KENYA: “Let’s Enhance Our Networking in Communication,” Vatican Official’s Clarion Call to Religious Women
A section of participants during Catholic Sisters convening in Nairobi
Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
The call for Religious women to strengthen communication by promoting communion in the Church and telling Christian stories, was a key highlight by Vatican official during a three day global Catholic Sisters convening in Nairobi, Kenya.
“We can enhance our networking with the sisters all around the world and we need this to improve our communion,” the Prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Communications Dr. Paolo Ruffini said while addressing over 150 participants from various countries across the globe who attended the conference adding that “We need to understand how beautiful it is to connect to each other more in the Church.”
According to the Vatican’s representative, the Dicastery of Communication which was established in 2015 to improve the effectiveness of the mission of communication and evangelization on a global scale, has collaborated with Hilton foundation to empower the Religious women communicators so that through them the people may get to know the “great work being done by the religious orders around the world.”
Dr. Ruffini disclosed that the Dicastery of Communication has come up which a project dubbed as “Pentecost project with sisters” to help “prepare women religious to take on positions of responsibility in the field of communication, both in Rome and all over the world, depending on their specific Charisms and communication needs.”
The participants who attended the conference from various countries across the globe included those from the Philippines, India, Italy, Malawi, DRC Congo, Zambia, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, United States of America, United Kingdom, Senegal, Vietnam, Germany, Ireland, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Slovenia and Kenya.
Highlighting some of the objectives for the project to be undertaken by the Dicastery of Communication with the sisters across the globe, Dr. Ruffini the first lay person appointed to head Vatican communication office shared that the project is to help give a voice to the sisters by “narrating testimonies of women Religious in 10 languages through various Vatican channels,” including, “L’Osservatore Romano, Vatican news #SistersProject, and Women Church” world among others.
He further noted that the Dicastery will provide “a free online subscription to L’Osservatore Romano and related publications for one year to the first 8,000 Religious communities who request it, to make our walk together concrete and visible.”
Additionally, Dr. Ruffini who has worked at the Dicastery of Communication for four years since 2018, disclosed that the project aims to train 10 Religious women for about three months in the Dicastery’s media services and also train other 25 women Religious through seminars offered by the Dicastery in collaboration with the UISG (International Union of Superiors General) communication office.
In his message to the Sisters during the convening that was organized by Hilton Foundation from 26-29th October, the Vatican official noted that the Dicastery’s mission is to “Communicate through the Church what is good, beautiful and true.” The Dicastery is also to transmit the Pope’s magisterium everywhere on earth and to read what is happening in the world through the eye of the Gospel. “
He encouraged the sisters that working together is possible emphasizing that this can be done, “Through your faith and through our faith, through your work and through our work, through the radio, the web and social media,” where “we can fill the world with truth basing on the experience of Pentecost and by sharing we can support each other from the Vatican and from your various countries.
