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Francisco and communication: communicating is sharing

Francisco and communication: communicating is sharing
Vatican
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On the portal of the best-known Italian encyclopedia, Treccani, a special was published on the words that Pope Francis addresses in the most important documents of his Pontificate.

Alessandro Gisotti

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
For the Pope, communicating is above all sharing and sharing requires listening. Can we communicate by listening? We live in an age where it seems that if we don't have the last word, we "lose" in communication. We see this every day on television shows and in political debates. We personally test it on social media (the most frequented square today), where if we don't post the last tweet or the final post, it seems like we are defeated in any conversation, whatever the topic. Pope Francis overthrew this functionalist paradigm of communication, which considers communication as a weapon to defeat the other, and returned it to its primary value: a gift, an opportunity, which helps us grow together with the other. The immediate consequence of this "altruistic" logic is that the communicator does not prevail over the message to be transmitted. Rather, the message becomes louder when the person announcing it "stands aside."

The silence that speaks

For this reason, in Francisco, silence and even immobility - which would be a paradox in the media era always in search of sounds and movements - become amplifiers of meaning. Many of us had the privilege of accompanying the Pope's visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on July 29, 2016. There we were moved by his silent prayer, which seemed to last an interminable time. Better than any speech, that silence was able to convey the suffering and consternation at the pain that this place will always carry with it, but at the same time also the need to remember, not to forget the unprecedented horror of the death camps.

Four years pass. Another "word silence" at another dramatic moment in our history. It was March 27, 2020: the Pope alone, in the empty St. Peter's Square, was praying under the wooden crucifix of St. Marcellus and the icon Salus Populi Romani. That celebration, in an almost surreal context, remains one of the strongest images of the pandemic. The next day, the photo of the Pope in prayer appeared on the front pages of newspapers around the world. The message crossed the perimeter of the Catholic faith and became an interpreter of the anguish and hope of all humanity.

The pastor's phone calls

For Francisco's "counter-current communication", listening is a fundamental component, the base. It is no coincidence that in this period marked by the impossibility of moving around and the drastic reduction in the number of people encountered, the Pope - with that "creativity of love" that he often refers to - spent a long time reaching people to through an ancient communication tool that never goes out of style: the telephone. During these months of confinement, the Pope made numerous calls to suffering people, Covid patients, the elderly and even nurses and young people who volunteered to help those in need. The Pope's calls have more to do with listening to experiences than offering directions. "This," he said when interviewed by a Spanish magazine, "helped me keep track of how families and communities lived at the time."

Listening therapy

In 2016, Francisco had already stressed that listening "is much more than hearing", "listening is paying attention, wanting to understand, appreciate, respect, protect the words of others". In the same year, during the international trip to Mexico, speaking with young people in the city of Morelia, he said that when a contemporary is in difficulties, it is necessary to be by his side, listening. "Do not tell him: I bring you the recipe," he stressed, "but it gives you strength with listening, here is a remedy that is being forgotten, the 'listening therapy'".

The power of proximity

Many wonder where is the secret of the Pope's communicative success, which almost 8 years after his election remains intact, as, among other things, demonstrated by the homilies of morning masses broadcast during the pandemic, followed by millions of people around the world. world. Perhaps the "secret" lies precisely in placing the true value of communication at the center, centered on man and not on the media. The value of a "paradoxical" power that grows the more it reduces, putting itself at the service of the other, a power of proximity. For this reason, also in communication, the Pontiff asks us to follow the model of the Good Samaritan. It is no coincidence that, in his first Message for the Day of Social Communications, he wrote that the parable of the Good Samaritan "is also a parable of the communicator" because whoever communicates "draws near". With words and gestures, Francis tells us daily that it is necessary to "take risks" in order to communicate, risk for others, as the man from Samaria did on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. According to the Pope, we should not be afraid to leave room for the opinions of others, their proposals, even their questions, reaping the good that each one is the bearer. Only in this way, in fact, by recognizing ourselves as Fratelli tutti , can we build a better future, worthy of our common humanity.

Source: Vatican News