How Pope Francis ‘sells’ the faith
Today’s world is a marketplace, where every idea must fight for attention. Every message and communication execution must disrupt, cut through and stand out amid a cacophony of competing messages. The Church’s teachings are no exception. What we need are religious leaders like Pope Francis, whose charismatic assault to maintain “brand loyalty” — as he “sells” the faith to the ambivalent, the doubting Thomases, and non-believers of this world — is simply awesome.
Pope Francis’ trips abroad, his one-on-one encounters with world leaders and ordinary folks, and even his sense of humor, all hint at the commonness and ordinariness of his being. He is as ordinary and as common as the rest of us, someone who shares our pains, our aches, our sorrows, and our joys. He is a great communicator — a skill and talent needed to succeed in the highest office in the Vatican. Let me share with you some communication principles Pope Francis lives out from various sources: Vatican insider Giacomo Galeazzi, Vatican senior communications adviser Greg Burke, blogger John Travis and producer Father Roderick Vonhogen, among others:
The “faithful” are pushed towards spiritual experiences that give substance and meaning to what we do. Pope Francis wants us to listen to God as He speaks to us through the daily events of our lives. He drives us to hear and see God, who never tires of acting in every moment of our history. He advises, “Let’s do away with interminable, boring homilies no one understands. What we need is a Church that is not afraid to enter into people’s dark hour; that goes out to meet them along their path, and that is able to join their conversation.”
The truth is found in our encounters with other people. Applying the “source-message-channel-receiver-effect” or SMCRE model, he avers that the message depends on the sender and the receivers are not just targets, but are part of a conversation and part of a giving and receiving process. In the end, he underscores, “We communicate who we are, to the extent that, as often happens in the communication process, elements other than verbal ones are more important. Our testimony and coherence are fundamental.”
What you see is what you get. People are coming back to the Church both because of what Pope Francis says and does. What he tells us is that even if you have strayed, God is never far away, waiting for our return with a big embrace. What the pope does is give that embrace to so many people, especially those who are suffering.
His brand positioning and communication styles are unique and single-minded. The emphasis is on the poverty issue and the “popular” roots of the Church. It is non-elitist in approach. Pope Francis, because of his own formation and experience, talks a lot about the widening gap between rich and poor. Serving the poor is not new. Many popes before him have taken on that cudgel, but Pope Francis gives it a fresh kick. When we hear Pope Francis talking about taking care of our neighbor — either the one literally next door or the one in a faraway province — it is not so much a strategy as a reminder for us not just to read the Gospel but to live it.
Blogger John Travis shares, “Pope Francis combines plainspoken preaching with gestures that communicate volumes, whether it be washing the tattooed foot of a young woman on Holy Thursday or embracing a man with a severe facial disfigurement at his general audience. The pope’s attention to the world’s poor and marginalized is both personal and political. He’s visited with immigrants, refugees, prisoners and unemployed youths, and beefed up the Vatican’s own charity office, while denouncing the excesses of capitalism as a ‘new tyranny.’”
He is a master in the creative use of metaphors. Pope Francis’ apparent spontaneity in his personality is clearly a communications asset. Metaphors are used widely in the Bible and they crop up just as often in Pope Francis’ talks and teachings. Some of his most vivid symbols include: “Shepherds living with the smell of sheep” as he urges the priests of the world’s to bring Christ to people far from the faith; “Salvation from sin is like being saved from drowning,” which calls for being upfront and honest about one’s sinful nature since it actually helps create a more authentic encounter with God; “Fine wine that gets better with age,” as he tells cardinals that all Catholic elders need to share with the young; “Sin is not a stain that I must wash out. What I need to do is ask forgiveness and reconcile myself, not go to the drycleaners. I have to go encounter Jesus who gave his life for me.” Simply said, sin is a stain only Jesus can remove. “God’s patience is comfortable and sweet like a summer’s night.” Death, who is “eager,” knocks daily so “I run from it, but it smiles at me inviting me to accept it.”
He has tremendous warmth and rapport that isn’t role-played. Pope Francis is sincerity personified. While he is calm and evidently has a huge heart, especially for those who are disabled or suffering, he’s not trying to “look good” at all costs. In fact, he shuns the idea of people putting his face on welcome tarpaulins, banners or posters when he visits a place.
He focuses on the human aspect of communication. Pope Francis believes that the great digital continent is not just about technology. It is made up of human beings who have their own individual anxieties and are looking for the truth, the good and the beautiful. The big social networks have billions of members and he calls them the “world’s biggest ‘countries, without limits.” He observes, “Many of these people will never step foot inside a church but we have the duty to announce the Gospel message to them, too. So the Church and its priests need to be present in this field, they need to evangelize in the Net, not via the Net, because it is within the environment of the Net that I am called to be the person I am.”
Communications is about informing people, not collecting “hits.” Pope Francis presented three points of consideration, which lie “at the heart” of communications. First, communications must not be “twisted and bent” for other purposes. Rooted in conviction, good communications come from the courage to speak candidly and freely. Otherwise, what is communicated comes across as fake, uninformative, and bland. Second, communications must foster unity and harmony. By this, Pope Francis avers, “Communicators should avoid saturating the public with an ‘excess of slogans,’ and simple solutions, which do not take into account the complexities of real life.” Third, he stresses that communicators should not be concerned with the number of “hits” they receive but rather with speaking “to the whole person.”? They should not misinform, slander and defame — “three sins” communicators should avoid.
Twitter is a modern form of a telegram. It’s not the place to publish a major theological work, but it is a wonderful way to reach a lot of people at once. You can tell them that you are praying for them — as in the case of a disaster — or ask them for prayers, or challenge them to follow Christ more closely. The Church is universal and the pope needs to talk to the whole world, and social media actually helps quite a bit here. Last month, Pope Francis hit 10 million Twitter followers, which placed him just behind American rapper Kanye West. Far and wide, observers speak of a “Francis Effect.” To date, he has huge numbers of Twitter followers in English in the Gulf States, and they’re mostly Filipino and Indian workers who are Catholics, many of whom don’t have the opportunity to worship. For many of them, this is their only direct link to the church they belong to.
Fr. Roderick Vonhogen, a producer, blogger and CEO of Star Quest Production Network, a multimedia organization that uses media for religious information, lists seven things that Pope Francis taught him, and let me share them with you:
• We are called not to communicate ourselves, but to express truth, goodness, and beauty. We’re not the center of the world, Christ is. He is the heart of the Church.
• True humility comes from the knowledge that we are here to serve another. Jesus told his apostles that he came not to be served but to serve.
• Don’t forget the poor. His concern for the simple, the humble, the poor, the forgotten, those who don’t matter in the eyes of the world, is truly touching.
• Never despair. Never give way to discouragement. Our hope is founded on the knowledge that Jesus carries us on his shoulders.
• Don’t pursue what you don’t need. His simple lifestyle makes us reevaluate our own priorities.
• Protect others in friendship. Create a climate of respect and friendship, first by avoiding anger and harshness in our own behavior.
• Reach out to the world and reach for the sky. Go to the ends of the world with Jesus’ message.
Pope Francis is visiting the Philippines from Jan. 15 to 19 and the Filipino faithful are eagerly waiting to see, hear and listen to his words and be blessed by his presence. “We all have the duty to do good,” he says, and we should try to live with that simple tenet.
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