Social Media and the Charism of the Xaverian Missionaries

HOLLISTON, Mass. - Feb. 2, 2016 - PRLog -- The Xaverian Missionaries are “lowering their nets” into new waters:  that of the new world of Social Media.  From January 18^th to the 30th at their Spirituality Center in Tavernerio (CO) Italy, twenty nine Xaverian missionaries and Xaverian Missionaries of Mary representing all 20 regions of the men’s and women’s communities worldwide are investing quality time to study this new world of Social Media and how it can become “the place” for evangelization and witness of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, the One who is the medium of God’s love and mercy to our world.  The representative of the USA communities is Fr. Rocco Puopolo, the director of theGYM, an initiative of the US Xaverian Missionaries for youth and young adults located at the Fatima Shrine, Holliston Massachusetts.

The objectives of this meeting were:

1.      to take stock of the general situation of the various regions in the media fi­eld,

2.      to provide a  reflection that will lead us to a better knowledge of the new procedures in the world of mass media and social media communications,

3.      to promote the use of the social media in the ­field of missionary-vocational education, and

4.       as missionaries, to guarantee the competent use of social media for evangelization, in harmony with the priorities of our Xaverian charism.

The first week was devoted to learning background information from a number of specialists in field of social media such as the philosophy and anthropology of social media, the development and structure of the language of social media, the various ways that the networks and platforms work and how the missionaries could be engaged in them.  They also shared short reports from each of the regions which gave the assembly a global picture of how the various communities are engaged in this world of social media.

The second week focused on a better understanding of the past, present and future involvements of the community in social media, beginning with some of the historical aspects of the founder Bishop Conforti and his interest in the use of the media of his time.   He was one of the first to invest time, talent and money in film and print media production beginning in the 1920s and gave a firm foundation to the importance of communicating and evangelizing the world through modern means of media.  The participants became aware of various platforms of media that exists now as well as the rich tradition of persons and archives which forms our history in this field.  By reviewing what they learned from the experts as well as from the various reports, the assembly then began to propose ways to move into the present and future world of social media proposing ways for the community to be effective in evangelizing this new world.  "The sower went out and part of its seed fell on the World Wide Web"

Fr. Rocco Puopolo, s.x.