CEI MEDIA: PROMOTE EXPRESSIONS OF ITALIAN CHRISTIANITY

VATICAN CITY, JUN 2, 2006 (VIS) - This morning in the Vatican, Benedict XVI received a group of 1,200 journalists and technicians from the Italian daily "Avvenire," the television channel Sat 2000, and other communications media belonging to the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI). The group was led by Cardinal Camillo Ruini president of the CEI.

  "Dear friends," said the Pope, "yours is a truly important function. Indeed, it is also thanks to your efforts that the commitment of Italian Catholics to bring the Gospel of Christ to the lives of nations can continue."

  The Holy Father then went on to recall the foundation of "Avvenire" by order of Paul VI in the years following Vatican Council II, and the subsequent expansion of Catholic communications media to include radio and television.

  "In order to understand the overall significance of the work to which you dedicate yourselves every day," the Pope said, "it may prove useful to reflect briefly upon the relationship between faith and culture" in Europe. "European culture ... was formed over centuries with the contribution of Christianity. However, since the Enlightenment western culture has been distancing itself from its Christian foundations." And, "especially in recent times, ... the reduction of faith to a subjective experience and the consequent secularization of public conscience show us, clearly and dramatically, the consequences of this separation."

  Nonetheless, the Pope continued, in various parts of the continent "experiences of and approaches to Christian culture are being affirmed or emerging anew, with increasing force. In particular, Catholic faith is still substantially present in the life of the Italian people and the signs of its renewed vitality are visible to all.

  "Therefore," he added, "constant discernment is necessary in your work as communicators inspired by the Gospel. As you well know, the pastors of the Italian Church are careful to conserve those Christian forms that come from the great traditions of the Italian people and that mould community life, updating them, purifying them where necessary and, above all, reinforcing and encouraging them. It is also your duty to sustain and promote the new Christian experiences that are coming into being, helping them to develop an ever greater awareness of their ecclesial roots and of the role they can play."

  Benedict XVI described the work of the communicators as "a task not to be undertaken in an abstract or purely intellectual manner, but remaining attentive to the infinite details of the real life of a people."

  "Do not tire," he concluded, "of building bridges of understanding and communication between ecclesiastical experience and public opinion. Thus you will be protagonists of a form of communication ... that serves modern mankind."
AC/CEI COMMUNICATIONS MEDIA/RUINI                VIS 20060602 (460)