PNG and Pacific seminarians learn communication skills

By Fr Giorgio Licini
Catholic Reporter PNG

The Catholic Church in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific wants the new priests trained in mass media and social communications. Therefore, a symposium on “Radio and New Evangelization” was held on 1-2 May at the Catholic Theological Institute in Bomana, Port Moresby. This followed a similar initiative held around the same time last year on “Social Networks:  Portals of Truth and Faith; New Spaces for Evangelization.”

About 120 young candidates for the priesthood and religious life attended the sessions. A theological key note address, ‘Evangelizing in the 21st century’,  introduced the theme and was followed by experiences of community and religious radio broadcasting in Australia, Italy, Africa, and the Philippines.

During the second day the focus was on Papua New Guinea with a presentation by PNG National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) acting manager Allen Aarifeae followed by a forum with all resource persons and the presence of directors of PNG Catholic radio stations (Port Moresby, Mt Hagen, Rabaul, Lae, Bereina).

Fr Gianni Criveller, a Hong Kong based theologian, Italian missionary and media expert Fr Fabrizio Colombo, Sydney CRADIO staff member Luke Streher, and PNG journalism student Bradley Gregory also took a smaller number of participants and a dozen of PNG Catholic radio operators into a two-day workshop to  enhance their communication skills.

The activity was sponsored by SIGNIS, the World Catholic Association for Communication based in Brussels and Rome, and by the office of Social Communications of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands.