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(Vatican Radio) The Statute for the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications was published on Thursday, saying its aim was "to respond to the current media reality, characterized by the presence and development of digital media and their increasing social interaction." It said this evolving situation called for a reorganization of the Apostolic See’s various media outlets in order to proceed towards a merger of them under a united management. The Statute has been approved on “an experimental basis” for three years and is part of a wider ongoing reform of the Roman Curia and the Holy See's institutions. 

Listen to this report by Susy Hodges: 

Role

The Statute confirms that the Secretariat for Communications was established by Pope Francis in his Motu Proprio, issued on 27th June 2015, with the aim of uniting all those entities within the Apostolic See which are involved in communications, in order to respond ever better to the needs of the Church’s evangelizing mission. It said new technological advances or media models that may emerge in the future will be adopted and also come under the umbrella of the Secretariat. When carrying out its functions, the Secretariat will coordinate its activities with the other Vatican Dicasteries and especially with the Secretariat of State. 

Structure

The Statute confirmed that the Prefect, Secretary, Members and Consultants of the Secretariat for Communications have all been appointed by Pope Francis for 5-year terms. It said the Secretariat will be divided into 5 Administrative Departments: the Department for General Affairs, the Editorial Department, the Department for the Holy See’s Press office, the Technology Department and the Theological and Pastoral Department. All of them will come under the control of the Prefect and the Secretary and each Department will have its own Director, to be appointed by Pope Francis, having been proposed by the Prefect and including input from the Secretariat of State. The Prefect can also propose setting up “other entities” or organizations linked to the Holy See and each department can also avail themselves of “independent services.”

Department for General Affairs

Its duties and responsibilities include: the general management of the various departments, human resources, dealing with all legal and copyright matters and coordinating any international initiatives.

Editorial Department

Its duties and responsibilities include: giving guidelines and coordinating editorial policies pertaining to the Secretariat for Communications, developing new forms of communication and ensuring the effective integration of traditional media with today’s digital world.

Department for the Holy See’s Press Office

Its duties and responsibilities: include publishing and releasing official communications concerning both the activities of the Roman Pontiff and the Holy See, following the guidelines of the Secretariat of State, hosting and moderating press conferences and briefings, giving official replies to queries from journalists about the activity of the Pope and the Vatican in general, after having consulted the Secretariat of State.

Technology Department

Its duties and responsibilities include: managing the technological side of communications activity and keeping pace with and adopting new advances in this field, defining and applying methods that conform to Vatican and international norms and to best practices in the sector.

Theological and Pastoral Department

Its duties and responsibilities include: drawing up a theological vision of communications, promoting the pastoral activity of the Pope through words and images and providing a theological context to support them, promoting a pastoral-theological formation by setting up a network with local churches and Catholic associations active in the field of communications and making Christians more aware of the importance of communications methods for announcing the Christian message and promoting the common good.

Staff and Offices

All staff and consultants are to be chosen from people of proven reputation, free from any conflict of interest and possessing an adequate level of professional experience. Any conflict of interest that may arise during their mandate must be made known and appropriate measures taken to resolve it.

Documents and Data

All the documents, data and information held by the Secretariat for Communications will be used exclusively for the reasons stipulated by law and they will be protected in order to guarantee their safety, integrity and confidentiality, covered by office secrecy. 

Archives

The Secretariat for Communications will have an archivist responsible for keeping the Secretariat's archives and storing them “in a secure place within the Vatican City State or in an extraterritorial Vatican area.” The Prefect will be in charge of drawing up procedures for the best storage and preservation of documents including audiovisual and audio files, in both analogue and digital forms.

Working language

The working language used by the Secretariat for Communications will be Italian.

Transitional Norms

The Statute is of a transitional nature where, as already spelled out in the Moto Proprio, the organziations merging and becoming part of the Secretariat for Communications are: the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, the Holy See Press Office, Vatican Internet Service, Vatican Radio, Vatican Television Centre, L’Osservatore Romano, Vatican Printing Press, Vatican Photographic Service and the Vatican Publishing House. The Secretariat for Communications also will take over responsibility for the institutional website of the Holy See and take on the management of the social media outlets reporting on the activities of the Pope.

“All these organizations will continue their activities, observing the current norms, yet following the guidelines given by the Prefect until the date when they will be incorporated into the Secretariat for Communications, at which time they will be disbanded.” During the integration process, the various organizations involved will follow the regulations, guidelines or other instructions as issued by the Secretariat “within the framework of the general norms of the Holy See and respecting the acquired rights of the staff.”

