The Catholic Church in Belize was a pioneer in the use of media technology but this experience was short-lived. In 1979 the first printed edition of the Christian Herald Newspaper was released and around this time the first diocesan radio apostolate was also initiated. The voice of the Catholic Church was heard regularly also through television, but over time, none of these initiatives sufficed the people’s needs “hunger for the Word” as Mr. Ruben Wong, Chair of Media and Communications at the Diocese of Belize City & Belmopan, puts it.
The idea for a diocesan communication center was born in 2018 and it was then when the first contact with SIGNIS Services Rome occurred. After planning, researching, and developing a plan to create this Center, the world was overturned by the COVID-19 pandemic. This phenomenon, showed Belizeans the extent of digital evangelization as parishes immediately took to live-streaming masses using phones. This spiritual hunger in the diocese evoked an urgency to deliver the communication center project to the people of God sooner rather than later.
As the world slowly got back on its feet, so did the planning for the inauguration of the communications center. In 2022, SIGNIS provided online courses to the local team and youth involved in the parish on topics like WordPress and Podcast creation as the equipment for the center was being assembled and shipped to Belize. The space for the communications center started to take shape: a projector for the conference room, audiovisual recording equipment, cameras, audio and video mixers, lighting, computers, and editing software.
On February 11, 2023, the Diocesan Communication Center was finally opened. The late Bishop Lawrence Nicasio inaugurated the center saying “A communication Center in a Diocese is about using another form of mission, of evangelization, spreading God’s Word, the Gospel Message far and wide. Our work has just begun. With God on our side and our desire to be a new way of being Church, we too will be rejoicing when we see the hand of God working in our ministry to his people in Belize and beyond”. Bishop Nicasio was a key player in the creation of this center and it is now part of his legacy.
The Diocesan Pastoral Communications Center will benefit the Antilles Episcopal Conference’s (AEC) plan to have an Integrated Pastoral Communications Plan as it is becoming a training and meeting venue for programs to enrich the youth and young adults of the diocese, the clergy, religious, laity, and members of the Diocesan Pastoral Life Resource teams. The facility is making more visible the work of the Diocese of Belize and providing a media-rich collaborative environment to allow for evangelization to the furthest reaches of Belize and beyond.
This project is being highlighted inside the SIGNIS campaign Inspiring Hope. Watch below the first episode of this 4-chapter Belize series titled “Hungry for the Word through Media”.
Inspiring hope: a SIGNIS project empowering new voices is a campaign sponsored by SIGNIS with support from the Catholic Communication Campaign aims to share stories of hope that inspire and generate social transformation from new communication resources—a journey through Burundi, Liberia, Belize, Mexico, and Tanzania.