Marco Carvalho
A new profile on Facebook, a new channel on YouTube, a message-sharing group on WhatsApp and a monthly parish bulletin. These are the new media resources with which the Portuguese-language pastoral team of the cathedral parish intends to strengthen its relationship with the parishioners.
Unveiled on November 1st with the creation of a new Facebook page “Sé Catedral de Macau – CLP (‘Macau Cathedral – Portuguese Speaking Community”) and a YouTube channel with the same name, the new communications strategy aims to answer some of the concerns that were raised by the Lusophone Catholics during the diocesan phase of the Synod on Synodality. “Why did we commit ourselves to the creation of these new digital channels? In the diocesan findings of the Synod of Bishops, during the local phase of the process, one of the concerns that was mentioned was the need to improve and strengthen communication between the Church and the parishioners,” Father Daniel Ribeiro recalls.
“The main purpose is to achieve a greater proximity to the faithful so that the activities that will be carried out in the Church may reach the greatest possible number of people,” the parish vicar of the Cathedral of the Nativity of Our Lady tells O Clarim.
In addition to the brand-new digital resources, which allow for an immediate impact, the cathedral parish Portuguese-speaking pastoral care team will publish, once a month, using a more traditional platform, says Father Ribeiro. “The parish bulletin has two primary purposes: the first is, obviously, to inform parishioners about the activities that took place over the previous month, and the second is to introduce what will happen in the following month. It’s a single-sheet bulletin. It’s a very brief thing. It does not have the aim of asserting itself as a newspaper,” the Brazilian priest says.
“It is something very concise, which aims to inform the parishioners about what has already happened, on the one hand, and to communicate what will happen, on the other. It’s not very different from the work we’ve been doing with Facebook and You Tube, but it’s something printed. There were quite a significant number of people who were asking for something of this kind. The bulletin will be published once a month, at the beginning of each month,” the parish vicar of the Cathedral of the Nativity of our Lady adds.
The new media resources, now introduced, are the result of the effort made by a group of parishioners from the cathedral parish who work on the project on a pro-bono basis, Father Ribeiro concludes.
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