This module aims to provide students with the fundamental features and issues of the media strategy employed by the current Papacy, with particular regard to the communication style of Francis, the first Jesuit Pope of history and also the first coming from the New Word. Although in past decades the Catholic Church experienced with pope John Paul II a master of communication, pope Francis presents himself in a completely new – almost revolutionary – manner, exerting both religious and political leadership through a very direct and apparently down-to-earth way of communication, which grasps the audience’s hearts and minds.
Pope Francis’ communication style is made not only of words and documents, but also of signs and gestures immediately understandable by the people. This explains why he has rapidly earned a worldwide consensus not only among Catholics and Christians, but also among Agnostics and Atheists.
Thus analysing his technique has nothing to do with belief, but with the skill of a personality which has a clear vision of the most relevant issues of the contemporary world situation and crisis.
Students will be introduced with the historical and political framework of Pope Francis’ action and with the following issues:
1.the reason why – through the existence of the Holy See – Catholicism is the only religion to have a state-dimension and a seat as observer at the United Nations;
2.the relationship between Catholicism and the other Christian denominations and Judaism and Islam as part of the Abrahamic monotheism;
3.the increasing role of the Papacy and the Holy See as global players after WWII and the special focus put by pope Francis on such hot issues like the worldwide social crisis and the phenomenon of the “new slavery”, the so called (by Francis) “Third Word War in bits and pieces”.
Islamic terrorism, the extraordinary migration-wave, ecology.
The impact of Francis’ policy and communication strategy will be described with both an in-depth analysis of the papal documents (e.g. Apostolic Exhortations, Encyclical Letters, Messages, Addresses) and a first-hand account of his direct communication style (sometimes improvised, but always obeying to a well conceived strategy) and his way of handling sensitive issues during his official state-visits (e.g. to the United States or the UN) and his meetings with the press on the papal plane.