Women protagonists of Church communication in Latin America and the Caribbean

From July 29 to 31, 2024, the Latin American and Caribbean Meeting of Communication Officers of Episcopal Conferences and Ecclesiastical Organizations was held at the CELAM headquarters in Bogotá . Many voices, experiences, knowledge, data, presentations, and workshops were fully experienced during these three intense days.

It is difficult to choose with whom to discuss a topic in depth or debate different positions. Perhaps it was because of such a dilemma that ADN Celam spoke with five women who — from their expertise in important roles and functions in ecclesiastical organizations on the continent — told what they take back to their countries after these professional and experiential exchanges.

Each one shared her vision of how Latin American and Caribbean communication is progressing.

“It’s very hopeful”

“The most important thing of all has been the experience of the meeting that allows you to dream together . One of the challenges we have as a church is to work in communion. There are beautiful experiences in different countries but we have little impact on society because there is no coordinated work,” said Eunice Meneses, communications representative of the Panamanian Episcopal Conference .

Great communication strategists understand that in order to transform attitudes, and even influence the culture itself—we talk about a lot of corruption and individualism—we have the best message to transmit, which is the good news of Jesus who loves us despite all our shortcomings.

However, – explains this laywoman – “ we have been lacking in incisiveness in using all the tools but in an articulated way, as a single Church, especially in Latin America, where the great challenge of accompanying the processes of our peoples is posed, which are not easy, and we have peoples very, very affected by the systems that we have in our countries.

He referred to the case of Venezuela, which “hurts us because we see a people in conflict, a people who seem to have no hope, and today we as a Church should express ourselves forcefully, all in unity, to give them hope, that encouragement that they are not alone, and that the strength of prayer and collective action – not to interfere within the government – to raise our voice at such a sensitive time as this.”

First, because ” Venezuela must hurt us, as Nicaragua must hurt us, as the rest of the continent and the world must hurt us, and we have to make it visible. We feel it but we do not express it and it seems as if we are indifferent.”

“It is very encouraging that we are meeting for the first time after the pandemic and I see a renewal among those of us who are here. I have been participating in these spaces for many years. There are young people, there are adults and there are new perspectives on the digital world that challenges us,” he added.

The Church is a great network that no one can deny that it “raises not only hope but also a lot of credibility. Creating a network from this experience [In fact, at the end of the meeting, the Reclac ( Latin American and Caribbean Communication Network) was born] is one of the most important aspects that we take away from this Meeting, beyond our episcopal conferences, incorporating more people in this process, especially young people who are digital natives who can be missionaries who transform realities .”

 

Overcoming institutional challenges

Araceli Teresa Gutiérrez, Communications Officer at Regchag

Araceli Teresa Gutiérrez Florentín, from Paraguay, is in charge of communications for REGCHAG (Ecclesiastical Network of the Gran Chaco and the Guaraní Aquifer). She explained that “apart from meeting all of my communications colleagues in person, whom I saw virtually, it is a very pleasant opportunity to see what they are working on,” the processes they are carrying out in each conference and ecclesial organization, and to learn from them.

“I think that in terms of communication we are doing quite well on the continent, people perceive us that way, but we have many difficulties at an institutional level: either we lack funding or we lack staff,” he said.

This is precisely the case, since “I am working alone in the communication of my Network. The panorama there is difficult, but we are eager to continue working, we are very happy to have this type of meetings.”

Change some criteria

Adriana Fajardo , executive secretary of the Episcopal Commission for Communication of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference, believes that “the communication areas of the episcopal conferences experience very similar problems and have different responses in which the creativity that exists to try to get ahead as communication offices is clear, the passion that each one puts into their work but, above all, listening to each other and seeing what solutions others found that you can apply in your country.”

Regarding ecclesial communication on the continent, he believes that “some criteria should be changed, some communication lines should be brought in, like companies have, manuals that guide us on how to deal with certain situations. Of the specific cases, I really liked the change of the logo of the Mexican Episcopal Conference: they did it in a way like a company would do.”

I also liked something I read at the Uruguay totem pole on the first day of the meeting: each delegate from the Episcopal Conference and ecclesiastical body was asked to take one of the three faces of a totem pole placed in the meeting room and to express what they do and how their space communicates by deploying art and imagination. By the way, it is worth clarifying that the meetings took place at round tables, in the style of the Synod of October 2023 in the Paul VI Hall in the Vatican. They had a barbecue with journalists, something that is very Latin American, the food and the chat. We leveraged the uses and customs of our countries to raise dialogues with the press and, above all, in difficult situations.”

 

A voice from the Antilles

Lauren Branker is the official communicator of the Episcopal Conference of the Antilles, which includes 19 countries in this region. She said that ” I take away all the social networks that we can apply within our communication axis . From the group work, I was interested in the whole topic of surveys and collaborative work on the networks. The collaboration that we can have from the Antilles with other countries is also an achievement.”

” I am astonished by everything I saw at this meeting , for example when we saw Albertina, all the crisis management, the platforms to obtain data from social media users, how they interact, and the different communication strategies that are being carried out in different countries,” she said.

He also added: “I have been friends with Óscar Elizalde [Director of the CELAM Center for Communication] for almost 4 years and I have asked them to collaborate on social networks, as well as on language. What we have shared has always been wonderful, I feel that CELAM is like a family, and I am always looking for new opportunities to continue being part of this process.”

 

Sharing the mission

Lisandra Cháves Leiva, executive secretary of communication of the Episcopal Conference of Costa Rica

Lisandra María Cháves Leiva , executive secretary of communications for the Episcopal Conference of Costa Rica, is leaving with the desire to do different things, to work on more communications, to share more experiences, and to transmit all of this to my colleagues there.

“We are eight colleagues from eight dioceses, each with its own diocesan communications commission, and everything we have experienced here must be communicated to the entire country through those responsible for communications, and we must also inform the network of Catholic media that we, from the Conference, help them to carry out projects together, to be unified,” he said.

He feels that “we are doing well on the continent because there is communication and we do many nice things, some with more resources than others, with more technology than others, but what we have to work on now first is the network because we cannot go out and build alone to achieve greater impact.”

She hopes that this meeting will promote greater unity, “not seeing ourselves as competitors, of who does things better, or who has the scoop, but rather seeing how we help each other. If I can go to an event and I have the photographs, I share them so that we can all publish them, for example.”

“Feeling that we are on a mission, as Monsignor Lucio Ruiz said at this meeting, a mission that is for others. It is not a job that I am doing to show off but rather I am doing it to serve and have a mission. That changes everything,” he concluded.