2. Current cultural affairs
Holy See
Last update: November, 2017
Among the main cultural policy issues of the Holy See the following ones can be listed:
- the encounter between the Gospel and cultures;
- the rift between the Gospel and culture, religious indifference and non-belief, and
- relations between the Catholic Church and the world of culture, giving special emphasis to dialogue with various cultures. The Holy See aims its efforts at those who work in the fields of the Sciences, Literature, and the Arts, building bridges between the Gospel and all expressions of modern cultures.
This information will be published as soon as possible.
This information will be published as soon as possible.
Last update: November, 2017
In addition to the broadcasting networks project mentioned earlier (see chapter 2.5.3), the Vatican has a comprehensive web site: http://www.vatican.va/ where culture is promoted transversally and cultural diversity is encouraged.
Last update: November, 2017
The Pontifical Council for Culture holds regular meetings of those responsible for commissions for culture, which are departments of Episcopal Conferences - institutions set up broadly along regional, national, or international lines. These meetings, held at continental levels, aim at strengthening ties and cooperation between cultural entities and at fostering intercultural dialogue.
Local organisations run by the Catholic Church seek, with local initiative, to foster inter-religious and intercultural dialogue: for instance, the Cultural Movement in Antelias (Lebanon) or the Centre for Study of World Religions in Bangladore (India) are trying to get people to discover and respect their neighbour's culture and religion through dialogue and by raising mutual curiosity.
The Holy See organises, periodically, the World Youth Day, a week of celebration, prayer and catechism gathering more than a million young Catholics around the Sovereign Pontiff. One of the consequences of this world event is inter-cultural meeting, dialogue, and mutual influence under informal circumstances. Funding is provided by the Church, in particular through the local diocese and official sponsors, for artists of all genres to be have adequate space and resources to put their gifts as the service of the various events.
Intercultural dialogue: actors, strategies, programmes
Intercultural and Interreligious dialogue are important issues for the Holy See, in order to ensure a better understanding among people. Initiatives in cooperation are important in this twofold area, such as the Study Day of 4 December 2008 dedicated to "Cultures and Religions in Dialogue".
Intercultural dialogue is enshrined in the Pontifical Council for Culture Foundation letter written by John-Paul II (see at http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/cultr/index.htm). One of its core missions is to foster intercultural dialogue and it encourages all entities working in collaboration with it to also promote this issue (i.e. the Episcopal commissions for culture and local cultural centres claiming links with the Catholic Church).
Although its range of action is worldwide, the Pontifical Council for Culture is also responsible for promoting intercultural dialogue inside the Vatican. It does so through its own publications, by organising annual interdicasterial meetings, in its contributions to the consultative processes for documents of other internal entities and by promoting premieres, exhibitions, film awards, etc. Other institutions actively involved in this intercultural dialogue are the media directly linked to or depending upon the Vatican: i.e. L'Osservatore Romano, L'Editrice Vaticana (Vatican Publishing House), and Vatican Radio. Due to the special status of the Vatican, there are no private actors in the field of culture, with the exception of patrons who occasionally sponsor some cultural initiatives.
Last update: November, 2017
The Holy See's educational policy is by nature intercultural. Ecclesiastical Faculties, which grant canonical degrees and, although existing in different countries, depend upon the Holy See's Congregation for Education, have an intercultural identity: as a first stage of intercultural education they protect and develop their own Catholic identity within the framework governed by the constitution Sapientia Christiana; then, immersed in local cultural milieu, they have a certain amount of integration into the national cultural systems.
Also, many intercultural institutes, research groups, and experiential associations have been established at or attached to different Catholic universities. Ex Corde Ecclesiae, the document which oversees such educational institutions obliges Catholic Universities to relate to the academic, cultural and scientific worldof the region in which it is located and to foster original forms of dialogue and collaboration suitable for the local cultural situation.
Last update: November, 2017
Due to the special nature of the Holy See and Vatican City, there is no place for diversity of media pluralism and content diversity. Such diversity occurs within the Church on the local level. The existing media directly depending on the Holy See are:
- Vatican Radio. Established in 1931 in order to broadcast the words of the Pope, it is the only radio station in Vatican City. Although it has cultural, educational and musical programmes, its main purpose is broadcasting the Pope's teachings in various languages. Podcasting and RSS of its main programmes is available through its website http://en.radiovaticana.va/epg-web#!/?cid=167#1;
- Vatican Television Centre. It films and broadcasts material on the Supreme Pontiff's activities all over the world, and on Church events taking place within Vatican City. It is not a television station, but a television information agency and therefore has no regular broadcasting schedule. Its mission also includes the protection of rights over film archives and liaising as a television agency to collaborate with other organisations such as Eurovision and RAI;
- The Vatican Film Library, (Filmoteca Vaticana). Since the origin of cinema, it has preserved film material covering the various activities of the Sovereign Pontiff and major events in the life of the Church;
- The Vatican Web Page. This Internet site was created in 1995 and contains the speeches and documents of the Sovereign Pontiff, as well as those of the various bodies of the Holy See and Vatican City, especially the museums. The address is: http://www.vatican.va/;
- The Vatican channel on YouTube. This offers informational coverage of the main activities of the Sovereign Pontiff Benedict XVI and the main Vatican events. It is updated daily. The images are produced by the Vatican Television Centre (CTV), the texts are supplied by Vatican Radio and by CTV. The video clips offer a presentation of the most authoritative position of the Catholic Church on the main questions of the world today. Links permit access to the complete texts and official documents cited. The address is: http://www.youtube.com/user/vatican;
- The application Pope2You on Facebook. To better promote dialogue with the youth, the Church looks to the social networking site currently most used in the world, Facebook, which has over 200 million users, by opening a page called Pope to you (Pope2You), which is just the tip of the iceberg of events organised to mark the 43rd World Day of Social Communications. With a view to opening up to the new forms of communication and virtual community, the Holy See, more precisely Pope Benedict himself, has decided to use Web 2.0 by activating his own profile on Facebook to spread the Christian message. Thanks to the applications for Facebook downloadable from the site Pope2You, anyone can receive images of the Pope and his messages. The Pontifical Council for Social Communications is leading the project and is also about to launch an application for iPhone, which will let users keep up to date with news and information about the Pope in five different languages. The address is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope2you.
