“To propose to the Italian ecclesial community an organic synthesis of the contents and perspectives of pastoral commitment in the field of social communications”: this is the main objective of the “Directory on social communication in the mission of the Italian Church”; the main lines of the document, which represents one of the main contributions of the episcopal Commission for culture and social communications for the present five-year period, were presented to the bishops on the occasion of the recent permanent Council of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI). The aim of the new Church document on communication is to provide a pastoral handbook that may “guide and support diocesan pastoral plans”, and “set uniform standards to ecclesial media, organizations and initiatives in the field of social communication, and to Catholic professionals who work in the public and private structures of social communication”. In Italy, the involvement of the Catholic media is formidable: there are 143 Catholic weeklies associated with FISC (Italian Federation of Catholic Weeklies), for a total print run of approximately 1 million copies. The press agency SIR has been active since 1989; it provides a twice-weekly and daily service of information for diocesan magazines and a weekly information service on the European Churches. The Catholic daily “Avvenire” has over thirty years of history behind it, while the radio station BluSat2000 and the satellite TV channel Sat2000 were “born” in 1998. Another umbrella organization of the Italian Catholic media is Co.Ra.L.Lo, the Consortium of free local radio and television stations, which represents some 200 Church-run radio and 35 television stations in all the regions of Italy.
