By CSN Media
The Episcopal Chairman for Social Communications, Most Rev. David Ajang, has called on all church communicators to desist from focusing mainly on the negative happenings in the church, but to get on board and report the great and positive strides of the church in the areas of education, healthcare, and provision of basic social amenities to the public.
Bishop Ajang made the call in a chat with CSN Media at the ongoing second 2023 plenary assembly of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) in Abuja.
The prelate, who is also the Local Ordinary of Lafia Diocese, called on all the Communication officers in the different dioceses in Nigeria, to sit up and begin to tell their story, because if they do not tell their story, nobody will do it, and the society will not be evangelised.
“Recently, I read a book about one Matthew Kelly, and Kelly said that the Catholic Church, is not doing enough as far as telling her story is concerned and he challenged everyone that if they go into the field of education, there is no other institution that has contributed so much to education like what the Catholic Church has done and is still doing; including healthcare and provision of basic social amenities.
“Unfortunately, nobody is always there to tell the story of the church effectively, because the focus is always on the negativity. If people hear that a priest did something wrong, it will make news, but to report all the great strides and contributions of the church to charity, like the activities of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, nobody is talking about it and they are present in every pastoral unit in the country,” he explained.
Commenting on the effects of the new media in the communication apostolate, Bishop Ajang further urged all communicators in the church, to make deliberate effort to crowd-out negative contents in the cyberspace with positive ones that can promote the mission of the Church and make the media consumers morally refined instead of ending up being corrupted.
“The social media are very helpful and at the same time, can be very destructive, because of the high rate of negative contents pushed in daily into the cyberspace. I call on all the people with needed resources, professionals and those who are very knowledgeable with the workings in the cyberspace to populate the cyberspace space with lots and lots of positive contents, so that those who visit the cyberspace will encounter majorly something better.โ
While advising people to be more deliberate about what they go for on the net, the bishop emphasized that media Influencers with positive contents should be encouraged to compete favourable with those carrying negative contents, so that they can crowd-out the negative ones, since the battle is between good and evil, darkness and light; when good people do not populate the space, then the bad ones take over and conquer.
The ongoing CBCN plenary assembly will be rounding off today, 14 September, 2023 with the closing Mass and reading of the Communique at Our Lady Queen of Nigeria Pro-cathedral by 5pm.
