With the language of youth

The general assembly of the International Catholic Union of the Press (ICUP) was recently held in Rome. ICUP is an international organization that brings together journalists, editors and academics of communication that operate in all sectors of the media, both secular and religious, throughout the world. It has thousands of members in all countries and comprises eight federations and eight regions: the former are organized on the basis of the profession exercised (journalists, dailies, periodicals, university teachers and researchers, press agencies, ecclesiastical press, publishing, photographic journalists), the latter on the basis of geographic area. During the assembly which began on 31 October and ended on 2 November, and in which the Director of SIR Europe also participated, the new President of ICUP, the Austrian Bernhard Sassmann, was also elected. This is an important step that comes after a turbulent period marked also by the annulment of the General Assemblies of Canada in 2007 and of Rome in 2008. We discussed the question with two leading protagonists of ICUP: Franco Mazza, Ecclesiastical Advisor and, in particular, with its new President Sassmann. Point of no return. “ICUP’s General Assembly in 2009” – said Father Mazza – “undoubtedly represents a point of no return in the history of this international organization, which is recognized by the Holy See, and which has as its fundamental objective the support and promotion of democracy in the world of information thanks to the contribution of many Catholic professional journalists throughout the world. It’s a point of no return, because this assembly marks the conclusion of a somewhat unhappy period in which ICUP failed to complete even an ordinary administrative task such as that of the election of its President”. “The profound conviction of the participants in Rome 2009 is that ICUP can no longer hesitate to re-define itself and re-launch its own mission, on the basis of closer collaboration between and participation of all its members and of a more suitable definition of its statutory roles, decisions, and guidelines. ICUP must promote ways of internal and external communication that are distinguished by the ‘professional’ features of truth, justice and brotherhood. It must be committed to extending the scope of informative democracy in every part of the world, and be a credible sign of it, for the good of the community of Catholics and for humanity as a whole”.With the new generations. In describing to SIR Europe his priorities as President, Bernhard Sassmann emphasized, in particular, the need to foster and maintain the contact of youth with the media. He expressed his intention to “raise the awareness of journalists of the role they have – both in the secular and in the ecclesiastical media – especially at the service of faith, and of the Church’s message. Nor should we ignore the existence of new media, new channels of information, such as Twitter, Facebook etc., with which news is now being spread. I think that the access of the young to the media – if we don’t want to lost contact with them – is one of the most important tasks of our time. From this point of view, I will try to raise the awareness of my colleagues so that they don’t ignore this aspect. For too long we have failed to speak in the language of the young – even if clearly there are different problems from country to country. However, as far as countries in which these media are used, including Europe, the USA and the developing countries, it is becoming ever more important to use the media of the young, if we wish to have any success among them”. Widening horizons. Sassmann also urged Catholic journalists to adopt a new approach: “We must try increasingly to avoid the temptation to seek the defects in ourselves, to remain enclosed within ourselves; we need, instead, to look ahead and try to understand what the real problems are that we face. We must try to understand that as Catholic Christians we have the duty to report by identifying any developments that are incompatible with our faith. Too often Catholic journalism is seen as something self-referential: something that must deal only with itself. On the contrary, it must deal with the whole world; it must identify the positive and the negative things and tackle them accordingly”. Among ICUP’s immediate projects, the new President expressed the wish to strengthen its formative role: “We have many programmes of specialization for journalists, summer schools in which it’s possible to update our skills. We wish to further reinforce this activity, in proportion as the funds at our disposal allow us to do so. But for me, the top priority is to stop looking at ourselves and look ahead, widen our horizon: we should look at ourselves not as an end in itself but as a means to dedicate ourselves to the service of communication to our fellowmen. And we must do so with the help of the new media, by promoting and reinforcing programmes of specialization, also with the aim of creating a network between members for the exchange of experiences”.