“The mass media in the family” is the title of a recent conference organized by the diocesan secretariat for social communications and ministry of the family of the diocese of Porto, in preparation for the celebration of the 38th World Day of Social Communications on 23 May. Father Américo Aguiar, director of the diocesan Secretariat of social communication, explained “the risks and the assets that the means of social communication may represent for families in general and Christian families in particular”. Given the “almost unlimited” supply of information, also thanks to Internet, Father Aguiar urged “discernment in the use of the mass media”. A score of journalists representing the Portuguese media of Christian inspiration met in Porto in recent days for a related meeting on “urgent challenges for the mass media of Christian inspiration”. The aim? “To give people signs of hope said José Vicente Ferreira of the Association of the Mass Media of Christian Inspiration (AIC) -. The mass media he continued – are ways of reporting the various situations in our time and helping people to read the signs of the time”. The need to ensure the future and continuity of the Church’s mission through social communication was also underlined. Ferreira asked the Christian means of social communication to choose “with care the issues they treat and respond to the Pope’s appeals for a new evangelization”: for example, through “dossiers with the messages of the Pope and the documents of the magisterium; or the promotion of seminars and debates in the press, with the focus placed on education and the young”.
