Highlights From Archbishop Celli’s Keynote Speech at World Communications Day

Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli received the St. Francis DeSales Distinguished Communicator Award from Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, left, and Monsignor Kieran Harrington before giving his keynote address on Thursday.
Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli received the St. Francis DeSales Distinguished Communicator Award from Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, left, and Monsignor Kieran Harrington before giving his keynote address on Thursday.

Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, the president of the Pontifical Council on Social Communications and one of the originators of the Pope’s Twitter feed, was the keynote speaker at the Diocese of Brooklyn’s World Communications Day Conference on Thursday.

After receiving the St. Francis DeSales Distinguished Communicator Award, Archbishop Celli talked about social media, technology and the importance of embracing digital communication.

Photos of the event are here.

Some highlights from Archbishop Celli’s speech and a video interview with the Archbishop are below:

It’s absolutely necessary that the Church establish a presence in the digital world.

We are always fishing in the aquarium…The majority of fish are outside the aquarium. 

The Church is a community of communities. Its use of social media should reflect that.

The high rate of retweeting of the Pope’s tweets means that the Church is reaching an ever-wider community.

People no longer pay attention–if they ever did–simply because a church leader is speaking.

We don’t want a network of wires, but a network of people. 

Unless we engage digital media, we will wind up talking to ourselves.