Over three days, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a gathering in Rome, Italy for Young Professional Communicators who are involved in the Catholic Church. This was to celebrate the Jubilee of the World of Communications (24-26 January 2025).

The gathering included over 120 communicators aged 18-35 from around 70 countries with the theme Pilgrims of Hope: Uniting Communicators for a Shared Journey.

Organised by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, there were opportunities for networking, storytelling, interactive activities and keynote addresses which were “all designed to explore the intersection of faith and communication in the digital age”.

We attended public Jubilee of the World of Communications events such as: the Penitential Liturgy and International Mass on the feast of St Francis de Sales (patron saint of journalists and Catholic writers) at St John Lateran Basilica, the pilgrimage to the Holy Door at St Peter’s Basilica and the general audience with Pope Francis (when I had the exciting opportunity to see him so close!), Holy Mass for Word of God Sunday and the Angelus with Pope Francis at St Peter’s Basilica.

The program for Young Professional Communicators, as shared by the Dicastery for Communication, centered around the image of the “four doors” – Vocation, Impact, Narratives, and Community – which served as a pathway for our own personal findings. During the gathering, it was emphasised that being a faith communicator is a vocation, an invitation from God to use our talents and gifts to bring and share hope in the world though communications. As communicators, we should be aiming to share the Gospel (the good news), being beacons of hope to a world that is suffering and constantly hearing negative news and misinformation.

Listening and engaging with keynote speakers Eli Pariser (New_Public), Paterno Esmaquel II (Rappler), Chris Walter (On our Radar) and participating in a workshop on storytelling led by the Narrative 4 group (founded by Irish writer Colum McCann), showed me the importance of my communications profession in sharing hope and promoting peace for humanity.

It was lovely meeting communicators in my profession from across the world! Over meals we shared our perspectives and experiences of the Church in our countries, our work and cultures.

A special moment was meeting a German communicator who had chosen St Mary MacKillop (Australia’s only canonised Saint) as her patron saint one year. She was over the moon when I gave her my only Mary MacKillop prayer card that I had happened to bring!

In our last session, we had the question: What hope or desire do I bring back with me? What I brought back was a renewed sense of communications in the Church community, where through our vocation of communications, we all have a common aim of sharing stories of hope.

In this Jubilee Year, let’s try to use our communications to promote stories of hope and action #hopetelling!

Videos of guest speakers and parts of my conference can be found on the Dicastery for Communication YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@DicasteryforCommunication/videos

Mary Baynie
Communications Officer, Congregational Administration Services