TIMES ONLINE: Media-friendly priests and bishops beware: the Vatican has warned clergy who appear on television to remember they are not glamorous “stars" or “showmen" but only communicators bringing the Christian message to a mass audience.
Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, secretary of the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy, said “evangelisation does not need showmen priests who go on television." He was speaking after a conference on “Communication and the Mission of the Priesthood" at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome.
“Communication should foster communion in the Church," Monsignor Piacenza said. Television and radio were “not a platform for individuals showing off" and becoming “the centre of attention".
Such behaviour not only interfered with the message itself but “what is more serious still, it introduces division".
He urged priests “not to improvise" on television, and to avoid “banal sentimentality", saying that their message should be based on “2000 years of communion in the faith," a message which “can only be transmitted through one's own experience and interior life". >>> Richard Owen in Rome | Thursday, December 10, 2009
