Every year, on the Sunday before Pentecost, the Church celebrates the achievements of the communications media and focuses on how it can best use them to promote gospel values.[/basel_info_box][basel_info_box image_alignment=”left” style=”shadow” new_styles=”yes” img_size=”70×70″]Why it is celebrated every year?

In setting it up on Sunday 7th May 1967, less than two years after the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI, knowing that the Church is truly and intimately linked with mankind and its history, wanted to draw attention to the communications media and the enormous power they have for cultural transformation.[/basel_info_box][basel_info_box image_alignment=”left” style=”shadow” new_styles=”yes” img_size=”70×70″]The Internet

In 2002, The Pontifical Council for Social Communications produced two documents on the Internet. The first is an analysis of the opportunities and challenges the Internet presents for evangelisation and is entitled The Church and Internet. The other sets out an ethical code which should guide its use and is entitled Ethics in Internet.[/basel_info_box]

The celebration came in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, which realised it must engage fully with the modern world. This realisation is expressed in the opening statement of the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes on “The Church in the Modern World”, which says: “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anguishes of the people of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted in any way, are the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anguishes of the followers of Christ as well.”[/basel_info_box][basel_info_box image_alignment=”left” style=”shadow” new_styles=”yes” img_size=”70×70″]Analysis and Action

Two important documents of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications – Communio et Progressio (1971) and Aetatis Novae (1992) have presented an analysis of the world of the communications media and made recommendations for the Church’s action. The Vatican itself has set a headline in updating its use of the full range of the communications media. On a recent visit to Vatican Radio, Pope Benedict was presented with an iPod of the music of Mozart in which he has a particular interest.[/basel_info_box]