Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas of Tucson, Ariz., and vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recently addressed the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management on the matter of communications.

The church should not hesitate “to engage the modern digital technologies,” which “can be vehicles for communicating,” he said. Given recent advances in communications technology, he noted that people today Twitter and blog, they e-mail, use Skype, Blackberries and iPhones, and choose Facebook partners.  Still, “communication, while enhanced by technology, rests on the power of the message and the authenticity of the communicator,” Bishop Kicanas said. “Technology facilitates the fundamental desire” people have to communicate and engage one another.

Bishop Kicanas told the meeting how much he enjoys theater and commented on its relevance for communicators. “Great actors and actresses communicate,” he said. “The language of theater needs to be crisp, punctuated with images and to resonate with feeling.” Similar qualities are needed in effective church communications, Bishop Kicanas said. “Abstract, theoretical, disembodied language has little place on the stage or for that matter from the pulpit or in most communication by the church,” he added. He cautioned, though, that “the greatest blow to the integrity of the church’s message and its effectiveness occurs when those who deliver that message are simply playacting.”  Read more here.