Good News for the Caribbean

The only Catholic media institute in the Caribbean is set to introduce an enhanced program enabling communications experts to use the very latest technology to spread the Good News.

Celebrating 15 years of spreading the Gospel, the Caribbean School for Catholic Communication (CSCC) will be launching a Pastoral Communications Diploma in January 2010. The school and the diploma are the initiative of the Living Water Community – a Catholic lay community which runs TV and radio stations in Trinidad & Tobago – and the University of Dayton.

Asked by Pope Benedict XVI to encourage the promotion of the Good News through modern media, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) is supporting the production of programs by the Living Water community’s TV station with a grant of $19,800.  The community has also requested a grant of $4,100 from ACN to help students from across the Caribbean learn to effectively communicate the Gospel using modern technology on the diploma course.

Students studying at the school commit to attending an intensive week of seminars and lectures every year for a period of three years. In the first year students will study audio and interpersonal communication, in the second film and visual media, with print and new digital technology being explored in their final year.

Course tutors keep abreast of emerging communication technology, and even the use of iPods and their application within ministry is explored. The course stresses using appropriate methods from communicating the faith within the Caribbean.

According to course tutor Sr. Angela Ann Zukowski, the CSCC “is about nurturing [students’] call to discipleship for proclaiming the Good News.” The course, which will be held in Port of Spain, Trinidad, emphasizes the importance of spiritual and moral grounding as the underlying basis for the communication skills which they are taught.

The center was set up in response to the 1992 Vatican document on communications Aetatis Novae. According to Sr. Zukowski of Dayton University, “We believe our students need to be embedded with a deep understanding and appreciation of the Church’s Communicative theology [as] expressed in Church documents.”

Since the center was set up in 1995, 900 men and women from various Caribbean countries have studied there. Every study day begins with Lauds (Morning Prayer) and includes daily Mass.

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