Philadelphia: 200 journalists attend seminar on Pope Francis

Image: Church Up Close

Vatican officials, bishops, clergy and academics from around the world came together on 28 August in Philadelphia to offer to more than 200 news journalists covering religion an intensive course on Pope Francis and his upcoming visit to the United States. The seminar, called 'The Church up Close' was organized by the School of Church Communications of the Pontifical University Santa Croce (Opus Dei's Rome-based university) and sponsored by Columbia magazine. The seminar was part of the Religion Newswriters Association's annual conference.

Among those speaking at the seminar were Archbishops Joseph E Kurtz (Archbishop of Louisville and President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops), Bernardito C Auza (the Vatican's representative to the United Nations), José H Gomez (Archbishop of Los Angeles) and Charles J Chaput (Archbishop of Philadelphia) as well as Guzman Carriquiry (Secretary for the Pontifical Commission for Latin America) and Bishop Jean Laffitte (Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family). The seminar also included university experts, authors of books on Pope Francis, and communications officials from the bishops' conference and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Here is a link to the full audio recordings from the day-long media briefing on Pope Francis visit to the United States:
https://catholicacademy.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/seminar-presentations-on-pope-francis-and-his-visit-to-the-u-s/

The seminar in Philadelphia was a shorter version of a week-long program, 'The Church Up Close: Covering Catholicism in the Age of Francis' offered in Rome every two years, designed for journalists who cover the Roman Catholic Church. (Which was attended by Ellen Teague and Jo Siedlecka from ICN in 2014) The next Rome edition of the seminar will take place from Sept. 5 - 11, 2016.

For more information see: www.church-communication.net