EXPLAINER: What is the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication?

Pope Leo XIV had appointed two Filipino clergymen, namely Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, and San Pablo Bishop Marcelino Antonio Maralit, as members of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication. What is the role of the Dicastery for Communication for the Catholic Church?

The Dicastery for Communication is one of the 16 dicasteries that aid the Pope in governing the Catholic Church, GMA News Feed reported.

Article 183 of Pope Francis’ “Praedicate Evangelium” on the Roman Curia stated:

The Dicastery for Communication oversees the entire communications network of the Apostolic See and, with structural unity and respecting the relative operational characteristics, unifies the Holy See’s activities in the area of communication. It does so in order that the whole system responds in an integrated way to the needs of the Church’s evangelizing mission in a context characterized by the presence and development of digital media, and by the factors of convergence and interactivity.

Meanwhile, aside from operational functions, the Dicastery “also deepens and develops the properly theological and pastoral aspects of the Church’s activity in the field of communication (Art. 184).”

“In this sense, it also works on the level of training, in order that communication not be reduced to purely technological and instrumental concepts,” Article 184 further stated.

Article 188 said the Dicastery is also mandated “to support the communication activities of other curial institutions and offices, institutions associated with the Holy See, the Governorate of Vatican City State, and other entities based in Vatican City State or depending on the Apostolic See.”

Entities included under the Dicastery of Communication are the following:

• Vatican Television Center
• Vatican Publishing House
• L'Osservatore Romano
• Pontifical Council for Social Communications
• Vatican Radio
• Holy See Press Office
• Photographic Service
• Vatican Internet Service
• Vatican Printing Press

Pope Francis in 2015 established the Secretariat for Communication, which serves as the “single point of reference for communication.”

Upon its establishment, Pope Francis stressed another significant task of the Dicastery for Communication, that is to manage the institutional website of the Vatican, and the official account of the Pope on X (Twitter).

Aside from Cardinal Tagle and Bishop Maralit, nine other clergymen from different parts of the world were appointed to the Dicastery for Communication:

• Archbishop Ryan Jimenez of Agaña, Guam
• Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero, Rabat, Morocco
• Cardinal Filipe Neri António Sebastião do Rosário Ferrão, India
• Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, Portugal
• Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella, Italy
• Bishop Bernardin Francis Mfumbasa, Kondoa, Tanzania
• Bishop Lizardo Estrada Herrera, Cuzco, Peru
• Father Roberto Pasolini, Italy

—Jamil Santos/KG, GMA News