Most Rev. Charles Gabriel Palmer- Buckle, Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Cape Coast, Ghana has expressed concerns over Catholics watching Mass on TV rather than attending Mass in person. He made this observation recently while making a presentation on his paper entitled, “My aide memoire: Address to the CEPACS participants in Lagos Nigeria,” at the Pan-African Episcopal Committee for Social Communications conference held recently in Lagos, Nigeria.
Archbishop Palmer- Buckle said, despite lifting the dispensation from the Sunday Mass obligation after the COVID-19 pandemic eased years ago, some Catholics still remained clued to their televisions watching Mass on Sundays, instead of returning to the Church. The prelate bemoaned the negative effects technology is having on the traditional culture of Catholics going to Church.
He regretted, “Unfortunately, my dear brothers and sisters, now that we seem to have a handle on the virus and how to handle it, our parishioners seem to have been infected by another “deadly” virus, namely the media infection and so prefer to stay at home on Sundays etc., watching the TV etc., instead of coming physically to Church and meeting with the fellow believers. The youth are the most infected by this media virus and you know better than me the challenges the media and the digital world is posing the Church’s mission of evangelisation and the work of human development.”
The Ghanaian Archbishop admonished the Catholic Communicators to devise more creative ideas, ways and means to make the digital space and culture available to the various parishes and mission stations in Africa in the bid of journeying in synodality in the Church, while also fostering better and better communion, mission and participation in the Family of God. “Your responsibility in this digital Areopagus and culture is to help the Church Family use the media, evangelise it and put it at the service of Christ Jesus the Saviour and of the Body of Christ”, he stressed.
He further urged members of CEPACS to employ social media as a powerful tool that the Church can use to reach more people, engage communities, build and sustain relationships, especially with the younger generations. According to him, Africa is the fastest growing community in the Church universal and in the world as well as boasts of the greatest numbers of youth below the age of 35, not less than 60% of the continent’s population. The high ranking cleric stated, “You can imagine the vibrancy and vitality of this category of youth, when educated and invested in, what a force that will become for the synodal Church as well as for the continent of Africa and for humanity.
In fact, the Psalmist says, and I quote: “Sons (and daughters) are a gift from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons (and daughters) of one’s youth. Happy is them and who has his quiver full of them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate”. (Ps. 127:3-5). What can we make of the gift of youth, vibrant and full of vitality in our Church? Continuing, Archbishop Palmer-Buckle added, “In short, the digital world is now a reality. The Church cannot swim in it. It is no more a tool. It is a culture from which we cannot escape.
We have to learn how to use it in our mission of evangelisation for the benefits it offers. “As media men and women in the Church and of the Church, as persons called to live in a Church that is synodal, namely Family of God in which everyone matters, your mission is to help foster communion, encourage participation and incite mission in your brothers and sisters.
Let me stand on Luke 4:18-19, the manifesto of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to put into a cliché thus: Your mission is to form, in-form and transform, not forgetting that you may also have to reform and help to conform recipients to the Good News, which is the Word of Jesus Christ (see Jn. 1:1-4; 9-14).”
