Social Communication in General Chapters 20 to 26
Special General Chapter (1972)
Fr Ricceri, Rector Major during the Special General Chapter, said in the Preface to the final Chapter Documentl (SGC) that this “sought to review our identity in depth in the light of modern circumstances and according to directives from the Council in response to issues in the Congregation itself”. With this premiss, the SGC tackled the study of Social Communication (SC) in Document VIII, under the title “Communication in and beyond the Congregation”. The SGC recognised that SC is “a service to fraternal communion that we cannot interfere with” and that, since Don Bosco, it has been “a most important part of our mission”.
The SGC's proposal was to facilitate the right kind of communication at all levels of the Congregation. It indicated the following: local level, through small publications; Provincial level through the “Provincial Newsletter” of interest to communities and confreres, tackling issues in the Province, promoting initiatives, looking at ideas and experiences. Finally, at world level it asked the superiors to promote the circulation of news.
The SGC returned to SC again in Document VI: “The SC Media in Salesian ministry”. It understood these media as press, cinema, radio and televisión and, following the then recent Conciliar document, Inter Mirifica, defined them as “instruments prepared for man by Divine Providence”. The SC Media, the Chapter says, require education to be used well and education to expose the negative view in advertising that comes with them.
Chapter members recognised the absence of Salesians in media such as theatre and youthful music and the lack of a systematic, coordinated and appropriate respect for SC.
Preparation of the Salesian in SC was also a point of reflection in the SGC: “It is necessary to initiative candidates to Salesian life into a gradual education to artistic taste and a critical appreciation of cinema, radio and television”, so that this preparation can allow the Salesian to make intelligent use of media in ministry, liturgy and catechesis, to be guides and companions on the journey for young people.
Three levels of formation of the Salesian in SC appeared for the first time: a general formation in SC to prepare every Salesian, a speciali8sed formation for leaders/animators in this area in the houses and provinces and the other was a “scientific” preparation for those who would be dedicating themselves to production and audiovisual enterprises.
The Chapter made an interesting appeal for the laity to be involved in Media and affirmed the need to prepare them and guide them to the tasks of creating and producing at a time when things were “almost exclusively controlled by religious”.
The SGC asked Salesians to get invo9lved in educating young people in Media, and to this end advised a concrete project to free young people from the negative conditioning resulting from media abuse, trusting, with a certain naivety, that young people could make choices, discuss and control media use.
In the “Guidelines for action”, the SGC said the following:
To sum up: the SGC recognised the importance of SC in the Congregation as a basic element of the mission, however while it took a more scientific and systematic view of things, it reduced it to “Media”. Basically we note the lack of a group to reflect on communication in the Congregation, something that would come many years later. Nor were they free yet of a negative view of SC and seeing it simply as a tool for the apostolate.
The 21st General Chapter (1978)
“Salesians, evangelisers of the young” was the theme of this GC that saw an improved situation in the Congregation with regard to the grater attention given to SC media in reference to evangelisation.
The GC went a step further and considered SC as “a complex and dynamic reality with a great capacity for persuasion”. The step froward in insisting more on SC than on SC media was now happening, although the turnaround in the new terminology – more adequate – was not yet complete: “The SC media”, the Chapter said, “are a true and authentic alternative school for large sectors of the world population, especially the young”.
The Chapter also noted a growth in commitment to SC in the Congregation: firstly, there was an increase in a “more mature and efficient” use of SC media, and they cited the following: ANS, Salesian Bulletin, short films, cassettes and slides. There was also an improved apostolic and educational activity through SC media and “group media” like audiovisuals, theatre and youth music.
Secondly, there was increased production of materials, instruments and programs for extending the Gospel through publishing centres, radio and television broadcasting. Production of audiovisuals and efforts to coordinate publishing were on the increase.