Last update: November, 2017
The official language of the Holy See and Vatican City State is Latin. The Latinitas Foundation was set up in Vatican City in 1976 with the aim of promoting the study and use of Latin. While other languages are now more commonplace, the use of Latin continues in the liturgy and in official documents and the typical idioms of the Latin language continue to pervade much of the Holy See's life.
The universal character of the Pope's ministry has historically fostered the use of various languages. Due to its geographical location, Italian has become the everyday working language in the offices of the Holy See and Vatican City. French is the diplomatic language of the Holy See. English is also widely used. Spanish is the most common mother tongue language of the members of the universal Church. The current Pontiff is a native German speaker.
The Vatican Press, established in the 16th century, became the Vatican Polyglot Press in the 17th century, well known for its publications in European and Oriental languages.
For its part, Vatican Radio has editorial staff and programmes for the following languages: Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Bulgarian, Byelorussian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, English, Ethiopian-Eritrean, French (France, Africa, Canada), German, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Kiswahili, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal, Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Scandinavian (Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish), Slovakian, Slovenian, Spanish (Spain, the Americas), Ukrainian and Vietnamese.
The newspaper L'Osservatore Romano has a daily edition in Italian, weekly editions in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish, and a monthly edition in Polish.
The main documents of the Sovereign Pontiff and the Congregations are published both on paper and on the Vatican website in Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish.
350 languages have been approved for liturgical use throughout the world by the Congregation for Divine Worship.
Last update: November, 2017
By its nature and with the express encouragement of recent pontiffs, the Roman Curia is increasingly internationalised. Moreover, recent years have seen employment of a greater number of lay men and women and more participation in the life of the Church.
Out of the present staff of 2 748, 1 021 are priests or male religious staff, 90 are female religious staff and 1 637 are lay people, (1 212 men and 425 women). Lay people make up 59.6 % of the total. There are 515 women, both lay and religious staff, making up 18.7% of the total workforce.
Table 1: Gender balance among Vatican staff, 2007
Staff | Gender | Number |
---|---|---|
Clergy and religious | Men | 1 021 |
Women | 90 | |
Lay people | Men | 1 212 |
Women | 425 | |
Total | 2 748 |
Source: Consolidated Balance Sheet of the Holy See for the Year 2007.
Women hold positions in different offices and / or cultural institutions of the Holy See including the Vatican Museums, the Academy for Social Sciences and the Pontifical Commission for Archaeology. The official delegations of the Holy See to international conferences are being joined by increasing numbers of women. For example, the head of the Holy See's delegation to the United Nations International Conference on Women (Beijing 1995) was Mrs Mary Ann Glendon. Mrs. Glendon was later appointed President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in Rome. In April 2004, for the first time, a woman was appointed as an Undersecretary of the Congregation for Consecrated Life, Sister Enrica Rosanna.
In 1988, John Paul II wrote a letter with regard to the role of women within the Catholic Church, Mulieris dignitatem. While not a legislative document, his letter contains reflections and guidelines for behaviour. This Letter to Women alsoencourages universal and renewed awareness of the dignity of woman and respect of the feminine identity.
Another document relating to sex and gender questions was issued in 2004 by the Congregation of the Faith, then presided over by Cardinal J. Ratzinger: On the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World. This Document recalls the equal dignity of men and women, insists on a correct understanding of the collaboration of men and women, in respect of their differences, and the importance of feminine values in the Church and in society.
Pope Benedict XVI, in his discourse to the Meeting of Catholic Movements for the Promotion of Women, extended his "greetings of great affection and hope to all women, to whom God has entrusted the wellsprings of life"... invited them to "live and to put your trust in life, because the living God has put his trust in you!" (22 March 2009).
This information will be published as soon as possible.
Last update: November, 2017
The Sovereign Pontiff and the Holy See regularly speak out in the community of nations, calling for the fundamental rights of cultural minorities to be respected, beginning with the right to exist and to express oneself freely in one's own culture and language, without any form of violence. The principles of the Holy See's position in this connection are summarised in John Paul II's address to the United Nations on 5 October 1995 and also in his message for World Peace Day on 1 January 2001, Dialogue Between Cultures for a Civilisation of Love and Peace: "Dialogue between cultures emerges as an intrinsic demand of human nature itself, as well as of culture".
(See http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/messages/peace/documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_20001208_xxxiv-world-day-for-peace_en.html).
In dialogue with Islamic brethren, Benedict XVI, during his voyage to Cameroon (17-23 March 2009) showed the concrete ground where it is necessary to meet in the name of a common appeal to reason: on the one hand, the refusal of "all forms of violence", and on the other hand, human rights with the refusal of slavery and discrimination against women and minorities.
Last update: November, 2017
Due to the special nature of the Holy See, this paragraph is not relevant. However, the Vatican City is trying to provide wider and easier access to culture through a low price entrance ticket policy and by removing architectural barriers. Culture is considered by the church as the privileged forum for dialogue between socially, culturally and religiously diverse peoples. The theme of dialogue within the field of culture is a mainstay of current Papal policy.
This information will be published as soon as possible.
Information is currently not available.