World Communications Day

The Church, realizing "that she is truly and intimately linked with mankind and its history".⁽¹⁾ wishes by means of this initiative [the First World Communications Day], proposed by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, to draw the attention of her children and of all men of good will to the vast and complex phenomenon of the modern means of social communication, such as the press, motion pictures, radio and television, which form one of the most characteristic notes of modern civilization.

(1) Constitutio Pastoralis de Ecclesia in mindo huius temporis prooemium.
Quoted from the First World Communications Day Message given by Pope Paul VI in 1967

A BRIEF OUTLINE AND HISTORY OF THE
PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR SOCIAL COMMUNICATIONS

On 30 January 1948, by Letter Protocol No. 153.561 from the Secretariat of State of His Holiness Pope Pius XII, the Pontifical Commission for the Study and Ecclesiastical Evaluation of Films on Religious or Moral Subjects was established; at the same time Bishop Martin John O'Connor was nominated President and the following persons were designated as Members: Rev. Mons. Maurizio Raffa, representing the Sacred Congregation of the Council; Rev. Mons. Ferdinando Prosperi, representative of the Office Catholique International du Cinématographe and provisional Secretary of the new Commission; Mr Giacomo Ibert and Architect Ildo Avetta.

On 17 September 1948 the Holy Father approved the statutes of this new Office of the Roman Curia, which was renamed the Pontifical Commission for Educational and Religious Films.

One would have needed to be a clairvoyant to foresee the remarkable future of this minute Office, composed of a President and four Members and housed in a single room in the Palazzo San Carlo in Vatican City, in a wing still overflowing with the Information Office's vast archives on the Second World War. In spite of its modest beginnings, this small Commission was to write a new page in the history of the Church's pastoral and cultural activity.

World Communications Day, the only worldwide celebration called for by the Second Vatican Council ("Inter Mirifica", 1963), is marked in most countries, on the recommendation of the bishops of the world, on the Sunday before Pentecost (in 2006, May 28).

The announcement of the theme is customarily made on September 29, the Feast of the Archangels Michael, Raphael and Gabriel, who has been designated as the patron of those who work in radio.

The Holy Father's message for World Communications Day is traditionally published in conjunction with the Memorial of St. Francis de Sales, patron of writers (January 24), to allow bishops' conferences, diocesan offices and communications organizations sufficient time to prepare audiovisual and other materials for national and local celebrations.

Messages of the Holy Father for the World Communications Day