The Church Secretariat for Social Communications has prepared a short TV spot to be broadcast on the two PBS stations to mark World Day for Social Communications, which is being commemorated today. The video may also be viewed at http://knisja.org/jdks2014 .

The TV spot’s underlying message questions whether communication technology is serving as a bridge or as a barrier to social communications. The spot features daily family life in a society dominated by technology.

In another activity to mark the occasion, the secretariat is holding a business brunch for news editors and people who work in the media, on June 16 at noon at the Excelsior Hotel, Floriana.

The main speaker is former US ambassador to Malta Douglas Kmiec, who will give a lecture entitled ‘If secularism becomes the means of secularisation,is it the death or the resurrection of democracy? The relation-ship between the Church and the State’.

Prof. Kmiec, an academic, author and US Congress candidate, is currently working on an Oxford University Press publication related to secularisation.

According to Prof. Kmiec, the theme of secularisation is relevant not only for the Church and religious liberty, but also for society in general.

He holds that secularisation is a natural process evolving in society that means that both Church and State are free and autonomous, and that any consideration society pays to prevailing realities is not necessarily bound to any religious belief.

On the contrary, secularism refers to a situation whereby society tries to stifle any reference to religion, whether directly or indirectly, manifestedly or latently.

The Archbishop’s delegate for social communications Fr Charles Tabone will introduce the event.

Following Prof. Kmiec’s presentation, a discussion and comments from the audience, Archbishop Paul Cremona will deliver his closing message on World Social Communications Day.