A two-day hectic meeting of communication experts and seminary formators from across India concluded in Bangalore September 8th, at Nava Spoorti Kendra. Organised by the Catholic Bishops Conference of India’s (CBCI)Commission for Social Communications, the participants refined and fine-tuned a resource-book ‘Communications in formation’ intended to be introduced in seminaries across India.

The resource book is the result of a year-long effort of several media personnel, tailor-made to suit formation programmes in seminaries and intended to produce priests with effective communication skills.

“There are priests who cannot deliver a sermon effectively or with reasonable impact on the congregation even after several years of formation in a seminary. Seminarians must be helped in this regard.” observed a participant. A lady participant noted “Even religious sisters sent for media studies end up with responsibilities totally different from the Media”. The lady participant also observed “there is a lackluster attitude among many priests and religious when it comes to handling the media. They are either shy or frightened or just not confident” she said.

“Being a good communicator does not always and necessarily imply that one knows the use of all those media gadgets. Being techno-saavy is one thing. Being a good communicator is another. We must not be confused with the two” Fr. Adolf Washington, President of the Indian Catholic Press Association said. Fr. Washington added “The Media formation programmes in the seminaries must not be like a burdensome ‘academic subject’ in the list of philosophical and theological subjects, but rather a skill-learning exercise that will equip a priest become effective in preaching and public relations”

Executive Secretary of the CBCI Commission for Social Communication, Fr. George Plathottam, under whose initiative the resource-book is being launched, said “Nobody should suffer for want of a resource person to implement the Media program for formators”. He mooted the idea of building up a list of resource persons to implement the program across India.

“Where are the women in the media profession? We must keep these media programmes opened to women religious too” Bro. Mani, National Secretary for Conference of Religious India (CRI) said. He added “Our media programmes in formation must be user friendly, practical and not loaded with just theory, otherwise we will not have communicators”.

German-born SVD Priest and internationally acclaimed Media expert, Fr. Fransz Eilers told the gathering “Since we have 12 bishops conference, we could have a regular media conference or training programme to help update and equip bishops with media skills”. Remarking the importance of training seminarians too, he said “Anyway, some seminarians of today would one day become Bishops”.

Director of Communications training, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, Fr. Jacob Srampickal “I see a very encouraging different in the attitudes of Bishops in India. Both Bishops and their secretaries and PROs in general seem to be in the groove of communications media. Technology most people know, but what we need to impress upon the Bishops is to look at how this can be implemented in the Church Ministry”

Former Rector of St. Peters Pontifical Seminary and Professor in Communications, Fr. Sebastian Perianan said “St. Peters Pontifical seminary has full credit allotment for classes in communications and the results are very encouraging when one gauges the performance of those who get ordained”.

Fr. Plathottam said” The response of the Bishops in India is very good and so we can look ahead with optimism. Only the modalities and method of implementing these programmes has to be worked out at the earliest”.