3-Mar-99 -- EWTN News Brief
Vatican City, 3 (NE) The Vatican Information Service published yesterday excerpts from the conferences given by Holy See Press Office Director Joaquin Navarro-Valls at the national assembly of the Latin American Catholic Press Union. The meeting took place last week in Havana, Cuba, and gathered representatives of the Catholic press in the country to reflect on the role that Catholic press plays today in Cuba.
Navarro-Valls highlighted in his conferences the Church's interest in the media, considering this activity as "an element of the culture of our age and as a means of transmitting values, that is, evangelization". Speaking about "The Media at the Service of Evangelization and Human Advancement", he recalled that "Christians see this as an attractive field of professional activity, with specific techniques which must be known and managed, and as a task in which the spiritual and human potential of the person can be developed".
In the second talk entitled "Discernment and Prophecy in Church Publications", Navarro-Valls stated that "the raison d'etre of the Catholic press is to serve, putting their ideas, means and space at the disposition of others". Church publications "would case to be press, but would especially cease being Catholic press if they were to cultivate in any way a lack of attention to the historical framework in which the salvation of the human being is involved".