CEO, Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation
114 Richmond Street E.
Toronto, Ontario, M5C 1P1 CANADA
Dear Fr. Thomas Rosica,
It is a pleasure for me to send my cordial greetings and congratulations to you, your staff and all who generously support the Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation, which is now marking its tenth year anniversary. I am grateful for all that you and your collaborators have done over the years in producing and promoting inspirational Catholic programming. I am impressed with your outreach, both to millions of television viewers via cable and satellite, and to many others around the world through your website and apps for mobile platforms. This work is an important contribution to the new evangelization.
It is good that your programming connects the local Church with the universal Church through news, documentaries, interviews and broadcasts of liturgical celebrations presided over by the Holy Father. Your catechetical programs, especially the multi-lingual documentaries on the new Saints and Blesseds, offer a special service to the Church around the world. Moreover, your coverage of current issues is helpful in bringing to light important moral and ethical themes from a Christian perspective.
It is also good to see that you have involved young adults from Canada and many other countries who share in and can contribute to the Church's mission of witness and evangelization. They can offer their dynamism and expertise in the use of new media by proclaiming the Gospel in the most effective ways, using the new media languages and better engaging with the rapidly changing cultures in which we live.
I would also like to thank you for your assistance to other Catholic media outlets throughout the world, especially in developing countries. This solidarity is important and strengthens the bonds of fellowship among Catholics around the world.
I conclude with a quote from Blessed John Paul II, whom you will recall very well when he was in Toronto for World Youth Day ten years ago. Addressing young people, he said:
The world you are inheriting is a world which desperately needs a new sense of brotherhood and human solidarity. It is a world which needs to be touched and healed by the beauty and richness of God's love. It needs witnesses to that love. The world needs salt. It needs you - to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
Please continue to be that salt and light which the world needs today! Please be assured of my prayers and best wishes for you and your ministry. Yours sincerely in Christ,
Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli
President, Pontifical Council for Social Communications
Vatican City