Why study journalism and communication as a priest?

By Rev. Fr. Fred Jenga

I am among those who graduated this week at Makerere with an MA in Journalism and Communication. With interests in media and religion, I wrote my thesis on religious broadcasting in Uganda under the able-supervision of Dr. Monica Chibita and Dr. Goretti Nassanga.

Other professors such as Frederick Jjuuko and George Lugalambi were excellent and I feel my time at Makerere was profitably spent.

As I write this, I am away in California doing more graduate studies in the same field. Several people have asked me why, as a priest, did I choose to study journalism and communication instead of philosophy or theology since I already have degrees in the two fields.  There are two answers to that question. First it is because I am pursuing a passion that dates back to my high school days in Jinja when I edited my school’s weekly newsletter –The Academy Eye. Later throughout seminary training, I edited several in-house magazines and newsletters.

There is, however, a more fundamental pastoral reason connected to my vocation as a priest. Deep down I believe that if the Catholic Church is to continue engaging the world meaningfully as it has done over the ages, then it will be imperative that Church ministers  are not only limited to training in philosophy and theology, but are allowed to additionally break out into other critical fields such law and medicine. Such ‘secular’ fields in no way contradict our calling but rather foster it. They are broader definitions of Christ’s healing, social justice and evangelistic mission.

Back to my journalism and communication training, I have a conviction that the Church as an institution has abandoned media space and where it has tried to establish a media presence, the Church’s media presence is usually weak and struggles to withstand the cut-throat competitive world of media. If the Church is ever to have impact in the world of media, then it will have to understand the values that underpin the world of mass media through professional training of her people in the same schools where everyone else goes.

I am glad my religious order – the Congregation of Holy Cross gave me an opportunity to pursue graduate studies at Makerere.

I hope with this kind of training, I can contribute to the training of the next generation of journalists, church communication personnel, seminarians and religious. With the same training, I hope I can be able to help the Church improve and strengthen her presence in the mass media.

The defining Second Vatican Council of the 1960s urged local churches to employ the new means of communication as urgently and energetically as possible because the mass media had become the ‘new Areopagus’ or public space where messages and ideas played out. In another document, the Council asked seminary training to include training in the use of mass media because the media has become a powerful tool in influencing people’s faith and values.  |

The same message was later echoed by Pope Benedict XVI who encouraged priests and religious to establish online presences and reach out to the thousands of online individuals and communities in search of meaning. The success of the New Evangelisation that Pope Francis has set up will partly depend on our understanding of the prevailing media landscape in a postmodern era.

As a Church we have an important message to sell-perhaps the most important message that people will ever hear their entire lives; that God loves them and deeply cares about them. However, for this message to penetrate a world distracted by so many messages, every human creativity God has availed will have to be learned and employed.

 Writer is a Catholic priest and recent graduate of Makerere University