On the strange and politicized Jubilee for the World of Communications

The Jubilee for the World of Communications took place Jan. 24-26 at the Vatican. It was the first such global gathering planned for the 2025 Jubilee Year, and parts of it were quite lovely. A Mass at St. John Lateran Basilica, in the presence of the heart of St. Francis de Sales, patron of communicators, was on the first evening. The following morning, pilgrims walked through the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica, praying for the intentions of the Holy Father. Mass at the St. Joseph altar was beautiful.

But, during the events in the Pope Paul VI audience hall adjacent to St. Peter’s—the same room where the Synod of Bishops completed its study of synodality back in October—things got a little strange.

While the theme adopted by the Vatican for this year’s Jubilee is the theological virtue of hope, it was not surprising that hope was the theme of the talk of the first keynote speaker at Saturday’s “dialogue.”

It was somewhat shocking, though, to hear unfiltered from Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist who was jailed for standing up to fascism in the Philippines. She spoke not on Christ our hope, but a political, secularized consideration of it for communicators, as if we were at the United Nations.

Her story, no doubt, could have been a powerful one, if not for its blatant politicization and bias.

To be fair, Ressa offered a somewhat interesting and thought-provoking critique of social media and its effecting of negativity and violence in an increasing post-truth reality. She posited two things: that “technology rewards lies,” and that “the men who control this transformative technology wield god-like power, but they are not God. They are only men, whose arrogance, lack of wisdom and humility is taking the world down a dark path. Increasingly, by their own definitions and words, their unchecked and unaccountable power is resembling a cult.”

But while her attack on Big Tech is undoubtedly warranted, her justifications fell short of convincing. Ressa advocated for “courage” today, “to speak when silence is safer; the courage to build bridges when walls seem easier; and the courage to stand for truth even when it feels like the entire world is against you.”

And she offered four suggestions to help the world overcome the threats posed to civilization: to 1. “Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate”, 2. “Speak Truth with Moral Clarity,” 3. “Protect the Most Vulnerable” and 4. Recognize Your Power.”

Ressa’s contribution to the “dialogue” at the Vatican was both radically slanted and agenda driven. I had a hard time seeing the hope from such an authoritarian masquerading as anti-authoritarian. Ressa’s insistence that “Big Tech broke democracy” was met with her claims that democratic elections ought to be dismissed: “In December, Romania became the first country around the world to void an election because of Russian manipulation of social media. They voided the election because of Kremlin interference. Now, imagine if the UK in Brexit or the US in 2016 was brave enough to have taken those actions and prevented impunity.”

This is illustrative of the kind of hope we ought to preach, the kind that will bring life and salvation to the world?

Perhaps I am naïve, but I would’ve thought any Jubilee event—the existence of which serves as a commemoration of Our Lord Jesus Christ’s birth, 2025 years ago, in this case—organized by the Catholic Church would have direct participants toward greater communion with Him.

For communicators, the needs are great. In many parts of the world, Catholic media are on the front lines of evangelization. If we do not talk about Jesus, and let others know how the events around them relate to Him who is the Way, Truth and Life, then who else will? How simple and how well-received would it have been, then, to have Jubilee speakers present who could offer a better understanding of how to live Christ’s life more fully and share him more effectively? For the world desperately needs both.

There was a slow-paced standing ovation at the conclusion of Ressa’s talk, but a sizeable portion of the room stayed firmly seated, only later to stand when applauding the concert of the Italian maestro violinist Uto Ughi, a welcomed respite.

Following the talk, Vatican communications prefect Paolo Ruffini, via Ressa’s Rappler social media platform, offered a defense of the keynote.

“I invited Maria Ressa, but I think that her story is a testimony of how we don’t have to lose hope and how we can bring hope in communication,” he stated on the video. “It’s not something abstract, it’s something concrete. It’s a story. Her story is speaking by itself. And the Nobel Prize that she had is a testimony of how a story can be inspiring for changing things. Also in terms of peace. So this is the reason why [Ressa was invited], because we as communicator [sic] has to communicate one another beside any religion, beside any culture, rediscovering that we can communicate and we can have hope together in a better world. So this is the reason why I invited Maria Ressa.”

The lauding of Ressa’s activist journalism as a catalyst of hope in communication is a rather amusing irony coming from that particular quarter, given Ruffini’s own trouncing of members of Catholic media last summer after they bravely asked about the case of acclaimed artist Father Marko Rupnik, who is facing accusations of abuse and rape. Ruffini’s less-than-hope-filled response was to lose his temper with the press and even to speak down to them.

When Catholic media tried to bring hope to victims and to a wider disheartened and scandalized Church, they encountered a shut door. Where the journalists from varying perspectives tried to have Ruffini enlighten the media on why Rupnik’s case damages and weakens the Vatican’s credibility on handling abuse, Ruffini brought discouragement and fertilized seeds of distrust and demoralization long planted over the last decade.

Ressa ended her talk, saying, “Even at the worst of times, hope is not passive; it’s active, relentless and strategic. Our faith traditions carry centuries of resilience; we need to share those stories of transformation.”

But how can we begin to share stories if our sharing doesn’t begin with the greatest story ever told? And how can we do it when truth and transparency themselves are elusive?

In the end, was it too much for Catholic communicators to come to the Vatican to hear about Jesus Christ? Was it too much to hope for something to strengthen our faith, rather than politicize it? Was it too difficult for the Vatican to offer a Jubilee event that would unite, foster communion, and energize our apostolic call?

I guess there’s always 2050.