The two days of reflection are organised by the Social Communications Sector of the Salesians of Don Bosco, the Social Communication Area of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, the Faculty of Social Communication Sciences at the UPS and the “Auxilium” Pontifical Faculty of Educational Sciences in Rome.
Some 100 participants are expected at the event, inspired as usual by the Holy Father's Message for World Communications Day (WCDS) 2023, Speaking from the Heart. “Speaking the truth in love” (Eph 4:15), in which the theme 'Reading and interpreting to proclaim' will be explored. The General Councillors for Social Communication, Fr Gildasio Mendes, SDB and Sister Maria Ausilia De Siena, FMA, will be present for these two days of work.
The program will begin with a report by Vincenzo Corrado, Director of the Italian Episcopal Conference Social Communications Office, on the World Communications Day theme for 2023. This will be followed by a time for reflection and sharing in mixed groups on how to read and interpret the changing world, in an era that questions and challenges our way of being Christian, religious and Church.
This year, taking advantage of Rome’s cultural riches, a night visit to the Basilica of Sant'Agostino and the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi will take place on the evening of April 28. Fr Andrea Lonardo, Director of the Office for Culture and the University of the Diocese of Rome, will lead participants on a journey through the very valuable canvases by Michelangelo Merisi, otherwise known as Caravaggio, found in these churches, helping them to read the features of modernity to be found in the shapes and colours of this famous artist.
On Saturday morning, after the Eucharistic Celebration whose main celebrant will be Fr Gildasio Mendes, work will continue in the Seminars chosen by participants on topics related to the theme, all with attention to the dimension of communication, and conducted by experts: Development, economics and poverty; The “war” and other wars: world geopolitics; The media narrative of migration and the global south; The world from the perspective of the human rights of the young; The narrative art of our contemporary world; Post Covid-19 and the educational emergency; Western youth and the irrelevance of religions; Man - intelligence - the artificial: the case of ChatGPT; Information disorder and the search for truth.
The experience of the Salesian Social Communication Days launched back in 2012, highlights the attention the two Congregations of the Salesian Family are giving to implementing wide-ranging communication formation processes among their members, starting with the youngest ones. The formation being proposed, therefore, not only aims at offering techniques and tools to be used with young people, but at a growth in awareness and communicative activity at the service of the people they will meet in the mission, starting from a Christian interpretation of our contemporary world.
