Lord Patten of Barnes spoke to a gathering of media professionals in London, on 27 May, and outlined the Vatican Media Committee’s core recommendations for Holy See media operations.
Following a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Vincent Nichols at St Patrick’s Catholic Church in Soho, the British Catholic peer and former Chairman of the BBC Trust gave the 2015 World Communications Day Lecture.
As Chair of the 11-member Vatican Media Committee, he talked about the report recently presented to the Council of Cardinals and now being studied by a Vatican Commission.
The Vatican Media Committee was established in July 2014, and was given a clear mandate to ‘adapt the Holy See media to changing media consumption trends, enhance coordination and achieve, progressively and sensitively, substantial financial savings’.
In Lord Patten’s own words:
“We were always conscious that Pope Francis is an extraordinary communicator himself and it made us realise how much the rest of us have to do – to use a sporting phrase, to up our game. We wanted to propose a communications structure that would be worthy of him”.
The annual World Communications Day Mass and lecture is organised by the Catholic Communications Network (CCN) – the media office for the Catholic Church in England and Wales.
You can download the full text of Lord Patten’s address to media professionals at the 2015 World Communications Day Mass and Lecture by using the link below or to the right of this article.
catholicnews.org.uk/wcd15
Our full web section for World Communications Day.
