The 41st World Communications Day will be celebrated on Sunday, May 20.  In the last 40 years, the Holy See has designated a day when the Church can concentrate its attention on the modern means of communication, which is as important as a means for the New Evangelization.  The theme of this year’s day is “Children and the Media:  A Challenge for Education.”  Children today are more than ever influenced by the media.  It is estimated that before a child reaches the age of six he or she has watched thousands of hours of television. 

In his World Communications Day message, Pope Benedict XVI tells us that the relationship of children, the media and education should be considered from two perspectives, first, the formation of children by the media and second, the formation of children to respond appropriately to the media.  There is a kind of reciprocity that emerges, which points to the responsibilities of the media as an industry and the need for an active and critical participation of readers, viewers and listeners.  Within this framework training for the proper use of media is essential for the culture of moral and spiritual development of children.

When I was growing up, I remember that one of our older religious Sisters always used to tell us that the telephone was the work of the devil.  I wonder what she would say today if she confronted the Internet and our children’s involvement with it.  Every modern means of progress has also brought with it challenges; TV, radio, Internet, printed material and all other types of communication means are truly instruments for the good, but also instruments that contain within themselves seeds of destruction.

The Holy Father tries to emphasize the positive aspects in the relationship that the Church should have with the modern means of communication.  He says: “Like education in general, media education requires formation in the exercise of freedom.  This is a demanding task.  So often freedom is presented as a relentless search for pleasure or new experiences.  Yet this is a condemnation not liberation!  True freedom could never condemn the individual – especially a child – to an insatiable quest for novelty.”

How important it is that our children today are protected from any negative aspects that the modern communications media will hold for them.  Of particular importance is the use of the Internet to convey pornography, especially child pornography, which unfortunately is readily available to children, if the Internet is not closely guarded by those responsible for allowing children to use it.  In the name of false freedom, regulators today have been very reticent to rein in the use of pornography on the Internet.  The Church is in the forefront of redoubling its efforts to make sure that our modern means of communication do not assault human dignity in any way.  To this end, the Catholic Communication Campaign will sponsor a conference on “Child Pornography:  Continuing the Church’s Promise to Protect,” in September in Washington.

In our own Diocese, I have asked Father Kieran Harrington, the new Vicar for Communications, to develop a strategic plan for communications in the Diocese.  The New Evangelization to which I have committed the Diocese demands that we use the modern means of communication to full effect to spread the Gospel massage.  In the Acts of the Apostles, we find St. Paul going to Athens and finding the place of the areopagus; this was the place of communication of that time, where in the freedom of the Athenian Republic anyone could use that place of communication to spread the news they wanted.  St. Paul, unfortunately, was rejected when he tried to show the Athenians that the altar to the unknown god perhaps was one that would lead to understanding the Christian God. 

Means of communication are in no way infallible and must be used with great caution and care.  Father Harrington will be developing a strategic plan that will include the Prayer Channel, The Tablet, the Internet and radio use.  All of these and other means of communication are truly necessary to enhance the mission of the Diocese in developing the New Evangelization.  I am looking forward to seeing the plan that Father Harrington will be developing with all of these entities.

Since l992 our Diocese has sponsored an annual World Communications Day luncheon. It was inspired by Bishop Thomas Daily as a means of drawing together and creating camaraderie among print and electronic journalists and executives from the secular and religious fields. Coordinated by the diocesan Public Information Office, this year’s event attracted some 90 invited guests to the Marriott New York by the Brooklyn Bridge.

As in years past, we presented the annual Distinguished Communicator Award. This year we had two honorees: Hugh A. Mulligan, the admired Associated Press journalist whose half-century of service to that agency included covering 28 pastoral visits of Pope John Paul II in countries around the world, and Francis X. Comerford, the respected president and general manager of WNBC-TV, who has lent his considerable telecommunications expertise to the Diocese. Both are native sons, Mr. Mulligan from Queens and Mr. Comerford from Brooklyn.

When Pope Paul VI established World Communications Day in l967, one could say he “put out into the deep.”  The late Holy Father was asking the Church to wade into the media waters less cautiously and to explore the possibility of using the developing modern means of communication to influence our culture by spreading the Gospel of Jesus.

Today, Pope Benedict asks us to continue in that pursuit. And he urges all who work in the media “to safeguard the common good, to uphold the truth, to protect individual human rights and promote respect for the needs of the family.” May we always be motivated by that noble ideal.