. Thank you for what you do, thank you so much! I am happy.
And now I would like to greet you, and first of all give the blessing.
____________________________
Dear sisters and brothers, good morning!
I thank all of you for having come in so many and from so many different countries, from far and near. It is truly beautiful to see you all here. I thank the guests who spoke before me – Maria Ressa, Colum McCann and Mario Calabresi – and I thank Maestro Uto Ughi for the gift of music, which is a way of communication and hope.
This meeting of ours is the first major event of the Holy Year dedicated to a “vital world”, the world of communication. The Jubilee is celebrated at a difficult time in the history of humanity, with the world still wounded by wars and violence, by the shedding of so much innocent blood. For this reason, I want to first of all say thank you to all the communication workers who risk their lives to seek the truth and tell the horrors of war. I would like to remember in prayer all those who have sacrificed their lives in this last year, one of the most lethal for journalists [1]. Let us pray in silence for your colleagues who have signed their report with their own blood.
I would also like to remember with you all those who are imprisoned only for having been faithful to the profession of journalist, photographer, video operator, for having wanted to go and see with their own eyes and having tried to tell what they saw. There are so many of them! [2] But in this Holy Year, in this jubilee of the world of communication, I ask those who have the power to do so to free all journalists unjustly imprisoned. May a “door” be opened for them too, through which they can return to freedom, because the freedom of journalists increases the freedom of all of us. Their freedom is freedom for each of us.
I ask – as I have done many times and as my predecessors have done before me – that freedom of the press and of expression of thought be defended and safeguarded, together with the fundamental right to be informed. Free, responsible and correct information is a heritage of knowledge, experience and virtue that must be safeguarded and promoted. Without this, we risk no longer distinguishing truth from lies; without this, we expose ourselves to growing prejudices and polarizations that destroy the bonds of civil coexistence and prevent us from rebuilding fraternity.
Journalism is more than a profession. It is a vocation and a mission. You communicators have a fundamental role for society today, in reporting the facts and in the way you report them. We know: language, attitude, tones, can be decisive and make the difference between a communication that rekindles hope, builds bridges, opens doors, and a communication that instead increases divisions, polarizations, simplifications of reality.
Yours is a special responsibility. Yours is a precious task. Your working tools are words and images. But before them, study and reflection, the ability to see and listen; to put yourself on the side of those who are marginalized, those who are neither seen nor heard and also to revive – in the hearts of those who read you, listen to you, watch you – the sense of good and evil and a nostalgia for the good that you tell and that, by telling, you bear witness to.
In this special meeting, I would like to deepen the dialogue with you. And I am grateful to be able to do so starting from the thoughts and questions that two of your colleagues shared a little while ago.
Maria, you spoke of the importance of courage to initiate the change that history demands of us, the change necessary to overcome lies and hatred. It is true, to initiate change, courage is needed. The word courage comes from the Latin cor, cor habeo, which means “to have a heart”. It is that inner drive, that strength that comes from the heart that enables us to face difficulties and challenges without being overwhelmed by fear.
With the word courage we can recap all the reflections of the World Communications Days of recent years, up to the Message dated yesterday: listen with the heart, speak with the heart, guard the wisdom of the heart, share the hope of the heart. In these last years, it has therefore been the heart that has dictated the guideline for our reflection on communication. For this reason, I would like to add to my appeal for the liberation of journalists another “appeal” that concerns us all: the one for the “liberation” of the inner strength of the heart. Of every heart! It is up to no one but us to take up the appeal.
Freedom is the courage to choose. Let us take advantage of the Jubilee to renew, to rediscover this courage. The courage to free the heart from what corrupts it. Let us put respect for the highest and noblest part of our humanity at the center of the heart, let us avoid filling it with what rots and makes it rot. The choices of each of us count, for example, in expelling that “brain rot” caused by the addiction to continuous scrolling on social media, defined by the Oxford Dictionary as the word of the year. Where can we find the cure for this disease if not in working, all together, on training, especially for young people?
We need media literacy, to educate ourselves and others in critical thinking, in the patience of discernment necessary for knowledge; and to promote personal growth and the active participation of each person in the future of their communities. We need courageous entrepreneurs, courageous computer engineers, so that the beauty of communication is not corrupted. Great changes cannot be the result of a multitude of sleeping minds, but rather begin with the communion of enlightened hearts.
Such a heart was that of Saint Paul. The Church celebrates his conversion today. The change that occurred in this man was so decisive that it marked not only his personal history but that of the entire Church. And Paul's metamorphosis was caused by the face-to-face encounter with the risen and living Jesus. The strength to set out on a path of transformative change is always generated by direct communication between people. Think of how much power for change is potentially hidden in your work every time you bring together realities that – out of ignorance or prejudice – are opposed! The conversion, in Paul, came from the light that enveloped him and from the explanation that Ananias then gave him, in Damascus. Your work can and must also provide this service: finding the right words for those rays of light that can strike the heart and make us see things differently.
And here I would like to connect to the theme of the transformative power of narration, of telling and of listening to stories, which Colum highlighted. Let us return for a moment to Paul's conversion. The event is narrated in the Acts of the Apostles three times (9:1-19; 22:1-21; 26:2-23), but the core remains Saul's personal encounter with Christ; the way of telling changes, but the founding and transformative experience remains unchanged.
Telling a story corresponds to the invitation to have an experience. When the first disciples approached Jesus and asked him, "Master, where are you staying?" (Jn 1:38), he did not respond by giving them his home address, but said, "Come and see" (v. 39).
Stories reveal our being part of a living fabric; the interweaving of threads by which we are connected to one another. [3] Not all stories are good and yet these too must be told. Evil must be seen in order to be redeemed; but it must be told well so as not to wear out the fragile threads of coexistence.
In this Jubilee, I therefore make another appeal to you gathered here and to communicators throughout the world: tell stories of hope, stories that nourish life. May your storytelling also be hopetelling. When you tell stories of evil, leave room for the possibility of mending what is torn, for the dynamism of good that can repair what is broken. Sow questions. Telling stories of hope means seeing the crumbs of good hidden even when all seems lost, it means allowing us to hope even against all hope. [4] It means noticing the shoots that sprout when the earth is still covered with ashes. Telling stories of hope means having a gaze that transforms things, makes them become what they could, what they should be. It means making things walk toward their destiny.
This is the power of stories. And this is what I encourage you to do: tell stories of hope, share them. This is – as Saint Paul would say – your “good fight”.
Thank you, dear friends! I cordially bless all of you and your work. And please don't forget to pray for me.
_________________________________________________
Source: Translation from Vatican Bulletin with Screenshot Vatican Media
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