By Devin Watkins
On the feast of St Gabriel the Archangel, the Holy See’s Dicastery for Communication released the theme for the 61st World Communications Day.
The theme will be “A New Gaze: Paying Attention in the Age of Clickbait,” according to a press release published on Tuesday by the Dicastery (our parent organization).
This year’s theme invites Christians to open ourselves to “a conversion of our gaze: to look again, with attention and with love.”
“The attention economy, with its struggle for a few moments of interest amid the rapid and endless flow of content, is transforming not only our cognitive abilities but also the depth of our interpersonal communication,” it noted.
Only by paying attention to others with love can we see the “world, others, even ourselves, as Christ sees us: called by name and loved.”
“Our communication changes when our gaze chooses to encounter others rather than judge them,” said the statement.
People are inundated every moment of every day with expectations of rapid reactions and superficial relationships, resulting in a lack of genuine attention fueled by digital culture, it added.
“Yet attention is a precious form of generosity: the word ‘attention’ comes from ad-tendere—to reach out toward the other and toward the truth,” said the press release. “Christian communication can rediscover attention as both a gift and a way of seeing—the gaze of Jesus, who saw and allowed Himself to be touched.”
Rather than seeking to capture attention, communicating is about safeguarding attention “as a precious resource for relationships.”
In our modern age of “clickbait,” Christians are invited to pay attention and rediscover a healthy form of attention to one another.
“Communication is not just about words,” concluded the press release. “It involves the entire person and asks us to look, hear, and feel again in order to answer Christ’s call.”
World Communications Day 2027 takes place in many parts of the world—including the United States, England and Wales, France, Spain, Poland, and Italy—on May 9, but is celebrated on different days in various parts of the world, as set by the national Bishops’ Conferences. – Vatican News
