Pope Francis has told members and staff of the Dicastery for Communication that the Vatican and the Church need their expertise to share the Gospel, but he also asked them to find creative ways to do it while cutting their expenses. Source: CNS.
“I dream of a communication that is heart to heart, letting ourselves be touched by what is human, letting ourselves be wounded by the dramas that so many of our brothers and sisters live,” the Pope said yesterday at the end of the dicastery’s plenary meeting.
In addition to listing a variety of “dreams” for how the Vatican’s vast communications apparatus would inform people, shine a spotlight on truth and share stories of faith, Pope Francis added to his prepared remarks.
“We must still have a little more discipline regarding money,” he said. “You must find a way to save more and find other funds, because the Holy See cannot continue to help you as it does now. I know it is bad news, but it is also good news because it inspires creativity in all of you.”
The Vatican Secretariat for the Economy has not published Vatican budget figures since 2022.
At that time, it said the dicastery and its various media outlets – the multilingual Vatican News website, Vatican Radio in Italian, L’Osservatore Romano newspapers in various languages, the Vatican press office, the Vatican’s book publishing arm and the Vatican video production centre – cost 40 million euro ($A66m) in 2021.
The expenditures accounted for 25 per cent of the Vatican budget.
While urging it to cut expenses and find new revenue sources, the Pope thanked Vatican News for increasing to over 50 the number of languages in which it offers content on its website; the latest additions were Lingala, Mongolian and Kannada.
“I dream of a communication that succeeds in connecting people and cultures,” the Pope said. “I dream of a communication capable of telling and raising the profile of stories and testimonies from every corner of the world, circulating them and offering them to everyone,” which he said the multilingual website makes possible.
Communicators, especially Catholic communicators, should not try to spread their own ideas, the Pope said, “but to recount reality with honesty and passion,” going “beyond slogans” and helping people to see, hear and respond to the needs of the poor, migrants and victims of war.
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Pope asks Vatican media to reduce spending as they share the Gospel (By Cindy Wooden, CNS)
