Pope Francis tells journalists to build communion, ‘give reasons for hope’

Pope Francis speaks to journalists aboard the papal plane during an in-flight press conference on Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, on his return from his nearly two-week tour of Southeast Asia. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Vatican City, Jan 24, 2025 / 09:15 am (CNA).

In his message for the 59th World Day of Social Communications on Friday, Pope Francis encouraged journalists to build communion in the world through sharing stories of goodness and hope.

“I dream of a communication that does not peddle illusions or fears but is able to give reasons for hope,” the pope said. “I encourage you to discover and make known the many stories of goodness hidden in the folds of the news, imitating those gold-prospectors who tirelessly sift the sand in search of a tiny nugget. It is good to seek out such seeds of hope and make them known.”

The Church celebrates the World Day of Social Communications every year on Jan. 24, the feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists and writers.

In 2025, the World Day of Social Communications is also taking place during three days of events in Rome for a Jubilee of the World of Communications, part of the yearlong Church-wide Jubilee of Hope.

In his message, Pope Francis urged those who work in media and communications to “tell stories steeped in hope,” especially during these “troubled times,” and pointed to the special graces available during the 2025 Jubilee of Hope as a support to this work.

The pontiff said a good communicator “ensures that those who listen, read, or watch can be involved, can draw close, can get in touch with the best part of themselves and enter with these attitudes into the stories told.”

By sharing stories of goodness and hope, media professionals help the world to be a little less closed off and a little less indifferent to others, he noted. 

“May you always find those glimmers of goodness that inspire us to hope. This kind of communication can help to build communion, to make us feel less alone, to rediscover the importance of walking together,” he said.

Francis also had advice for journalists’ prayer lives.

“In the face of the astonishing achievements of technology, I encourage you to care for your heart, your interior life,” he said.

Some practical ways to do that, he advised, are to “be meek and never forget the faces of other people; speak to the hearts of the women and men whom you serve in carrying out your work.”

“To do this, though, we must be healed of our ‘diseases’ of self-promotion and self-absorption, and avoid the risk of shouting over others in order to make our voices heard,” he warned.