Fr Bill Kemmy
When people ask me what I ‘do for a living’, for harmless distraction I sometimes tell them that I work for a large multinational that specialises in communications and salvage. Within that admittedly lame gag lies an essential truth. The Church is in the communications business, not as an optional extra but at its core. We have a story to tell.
We have to accept that external, commercial media cannot do what we need to do for ourselves. We have to take responsibility for telling our own story and for how we share that story within the Church and beyond. The ‘Protection of Minors’ meeting in Rome is a great example. The Church in Ireland has a powerful story to tell about lessons learned and the leadership of laypeople. But how do we reach our audience?
Despite the myriad of digital tools at our disposal, it is not possible to describe the Church here as a ‘connected Church’. While there are some part solutions in place, we are simply not as ‘connected’, that is to say as united and supportive, as we could be. We lack a clear vision for sharing our own ‘story’ with each other.
Lifeblood
Creating a ‘connected Church’ goes beyond simply introducing and expanding technical solutions. We need a culture of communication. The Scriptures reminds us that we are called to engage with more than the immediate few – “Let us go elsewhere, to the neighbouring country towns, so that I can preach there too, because that is why I came” (Mark 1:38). We need to be guided by the belief that ‘communications’ is part of the lifeblood of the universal Church.
If we are serious about the ‘new evangelisation’, if we are serious about ‘faith formation’; we have to invest (in every sense of the word) in ‘communications’. We need to value both the method and the message.
At the heart of a ‘connected Church’ is the invitation to come together, the invitation to subscribe to a digital network that will offer you identity, community and formation. iCatholic is dedicated, both in terms of production and delivery, to being that trusted Catholic media platform.
However, we cannot do it alone. Far from it. A connected Church requires real partnerships. Our goal for 2019 is to help build those partnerships across the country and deliver a fully integrated national network that will do justice to our ‘message’ and strengthen the bonds between us. We would welcome your support.
Fr Bill Kemmy is the founder of iCatholic.