The Second International Seminar on Pauline Publishers with about 60 participants from 18 Circumscriptions and a few invited guests from other Institutes of the Pauline Family began on Monday 16th October at Ariccia, Rome. Almost thirty years have passed from the first Seminar which was held in 1988. Fr Devasia, Fr Joby and Fr Joe represented India. Fr Valdir José De Castro, the Superior General, in his introductory report pointed out that many steps have been taken in the area of publishing apostolate over the years, but there are some fundamental questions to be answered such as: “Who is the Pauline publisher in a constantly changing society, mainly with the advent of digital technologies? To whom do we want to arrive? How do we want to get there? How do we organize ourselves to carry on our mission?”
Many competent persons from the field of communication were invited to present conferences of various topics such as “The Digital Age: Key Features of a society in continuous transformation”, “Impact of digital technologies in the contemporary society”, “New paradigm of communication”, “Pauline Apostolate in the new socio-communicative context”, “Model of communication today”, “The recipients of Pauline Apostolate”, “St Paul, model of communication”, etc. While Fr Joby presented a paper on “The present challenges of a Pauline Editor” Fr Joe presented the “Historical development of publishing from 1980” in the CAP-ESW circumscriptions.
The conferences were followed by discussions in different language groups. The discussions stimulated the reflection to identify the challenges and opportunities that today’s society imposes on the Pauline apostolate. The seminar concluded on Saturday 21st October with the presentation of the synthesis of the works followed by the concluding Eucharistic Celebration by the Superior General. We hope that the Seminar will challenge us to give a new impetus to our Apostolate.