Chancery Notice
World Communications Day 2023
The 57th World Communications Day is celebrated this year on 21th May, Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, with the theme: “Speak with the heart: Doing the truth in charity” - using the gift of communication as a bridge and not as a wall.
Offerings collected from the parochial Masses that Sunday will be delivered to the Holy See through the Diocesan Curia to support the social communications apostolate of the Universal Church.
Given at the Chancery Office, Macau, 8th May 2023.
Rev. Cyril Jerome LAW, Jr.
Chancellor
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THEME OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS FOR THE 57th WORLD DAY OF SOCIAL COMMUNICATIONS 2023
“Speak with the heart: Veritatem facientes in caritate” (Speaking the truth in love).
Speak with the heart: Veritatem facientes in caritate” (Doing the truth in charity) is the theme for World Day of Social Communications 2023, announced the Holy See Press Office on Thursday. The World Day of Social Communications will be celebrated on 21 May 2023.
The theme, which connects with that of 2022 – “Listen with the ear of the heart” is intended to form part of the path that will lead the entire Church to the celebration of the Synod in October 2023. Speaking with the heart, explained a statement, means giving “a reason for your hope” and by doing so gently, “using the gift of communication as a bridge and not as a wall.” It is an invitation to “go against the grain” at a time characterized by polarization and heated debates that exacerbate tempers – even in ecclesial life.
The theme further invites everyone not to “fear to state the at times uncomfortable truth that finds its foundation in the Gospel.” This proclamation, however, must not be separated from “a style of mercy, of sincere participation in the joys and sufferings of people of our time,” as shown in the dialogue between the mysterious wayfarer and the disciples of Emmaus in the Bible.
In the dramatic context of conflicts in different regions of the globe, the theme affirms the importance of non-hostile communication Thus, it promotes, “a communication open to dialogue with the other, that fosters “integral disarmament”, that strives to dismantle the “psychosis of war” that lurks in our hearts,” as Saint John XXIII prophetically exhorted sixty years ago in Pacem in Terris. In this regard, everyone, and in particular those who work in the field of communications, are called upon to exercise their profession “as a mission for building a more just, more fraternal and more human future.”
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis’ theme for the next World Communications Day is a call for a peaceful dialogue that allows for uncomfortable truths to be spoken of without resorting to contentious and hostile debate, the Vatican announced.
Speaking the truth “means giving ‘a reason for your hope’ and doing so gently, using the gift of communication as a bridge and not as a wall,” the Vatican said Sept. 29 when it announced the theme of World Communications Day 2023.
Each year, the Vatican and many dioceses mark World Communications Day on the Sunday before Pentecost; in 2023, it will be celebrated May 21. The pope’s choice for the theme is: “Speak with the heart: Veritatem facientes in caritate” (Speaking the truth in love).