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Pope Francis and leaders and representatives of ‎450 representatives of Christianity, Islam,‎ Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Sikhism, ‎Zoroastrianism and other religions of the world said "No to War!" on Sept. 20, vowing to oppose ‎terrorism in God's name and appealing to politicians to listen to "the anguished cry of so many ‎innocents".‎  They made the appeal at the end an international interreligious prayer meeting in the central ‎Italian town of Assisi, that was home to St. Francis, the popular 13th century saint revered by many ‎religions as a patron of peace and nature and a defender of the poor.‎  ‎

Many of those who joined Pope Francis in appealing for peace were from Asia.  Listen to a programme on the Assisi peace meeting:

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Johannesburg, South Africa, Sep 22, 2016 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The unexplained deaths of three dozen mentally ill patients in a South African province show the need for action to help this vunerable population, the country’s bishops have said.

“As a society, we should never forget that the lives of the mentally ill are precious before God. The lives of the mentally ill should therefore be considered to be more important than the dictates of fiscal efficiency and profit making,” the Justice and Peace Commission of the South African Catholic Bishops’ Conference said Sept. 19.

“The families and the whole country need answers. We send our heartfelt condolences to all affected families.”

Earlier this year, 36 psychiatric patients died within months of being removed from the Life Healthcare Esidimeni Centre to local NGOs and other facilities in Gauteng province.

About 2,000 patients were transferred to over 120 other facilities after the contract was cancelled. The facility had contracted with the provincial government for more than 40 years.

Many patients' relatives warned that new facilities were unsuitable. Patients were also transferred without their medical files, the Times of South Africa reports.

The province includes Johannesburg and the national administrative capital Pretoria. Gauteng premier David Makhura said the number of deaths was worryingly high. He said there has been a “disturbing trend” of patient deaths in the last five years, the African News Agency reports.

The bishops’ commission was waiting on results of a health department investigation but voiced “deep concern” that the health department did not heed warnings from civil society and from patients’ families that the contract cancellation with the health center and the transfer of patients was being rushed.

“We therefore continue to ask the health department to put adequate measures to ensure sustainable levels of control to health care costs,” the bishops’ commission said. “We reiterate our position that a health system that puts profit before people, and without adequate measures for cost control, is both unsustainable for the country and a death sentence to the poor.”

They said that the health department’s deinstitutionalization plan for mental health care should not be used “as a pretext to shirk on its constitutional responsibilities to provide adequate care to the mentally ill.”

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By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis has proven to be a master of metaphor and, as fall approached, he increasingly turned to the field of medicine to make his points.

Of course, probably his most famous medical metaphor is his repeated description of the church today as a "field hospital."

In his 2013 interview with the Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica, he said: "I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds."

At his early morning Mass Sept. 22, he showed that while triage might be his specialty, he is familiar with a range of ailments.

Speaking about people who have done evil and know it, Pope Francis said, they live "with a constant itch, with hives that don't leave them in peace."

But his strongest words were about the sins of vanity and pride. "Vanity is like an osteoporosis of the soul: the bones seem good from the outside, but on the inside they are all ruined."

The 79-year-old pope also referred to a medical ailment -- "rheumatism of the soul" -- during his speech Sept. 16 to new bishops, many of whom are still in their 40s and 50s.

Talking about the need for and the attractive power of mercy, Pope Francis said that when people in need sense a merciful person is passing by, they will reach out. "They are fascinated by (mercy's) capacity to stop when so many walk on by; to kneel when a certain rheumatism of the soul keeps many from bending down; to touch wounded flesh when a preference for everything to be sterile prevails," he said.

Another medical problem afflicting souls diagnosed by Pope Francis is "spiritual Alzheimer's," a condition that renders some people incapable of remembering God's love and mercy for them; a clear sign of having the condition is being unable to show mercy to others.

When a Christian does not recognize his or her own failings, it is easy to be scandalized by God's mercy toward other sinners, he said in a video message broadcast Aug. 27 to church leaders from North and South America meeting in Bogota, Colombia, for a continental congress for the Year of Mercy.

Being shocked, scandalized and judgmental sets in when a person suffers from "spiritual Alzheimer's," the pope said. The disease is obvious "when we forget how the Lord has treated us, when we begin to judge and divide people up" into "groups of good and bad, saints and sinners."

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Follow Wooden on Twitter: @Cindy_Wooden.

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