Vatican, Jun. 20, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) met on June 20 with administrators of Catholic radio stations from around the world, and told them: "The words that you broadcast each day are an echo of that eternal Word which became flesh."
The Holy Father spoke to participants in a conference at the Pontifical Urban University, organized by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, under the leadership of Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli. He told the 130 broadcasting executives, representing stations in 50 different countries, that they should recognize the importance of their work in the evangelizing mission of the Church.
Pope Benedict told the radio executives that he could understand how they might feel "completely lost amid the competition of other noisy and more powerful mass media." But he urged them not to become discouraged, reminding them that Jesus was born into humble surroundings, isolated from the "noisy imperial cities of antiquity," so that the climactic even in of human history, the Incarnation, nearly escaped public notice.
Nevertheless the Word of God has been preached all around the world, the Pope continued. Catholic radio stations, he observed, transmit the Gospel message to untold numbers of people, reaching thousands who may be hearing the Good News at a propitious time. "This work of patient sowing, carried on day after day, hour after hour, is your way of cooperating in the apostolic mission," he told the broadcasters.
Radio personnel might never meet those who are touched by their words, the Pope said, and yet "your can be a small but real echo in the world of the network of friendship that the presence of the risen Christ, the God-with-us, inaugurated between heaven and earth and among mankind of all continents and epochs."
The Holy Father spoke to participants in a conference at the Pontifical Urban University, organized by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, under the leadership of Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli. He told the 130 broadcasting executives, representing stations in 50 different countries, that they should recognize the importance of their work in the evangelizing mission of the Church.
Pope Benedict told the radio executives that he could understand how they might feel "completely lost amid the competition of other noisy and more powerful mass media." But he urged them not to become discouraged, reminding them that Jesus was born into humble surroundings, isolated from the "noisy imperial cities of antiquity," so that the climactic even in of human history, the Incarnation, nearly escaped public notice.
Nevertheless the Word of God has been preached all around the world, the Pope continued. Catholic radio stations, he observed, transmit the Gospel message to untold numbers of people, reaching thousands who may be hearing the Good News at a propitious time. "This work of patient sowing, carried on day after day, hour after hour, is your way of cooperating in the apostolic mission," he told the broadcasters.
Radio personnel might never meet those who are touched by their words, the Pope said, and yet "your can be a small but real echo in the world of the network of friendship that the presence of the risen Christ, the God-with-us, inaugurated between heaven and earth and among mankind of all continents and epochs."