However GC 21 also offered a precise list of weak points in Salesian SC: insufficient formation of Salesians in this area, lack of planning, programmes, specialists in this kind of material. Here was a lack of an “authoritative, stable and secure” guidance for information in Salesian Bulletins and Salesian information production in general. Important too was the lack of correspondents, animation structures and relationship with Church organisations in the sector, at provincial and national level. Finally, it also asserted the lack of people and Salesian groups able to develop evangelising content in the new languages (the first time the term “language” is used in reference to SC). To sum up: the Congregation was lacking many tools, structures and Salesians qualified for enabling a more effective presence in the SC world; “a lack of a future vision”, the Chapter described it as.
CG 21's guidelines were aimed at central structures of government as well as at province level.
The Chapter's guidelines were:
GC 21 also went ahead with reforming the Regulations with direct reference to SC, article 28 established that the Provincial and his Council were to determine the ways of being present in the media through well-prepared confreres and services organised by Salesians themselves.
The step forward taken by this GC compared with what had happened earlier was a really important one because it laid the foundation for a stable structure and animating presence in SC, both at the central government level and in the provinces, while placing strong emphasis on the importance of formation and specific training for this field for Salesians.
22nd General Chapter (1984)
The 1984 General Chapter was the one that produced the final and definitive edition of the Constitutions and gave SC broad and profound reflection, far from mere voluntary activity and the terminological and theoretical hesitation of previous Chapters.
Fr Viganò, in his closing address to GC22, proposed an effort towards pastoral preparation of the Salesians in their educational activity in four areas, one of these being SC. He said: “This GC took the stance that it is willing to get involved in the SC area, especially on behalf of popular settings”. It is a case of developing popular culture through SC to have an impact on criteria of judgement, important values, models of life… cultivating artistic expression, media, press and others. Time, the interest shown by the great communications multinationals, and technology itself have softened a certain degree of naivete in the proposal, so characteristic of its time, but while the commitment to a Salesian Social Communication of quality might be put more strongly, it could not have been put not more clearly.
In the definitively approved constitutional text, articles 6 and 43 make direct reference to SC and in the Regulations also in articles 34 and 41. This GC established an SC Department, and from this decision there would be a General Councillor who would also share another responsibility – Salesian Family.
In line with the constitutional text that placed SC amongst the priorities of the mission, GC22 said that SC must be one of the keen and essential aims of Salesian apostolic activity, which would mean a change in thinking and a new kind of presence. And the Chapter document had this to say about education: “We must work together for a diverse communication that can be an educational force capable of shaping ways of thinking, and create a culture that arrives at being an “alternative school”. The Chapter also indicates that the Salesian Family should help in advancing in this new frontier and do so with all its human potential.
With a more evidently solid theoretical base, chapter members made it clear for the first time that the message is more than the media, and that it has to be clear, comprehensible and relevant. The message and language, they insist, is much more than media. Here we have an affirmation with profound consequences for SC practice in the Congregation in the coming years.
The 23rd General Chapter (1990)
In the context of New Evangelisation launched in those years by Pope John Paul II, GC23 planned how to educate young people to the faith, young people largely conditioned by a sense of the immediate and the utilitarianism which had grown through the media.
By taking a look at young people in this context, the chapter document noted that young people communicate with great ease in these new languages like music, television and video clips – the first reference to video used in the service of an audiovisual narrative genre which is rather special but of great relevance at the time.
The GC made an important theoretical statement: “The new languages generate a new culture and spread models of life, and produce a constant flow of information; on occasions they create critical awareness, while often they also create uncritical dependencies”. A paragraph like this could only result if behind it there was the support of some of the great theoreticians of the time like McLuhan, Umberto Eco, Adorno and, in the ecclesial arena, Pierre Babin.
Reflecting on how to form the faith and awareness of the young, the GC said that the community should develop a new form of communication. While recognising that young people are “bombarded by media”, the Chapter recognised that this situation was a challenge for the Salesian educator and the community given that it would have to make the effort to acquire the ability to maintain a Salesian and evangelising word in a world of multiple languages. In this new scenario, the media are essential for proclaiming the word of salvation and, recalling article 6 of the Constitutions, the chapter document says: “The Congregation feels that it is implicated in this”. This is, without doubt, a transcendental statement.
