Collection to bolster Catholic digital, print media efforts to spread the Good News

Fulfilling a vital role in the Church’s evangelization efforts, Catholic media keep the faithful informed of local and global events of import and help to spread the faith. Each year, as part of the Church’s commemoration of World Communications Day, the faithful are asked to support the essential work of Catholic media, especially in their local dioceses.

This year, in observance of the 59th World Communications Day on June 1, the Diocese of Trenton joins its counterparts around the nation in participation of the annual Catholic Communications Campaign sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CCC collection will be held at Masses in all parishes of the Diocese the weekend of May 31-June 1.

   
Brenda L. Rascher, executive director of the Office of Catholic Social Services, is interviewed by The Monitor’s associate editor Mary Stadnyk. Staff photo  
 
Half of the funds collected in each diocese will be directed to the national campaign’s grant program supporting projects that use media to spread the Gospel message and advance the USCCB’s general mission goals. Grants have typically been earmarked for the efforts of local dioceses in adapting to technological and demographic changes, upgrading audio and video production capabilities, producing high-quality podcasts and YouTube videos, and much more.

The remaining 50% of the CCC collection taken up in the Diocese of Trenton will remain local to subsidize diocesan media outreach across digital, social and print formats.  According to Rayanne Bennett, the Diocese’s executive director of Communications and Media, the generous donations of parishioners help to fund the robust network of communications efforts that includes the creation and publication of news content by The Monitor in its magazine and on its website; livestreaming of key Masses and other events as well as video production, and a daily push on social media to maximize engagement with the Catholic community of the Diocese.

Pope Francis had released his message for World Communications Day January 24, the feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists. The release also coincided with the Vatican celebration of the Jubilee of World Communications.
“I dream of a communication capable of making us fellow travelers, walking alongside our brothers and sisters and encouraging them to hope in these troubled times,” the Pope wrote in his message.

The theme for this year’s World Day of Communications, “Share with gentleness the hope that is in your hearts,” taken from the First Letter of Peter, was chosen by Pope Francis because modern communication is “increasingly characterized by disinformation and polarization, as a few centers of power control an unprecedented mass of data and information.”

Today’s communication too often “generates not hope, but fear and despair, prejudice and resentment, fanaticism and even hatred,” the Pope wrote. “All too often it simplifies reality in order to provoke instinctive reactions; it uses words like a razor; it even uses false or artfully distorted information to send messages designed to agitate, provoke or hurt.”

In his letter, the apostle Peter tells Christians that they have an obligation to give others an account of their hope, something which the Pope said is accomplished best when Christians allow “the beauty of love” to shine through their words and actions.

Pope Francis asked Catholic communicators “to discover and make known the many stories of goodness hidden in the folds of the news, imitating those gold prospectors who tirelessly sift the sand in search of a tiny nugget.”

Seeking out those “seeds of hope” and sharing them, he said, “helps our world to be a little less deaf to the cry of the poor, a little less indifferent, a little less closed in on itself.”

The full text of  Pope Francis’ message in English can be found at: www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/communications/documents/20250124-messaggio-comunicazioni-sociali.html

The full text in Spanish is here: www.vatican.va/content/francesco/es/messages/communications/documents/20250124-messaggio-comunicazioni-sociali.html
Cindy Wooden of Catholic News Service contributed to this article.