by Sr. Márcia Koffermann, FMA
Not only is it possible, but it is urgent for the Church to look at communication, because ultimately evangelizing is communicating. And communicating the Gospel is the responsibility of every Christian. The missionary mandate to go evangelize all peoples is at the root and origin of Christianity. According to the encyclical of Pope John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio: "The first areopagus of modern times is the world of communications (...). It is not enough, therefore, to use the media to spread the Christian message and the Magisterium of the Church, but it is necessary to integrate the message itself into this new culture."
Communicating: the culture of young people
It is possible to see how the culture of communication is at the direct center of young people by the forms wherein they live, relate, organize their time, see the world. Thinking about educommunication in the ecclesial environment is the best way to approach youth cultures and make the Gospel meaningful for young people.
The broad objective of educommunication is to create communicative ecosystems - that is, educational and evangelizing environments, from the climate of family, that allow one to experience the sense of community. In this way, every parish, every ecclesial community can be considered an ecosystem where every person, every activity accomplished, every word said, and every choice is an essential element that defines what we want to communicate.
Evangelizing is communicating
It is worth reflecting on how our parishes are able to accommodate these new youth cultures. Young people want to be actors, protagonists, subjects of process, even if they often find it difficult to fit into institutionalized models. If evangelizing is to communicate, who better understands communication than the young people themselves?
The constant use of digital technologies changes the way young people read the world. Words often seem unpleasant; in a mediatic world, an image is worth a thousand words. Here, a first challenge. Christianity is a religion founded on the Word; how, therefore, to educate young people to listen to the Word, both the Word of God and the signs of God in one's own life? And again: how to exploit the whole culture of images that is characteristic of Catholicism?
