Highlighting grey areas in the message for the Church in Africa Titled “Listening with the ear of the heart,” Pope Francis’ 56th World Communications’ Day (WCD) message has a lot of lessons for the world. The event which comes up on May 29, invites the faithful to reflect on the value of active listening. While noting that the word “listen” has become “decisive in the grammar of communication and a condition for genuine dialogue,” the pope drew our attention to the importance of listening in day-today relationships and civil debates. This notwithstanding, he maintained that “through the various podcasts and audio messages,” listening is now undergoing a new development in the field of communication and information. This piece highlights grey areas in the message for the Church in Black Africa.
Listening with the heart: Some Biblical Considerations
From the “Shema’ — Hear, O Israel” (Dt. 6:4) through Saint Paul’s teaching that “faith comes through listening” (cf. Rom 10:17), God first took the initiative to speak to us. As a newborn responds to the voice of his or her parents, God expects us to respond to him through active listening. Out of the five senses, hearing appears to be the one of most favoured by God. This is because it makes us freer. From the creation account, listening makes us active partners with God in dialogue. Sadly, human beings often turn their backs on God. They refuse to listen. For instance, Stephen’s audience covered their ears (cf. Acts 7:57) because they did not want to listen to him. Since “fundamentally, listening is a dimension of love,” God reveals himself by communicating with us freely in “a covenant of love.” By stating, “Take heed then how you hear” (Lk. 8:18), Jesus invites his disciples “to evaluate the quality of their listening.
“What is more, in the Parable of the Sower, Jesus invites his followers to bear fruits (cf. Lk. 8:15). As such, “It is only by paying attention to whom we listen, to what we listen, and to how we listen that we can grow in the art of communicating…”This is a sign of openness to God (cf. Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 171). Regrettably, most of us have ears but we experience an interior deafness that is worse than physical deafness. Indeed, “listening concerns the whole person.” Little wonder, King Solomon asked God for a “listening heart” (cf. 1 Kings 3:9).While Saint Augustine made a case for listening with the heart (corde audire), Saint Francis of Assisi exhorted his brothers to “incline the ear of the heart.” As such, true communication involves listening. This helps us to rediscover ourselves, our truest needs, those of others and our union with God. Good communication as a fruit of active listening we must not confuse listening with eavesdropping and spying. Occasioned by the age of social networks, eavesdropping entails “exploiting others for our own interests.
“Therefore, “what specifically makes communication good and fully human is listening to the person in front of us, face to face, listening to the other person whom we approach with fair, confident, and honest openness.”Unfortunately, sometimes we “talk past one another.” This is blamed on our inability to see good in others. As it were, “Good communication … does not try to impress the public with a sound bite, with the aim of ridiculing the other person.”On the contrary, it “pays attention to the reasons of the other person and tries to grasp the complexity of reality.” Even in the Church, sterile oppositions take place when listening disappears. We must avoid imposing our views on others. Rather, we should “move out” and reach out to the other person. Listening is “an indispensable ingredient of dialogue and good communication.” It makes communication possible. This is necessary for good journalism: “In order to provide solid, balanced, and complete information, it is necessary to listen for a long time. To recount an event or describe an experience in news reporting, it is essential to know how to listen, to be ready to change one’s mind, to modify one’s initial assumptions.
True communication and listening take place where several voices work towards symphony. Recall the gracious words of the great diplomat of the Holy See, Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, “martyrdom of patience” – this is a recipe for listening in the face of conflicts. Listening requires patience and truth. We must learn from the indefinite curiosity of a child “who looks at the world around them with wide-open eyes.” Although the current pandemic brought about “infodemic” leading to mistrust of official information, listening with the ear of the heart can bring about transparency. In the face of forced migrations, migrants are seen as dangerous invaders. Their “faces and stories, gazes, expectations and sufferings” are not considered. A listening Church: Practical Steps for the Church in Africa.
First, we are charged to embrace the Apostolate of the Ear. Amidst countless refugees, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), the sick and malnourished children, the Church in Africa ought to use the ongoing Synodal process to assist various vulnerable groups by listening to their plight towards making them feel at home. Second, the pope encourages us to enforce greater communion. Communion in the Church should be viewed in terms of rolling out better strategies that are built on mutual listening and fraternity which would make richer parishes, dioceses and archdioceses come to the aid of poorer ones. Also, various national migration policies must have a human face. This would reduce extreme poverty and inequality. Third, the pope wants us to ensure greater synergy. By the same token, like a choir which takes advantage of a variety of voices to form a symphony, various directorates of social communication at the archdiocesan and diocesan levels should ensure synergy among all the organs of the Church. This can be achieved through creation of awareness on synergy during the 56th WCD. Fourth, Pope Francis reminds us to always rely on the Holy Spirit. We can further perfect Communion in the Church if “each person is able to sing with his or her own voice, welcoming the voices of others as a gift to manifest the harmony of the whole that the Holy Spirit composes.”
Fifth, the 56th message of WCD urges us to watch against infodemic. Both secular and Church media must avoid falsification of official information. They must ensure credibility in reportage. For example, in their stories, refugees must not be described in terms of number or dangerous invaders but as “real men and women to listen to.” In conclusion, as we celebrate the 56th WCD, each of us is invited to sing “while listening to the other voices and in relation to the harmony of the whole.” The pope insists that “listening is still essential in human communication.”As such, he challenged “parents and teachers, pastors and pastoral workers, communication professionals and others who carry out social or political service” to live up to their responsibilities as educators and formators by entrenching the communicative role of active listening. This can only be achieved if we rely on the Holy Spirit!
Justine John Dyikuk, a Catholic priest, is a lecturer of mass communications, University of Jos; editor – Caritas Newspaper; and convener of Media Team Network Initiative, Nigeria.
