May  2004

In May, 2004, the JESCOMEAO Team, together with Asian Communications Network (ACN) conducted a two day communications workshop for the faculty and some students of Manila's Inter-Congregational Theological Center (ICTC). This theologate, run jointly by a number of congregations including the Redemptorists, Carmelites, Franciscans, Montfort Missionaries and Augustinians, invited this international team of church communication experts from Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Mumbai, Philippines, and Myanmar to introduce ways of integrating communications into the formation program of priests and religious. The topics of the seminar included communications in priestly ministry; Theology of Communication; new teaching  methodologies based on multiple intelligences; history of communications in the Church; media and values formation; media, business and the culture of life; homiletics and presentation skills, etc. This seminar was part of an on-going JESCOMEAO and ACN program aimed at enhancing the communication competencies of young priests in Asia through project-based activities. In addition to follow-up at ICTC, similar seminars are planned in Thailand, Pakistan, and other Asian theologates.

JESCOMEAO Secretary Jerry Martinson participated in the Signis Catholic Producer's Seminar in Strasbourg, France in April. This group is working to develop a Catholic video series that would make international Catholic news features regularly available to TV stations and video distributors worldwide. Kuangchi Program Service is participating in the pilot program of the series.

There is an interesting article about Richard Leonard, SJ (Australia) at http://www.smh.com.au. The author states that Fr. Leonard's experiences have helped confirm his view that "if we are waiting for people to come back to church, we could be waiting a long time. Maybe we should go where they are and speak in a language that they now understand, which is the language of the cinema." Fr. Leonard has just completed his doctorate in film studies at the University of Melbourne. As head of the Catholic Film Commission, he reviews films for Catholic newspapers and websites, educates teachers about media issues and the impact of some films in the classroom and responds to issues of classification and censorship.