GC23 lays out some commitments in this sector at three levels:
To sum up, the practical commitment is evident and well-ordered, but the inclusion of the provincial person “in charge” of SC within the Youth Ministry Team does not seem a wise decision in the long term and the functions of the General Councillor for SC are not as precise as chapter reflection on the issue would have led us to think.
The 24th General Chapter (1996)
“Salesians and lay people: sharing the spirit of Don Bosco” was the title and aim of reflection by GC24.
Reflection on SC in this GC was not as extensive as in the two previous Chapters and chapter members focused more on communication in the broad sense, defining it as an essential vehicle of communion at every level in the Salesian Family, in the educative and pastoral community and in other areas. “The time has come to see to the quality of the message, more than words and elocution”, the chapter document states.
Communication, one of the areas of involvement taken up by GC24, is valued in all its forms as something which drives involvement and responsibility in the Salesian mission and is essential for this to happen.
Very relevant also is the reference to Don Bosco's practice in this matter: "By communicating, St John Bosco helps us to understand that his mission has no boundaries." Communication for Don Bosco was the instrument of culture, evangelization and even vocational proposal.
In his closing address to the GC by the then Rector Major, Fr Vecchi, SC is seen as a new Areopagus and is considered as a concrete manifestation that we are in the "global village" (McLuhan's ideas and Babin's). The Rector Major recognises that the Congregation has not always matched up with the most significant ways for educating and evangelising, referring no doubt to the subsidiary role that SC had in the Congregation at various times, as we have seen.
The chapter document states that the SC is a popular instrument of evangelization and cultural activities and recognizes its educational dimension, and entrusts to the Salesians and laity the task of being trained in SC and thus opening the way to creating what would become the current Faculty in Social Communication at the Salesian Pontifical University (first ISCOS, today FSCS). It also created a Councillor for SC and asked for SC to be promoted in the Provinces; it sought technological renewal of central services of the Congregation, advocated forming Salesians and lay professionals in the field and promoted a quality Salesian Bulletin.
This was an ambitious array of objectives then outlining directions for government at General Council level, the Department, and the Provinces.
GC24 was looking at the future and proposing that attention be given to forms of communication which are valid for creating greater involvement, so as to increase awareness of the motives and values of the Salesian mission and that information leads to a more significant presnece in an area.
The GC maintained that to evangelise and to educate is to communicate and that faith is of its very nature communicative, other than that it needs to be inculturated.
The practical guidelines from GC24 are expressed in the three areas we already know:
The GC also recognised the value of the Salesian Bulletin as a means of communication for sharing the Salesian spirit and for greater involvement of the Salesian Family and Salesian Movement in education and evangelisation.
In a few words: GC24 established the basis for Salesian SC today: a time for making the information services more professional, encouraging communication at every level, using the advances in telecommunications that allow for this; and beginning from this GC a process of animation and formation in SC is established for all Salesian regions in the world; the relaunching of the Salesian Bulletin and a reflection on Salesian presence in the publishing and radio broadcasting world, so that it could be ore professional and established on a solid Salesian foundations.
The 25th General Chapter (2002)
The driving factor for Salesian reflection in this case was “The Salesian community today”. It was the first General Chapter in which ANS coverage of what was going on in the main auditorium was almost in real time: daily news, photos, interviews, all thanks to communication technology (internet, email and digital photography) already well established across a broad area of the Congregation and habitually in use in provinces and houses.
GC25 studied the positive aspects of SC and said that in local, provincial and world areas, thanks to this there was a much keener sense of belonging. The Chapter also highlighted some negatives: the media invasion that detracts from time and fraternal and community relationships.
“The community”, says the Chapter document, “The community undertakes to ensure that the evangelical counsels make crystal clear its gratuitous and unconditional offering....through the education ofits members to the appropriate use of the means of social communication, including the most recent such as the internet, DVD etc., and periodically assessing their positive and apostolic use”. The community, furthermore, will make itself present in the local area by cooperating with Church and civil bodies in SC.
There is an important appeal by the Chapter for the community to work through projects and to move from “ministry made up of activities” to a “ministry of processes”, thus opening itself up to forms of education and evangelisation that see the value of SC as a new vital space for bringing people together and for encounter with the young. We can also see a preview of something that would come a few years later, where with the explosion of social networks, “the virtual playground” would be recognised.
Among changes to the Constitutions affecting SC, the novelty was the creation of a General Councillor SC dedicated only to this sector. His function was to animate the Congregation in this sector by fostering Salesian activity in SC and coordination globally of centres and structures which the Congregation runs in this area. This was an important step for giving “political weight” to the SC Councillor so he could plan and animate Social Communication more effectively in his own department and in other occasions in the Congregation. The first edition of the Salesian Social Communication System would become a good example of the serious work being done in this sector.
The 26th General Chapter (2008)
The last of the General Chapter until now and under the presidency of the Rector Major, Fr Pascual Chávez had as its title and plan the well-known line from Don Bosco “Da mihi animas, caetera tolle”.
GC26 coins the term “new frontiers” to express the new physical or mental places where Salesians at all levels ought to be, in response to the demands of our new times, New Evangelisation and in dynamic fidelity to our Founder. SC is one of the new frontiers.
“The new technologies”, the Chapter document says, “question the Salesians and offer them challenges, amongst them “personal media” (computers, intelligent phones and other gadgets connected to the internet including wifi); these are already the normal habitat for young people and are bringing a world of new possibilities and also dangers.
The Chapter urges the Salesian to “to present in the virtual playground to listen, enlighten and guide”.
Analysing the state of the Congregation with regard to SC as a whole, the Chapter notes the growth in sensitivity and involvement of the Congregation in SC.
Very clearly and concisely the Chapter presents a short list of advances in the area: consolidation of the Faculty at the UPS, the various projects in media education, growth in Salesian institutional portals (websites) on the internet, the greater familiarity Salesians have with the Net for exchanging and for distance formation/learning and the new organisation of the SC Department. However at the same time the document signals that many of the virtual worlds inhabited by young people escape the Salesians cause they don't share or provide leadership in them for lack of formation, time, and sensitivity. Definitely a hard but accurate assessment.
The GC26 guidelines also flaunt clarity and audacity:
There is a need to shift from a timid approach and sporadic presence in media to a responsible use and a more incisive educational and evangelising activity.
This is to be made concrete at the usual three levels:
Conclusion
The Salesian Congregation, over the last forty years, has made a valiant effort to get SC and Communication in general to where Don Bosco unequivocally wanted it, amongst constitutional priorities, and especially as now demanded by current progress of information science and technological instruments.
General Chapters 20 to 26 have refined reflection, analysis on and arrangements for SC: from considering SC as appropriate for spreading news of the family or the Acts of the General Council reflection has moved to creating a faculty of social communication, profesional dissemination of news and concern for the corporate image, among other advances.
There has also been substantial provision at the level of the Constitutions to see that there is a General Councillor for SC with his own department free from other concerns like the Salesian Family. There has been progress at the Province level arriving at appointment of a Delegate in each province.
Some fears and defensive positions in this sector have remained, such as a reductionist viewpoint interested more in catechetical structures to achieve greater effectiveness in the apostolate, rather than exploring the appropriate languages for arriving at those to whom we are sent, especially the young.
The various General Chapters have also been refining their terminology, relegating the expression “Communication Media” to second place in favour of other more appropriate terms in current research into communication, such as “Social communication”, “Mass Media” or the more recent“Personal media”.
The commitment to formation of Salesians in SC, and of communities and laity has become constantly clearer. The circular letters on SC from the last three Rector Majors have only helped to further encourage this essential need.
One also needs to add the desire to give the Congregation a solid organisation in SC at two levels: general government and province level government, and define the areas as animation, formation, information and production. The Salesian Social Communication System, recently approved in its second edition is the current response to the need to follow this new mentality in communication in the Congregation, that the Rector Major, Fr Pascual Chávez, in his final address to GC26 referred to when he said: “We must learn to use the languages of the young to communicate and inculturate the Gospel”.
Josep Lluís Burguera