Theme announced for World Communications Day

Our ministry here on the internet is focused on communications. The Archangel Gabriel, as pictured above in the Annunciation by Leonardo Da Vinci, is a wonderful guide for us to follow here on his Feast.

Never has a Pontiff emphasized more that he wants us to embrace technology to promote the Word. Today, a new announcement related to using technology to increase collaboration and communion has been released in Rome.

Each year on the Feast of the Archangels, the Vatican announces the theme for the next World Communications Day, which will fall on January 24, 2010 --- the Feast of St. Francis of Sales, patron saint of journalists.

"The Priest and Pastoral Ministry in a Digital World: New Media at the Service of the Word" is the theme.

The aim of the Message is "to invite priests in particular, during this Year for Priests and in the wake of the Twelfth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, to consider the new communications media as a possible resource for their ministry at the service of the Word. Likewise, it aims to encourage them to face the challenges arising from the new digital culture".

"The new communications media, if adequately understood and exploited, can offer priests and all pastoral care workers a wealth of data which was difficult to access before, and facilitate forms of collaboration and increased communion that were previously unthinkable".

"If wisely used, with the help of experts in technology and the communications culture, the new media can become - for priests and for all pastoral care workers - a valid and effective instrument for authentic and profound evangelisation and communion".