Aims & Scope

Mission Statement

Church, Communication & Culture (CC&C) is an Open-Access International Journal of the Pontifical University of Santa Croce’s School of Church Communications (http://en.pusc.it/csi/). The Journal is dedicated to deepening knowledge and understanding about the dialogue between religion, communication and culture in the public arena. Based on comprehensive data analysis and theoretical inquiry, it offers an international forum where researchers and practitioners can advance quality communication research on the Catholic Church and other religious communities.

Church, Communication & Culture derives its name from the reality that the Catholic Church is not simply one monolithic institution, but a network of various institutions. While maintaining unity through their creed and overarching aims, they operate in a variety of ways on different levels. These particular institutions within the Catholic Church have a multitude of specific objectives to carry out in concrete societies, with diverse peoples. The activity of “The Catholic Church” translates, therefore, not to one communication, but a plethora of multifarious communications. Consequently, Church, Communication & Culture aims to apply critical thought to the communicative dimension of the Catholic Church’s activity to engage society and promote dialogue with cultures. Content thus reflects theoretical inquiry based on empirical research and intellectual debate, rather than technological development.

Keywords

Communication Studies; Church Communication; Religious Communication; Public Space & Religion; Faith & Culture; Journalism & Religion; Organizational Communications; Catholic Church; Pope; Religious leaders; Vatican; Religious bodies

General Goals

1. To contribute to the development of societies based on human values by presenting cutting edge research on the role of religious institutions in the public arena.
2. To advance quality research in the communications field by promoting methods that go beyond the current fragmentation of disciplines, and include the perennial contribution of the humanist tradition to which human communication belongs.
3. To enhance the analysis of current communication trends by offering the wisdom and experience in communications from an institution (the Catholic Church) that has stood for over twenty centuries.
4. To encourage intellectual reflection and debate on new findings by proposing the broad perspectives of great thinkers – new and old alike – who speak about the realities concerning individual and institutional communications.

Pillars & Cornerstones

Pillars: These refer to the large, overarching values that drive CC&C’s work. In a way, they give the “why” to its objectives and express its editorial line.

1. The capacity of man to transform the world for the better: CC&C believes in the goodness of the world and in man’s responsibility for it. It also holds in high esteem man’s potential to improve the world through his work.
2. The importance of communication: communication is vital for man and society, through which the world’s transformation can take place.
3. The complementarity of Faith and Reason, Truth and Communication: in as much as faith enhances reason and reason protects faith from corruption (political abuse, economic gain, and other negative influences), truth prevents communication from being reduced to mere techniques for persuasion or even manipulation.

Cornerstones: These are the building blocks as to how CC&C will achieve its goals. They express the values upon which all those involved with the Journal should carry out their work. Authors who publish in the Journal are also expected to base their work on such values.

a. Excellence: a commitment to quality.

b. Openness: in research, both to discover results and not force conclusions.

c. Truthfulness: transparency in all research and publication.

d. Respect: for the dignity of the person above all, in every area of research, since research serves the person as an individual and community.