Communicating in the Cantons

In harmony with the federalist organization of Church life in Switzerland, the funding allocated for the pastoral care of the media is implemented especially at local level and in the Cantons. The Catholic central Conference of Switzerland and the Fastenopfer (Lent Sacrifice) – that with the Bishops’ Conference subsidizes the various institutes throughout the Confederation and within the different language groups – avail themselves of less than 10% of the 25 million Swiss Francs (over 16 million euro) allocated for media pastoral care. Due to the delicate situation regarding financing of specific activities in the different language zones, which also affects federal activity, in 2002 these three institutions founded a joint working team charged with drawing up a report on “Pastoral priority and financial realities in the framework of projects for all Switzerland”. Rolf Weibel, former editor-in-chief of Schweizerischen Kirchenzeitung, has drawn an outline of the situation for SIR Europe. Catholics in Switzerland represent about 42% of the overall population, with 7.581.520 inhabitants. The Confederation is divided into 26 Cantons, some ten of which are Catholic. Communication for communion. Four basic pastoral perspectives were highlighted in the report drawn up in 2005 that claims the need “to operate within the communication network” since there can be no ecclesial “communio” without “communicatio”. “In a society that gives increasing importance to communication, dialogue and communication inside the Church, and between the Church and its surrounding environment, are all the more crucial”. The report thus proposes the appointment of an expert charged with “managing information and transmission of news on and within the Church” and with “developing a working procedure tool that will also define the financial needs”. The analysis of an expert. The Bishops’ Conference met this appeal by appointing Reinhold Jacobi, former chairman of the Media Office of Germany’s Bishops’ Conference, in spring 2006. In February 2007, Jacobi presented his analysis called “The Catholic Church’s news flow in Switzerland. Results, analyses, options”, which addressed the situation of the German-language region (in French-speaking Switzerland and in the Italian-speaking Canton of Ticino, Church media structures are less complex and the public perception of the Church is better). The decision of confining the assignment to the German-speaking area only was viewed as a mistake. In fact, the Bishops’ Conference tasked Jean-Paul Rüttimann, communication expert from Fribourg, with developing supplemental reports on the other areas that were presented in February and October 2008. The news agencies and the press. Exception made for the “Giornale del Popolo”, whose ownership is mostly of the diocese of Lugano, the rest of the press is secular. There are no diocesan periodicals, while there are parish news bulletins, consisting in community brochures or illustrated magazines distributed throughout the Canton. As relates to news agencies, the Catholic Swiss Agency (Kipa-Apic) operates throughout the territory with German and French language news services, while it is scarcely present in the Canton of Ticino. At local level, the papers report that the general public views the Church positively. In regional and supra-regional newspapers, Church-related news is appropriately conveyed, although dissonant evaluations have equally been reported. Radio and television. The Swiss company Srg Ssr Ideé Suisse is the national radio-and- television-broadcasting network. Srg’s cooperation with the Churches varies according to the language areas: in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland ad-hoc radio and television newsrooms run the religious and ecclesial programs, while agreements regulate Church cooperation. In French-speaking Switzerland and in the Ticino Canton, Churches have actively been cooperating since the beginning. In particular, in French-speaking Switzerland, religious programs management is entrusted to confessional ecclesial organizations, which are in charge of religious programs on demand and on remuneration by the French-Speaking radio and television network.