This communication congress is the fulfilment of a promise you made when we started the School of Communication for Delegates in the seven Regions of the Congregation...
In fact, Fr João, you remember it well. When we started, during the pandemic, I said: "I will start a communication school all over the world", and more than 600 people participated in total. We organised it in an unprecedented way and I also said: "Look, in 2024, in August, we will meet in Rome." And here we are.
What do you expect as a result of the "Shaping Tomorrow" conference?
Well, the first thing: we know that today we all have mobile phones, everyone is on the internet. Today we live in a very different world, a world of very fast communication. And the Church, whenever there is a world phenomenon, whatever it may be, always tries to respond. When man went to the moon, the Church tried to respond. When the problem of contraception emerged, the Church tried to respond. Today there is the problem of war, unfortunately, and the Church is trying to respond. And therefore, even with the digital world, the Church has tried to respond. And so did the Congregation. So the fact that we have more than 140 people here, many communication coordinators from all over the world, all together, where we meet as brothers and sisters, we share dreams, visions, the Salesian charism, the gospel and we say: "How do we want to communicate the gospel today?" is already a real achievement. This is why the Rector Major, Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, was present at the opening, because he recognises that this is indeed a historical phenomenon for the Congregation.
We were lucky enough to visit the Vatican's Dicastery for Communication, the Press Room, the Osservatore Romano, Vatican Radio... In the latter, we were told that the Church expects a lot from the Salesians. But what can the Salesians really offer the Church in terms of communication?
A very interesting question. Today we have the numbers. I have traveled all over the world and I was recently in Africa. What can I say today? That the Salesian Congregation has the largest communication network made up of young people in the world. Young people writing news, doing radio programs, podcasts, videos, movies, writing articles, music. We have a very large communication network. Now, of course, it is a simpler and more popular form of communication. We are not talking about journalists who are all professionals.
So, first: the Salesians today have the largest communication network made up of young people. This is the great contribution we can make. Second: today we have a typically youthful way of communicating in the Salesian Congregation. Let me give you some examples: the Don Bosco Global Youth Film Festival, which reaches more than 160 countries; therefore young people who learn to make films with mobile phones in a Salesian way. Then, we just started a project called ‘Mobile Journalism’. We have already done this in six countries, teaching young people how to use their mobile phones to make news, send videos, talk about their community. Not to mention other projects such as "Voices" and many others. We are therefore trying, using the mobile phones that young people have, to teach them how to create news, how to use music, how to use cinema and art. We Salesians, at the level of the Congregation, are today one of the largest production networks in the world, we could say.
And third: today we have a very strong communication network in the world that seeks to evangelise. I think of the missionaries who work with the poor. The Salesians are in Ethiopia. Now we have a communication delegate from Myanmar, and we're here with people from Venezuela and Haiti. We have people who are experiencing great tragedies in Africa right now with the war. Thus Salesians today promote justice, peace and solidarity through social communication.
Don Bosco, in his courtyard, gave ample space to leisure, play, creativity... Faced with the various challenges of new technologies, Artificial Intelligence, that courtyard has changed. How do the Salesians deal with all this and how do they use this type of technology to their advantage?
We need this conference to reflect on precisely this. And General Councillor, I would like to emphasise that we must have a clear vision of things today, because otherwise we get lost. So I am going to give you three very clear principles.
First: we must support young people who use technology. All of them. These are tools for education, communication and research. So we are in favour of the use of technology.
Second: what do we share on the Internet from these courtyards? The good we do. So, a football match, a music festival, like the one you hold in the northeast of Brazil, a film festival, a visit to the sick, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, a rosary, a food campaign for the hungry, all this is work. It is as Jesus said, “I was hungry and you gave me food.” Everything that is concrete work, which is charity, we should put on the internet, on social networks, but starting from what is concrete. So I always say: if you have a group of young people doing something, make a three- or four-minute video and post it on social media wherever you want. This evangelises, because it is a testimony. It is real. Going online to talk about God and Jesus is fine. But it is not very effective, because in the world of the internet there are millions of people who talk and it is confusion, a babel. Today, only what is concrete is believed. What is real. Therefore, we Salesians are promoting the message of Jesus in the digital world and in social networks through concreteness.
The third point is a topic on which we are working a lot, namely ethics. There is no media without ethics. Why? Why can't I promote hate? Why do I have to respect a migrant, an indigenous person, an unwed mother? This must be reflected in the family, in the community. We cannot use a social network as a weapon to attack people. No, this is not Christian! So we are teaching, exploring with our young people and Salesians how to use ethics in the world of the internet.
Source: Salesian Bulletin of Brazil
