The world communication day message of Pope Francis titled: Communicating the Family: A Privileged Place of Encounter with the Gift of Love, denotes the importance of communication in the family. 2015 is going to witness many discussions on family. World meeting of Families in USA, Synod on the Family at Vatican, Kalyan Diocesan Assembly on Family are some of the examples of the same. In this context, the message is encouraging all the Catholic communicators to concentrate on the communicating aspects of family and to promote the importance of communication in every family.
The messages of Pope can be summarised into these 10 points:
1. Family is the first place from where we learn to communicate
2. The womb is the first school of communication
3. The communication begins in a dialogue intertwined with the language of the body
4. Each family is a womb; a womb made up of various interrelated persons
5. From family, the basic form of communication, which is prayer, is handed down to humans
6. Family is a school of forgiveness and forgiveness is itself a process of communication
7. Challenges in family can be overcome with openness, sharing and communication with all
8. Gadgets of communication hinders the togetherness of a family
9. Family has to be a communicating community
10. Family has to communicate by witnessing themselves
Since the message of His Holiness is highlighting the stages of communication, in which a child is growing, there is a greater responsibility for the Church, animators and parents. It is true that in India we have a rich tradition of communication at home like: the spiritual preparation during the time of pregnancy, considering each child the gift of God, choosing a Christian name, grooming an infant to repeat the word “God”, making the children participate in the day-to-day family Prayer and teaching them to write “God” as the first word in his/her life. Therefore, the message of the Pope is encouragement to each one to teach the child to communicate the Word to the world.
