Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
by Samuele Massimi and Fabio Beretta
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - Recovering and enhancing the vast multimedia heritage collected in the archives of the main religious organizations involved in the missions with the aim of giving a new impetus to Catholic missions. This was discussed in the halls of the Casina Pio IV, a Renaissance jewel set in the Vatican Gardens, where, on the occasion of Missionary October, the International Conference "Cinema and Mission took place. Audiovisual sources and the history of Catholic missions" was held, involving sixteen speakers, mostly archivists from various religious organizations from different countries, together with scholars from the academic world.
Organized by the Uninettuno International Telematic University, the CAST Research Centre (Catholicism and Audiovisual Studies) and the MAC Foundation (Audiovisual Memories of Catholicism), in collaboration with the Vatican Apostolic Library, the National University Consultation on Cinema (CUC), the General Directorate of Cinema and Audiovisual of the Ministry of Culture and the Historical Archives of Propaganda Fide, the conference opened with a greeting from Angelo Vincenzo Zani, Archivist and Librarian of the Holy Roman Church, who recalled how the heritage of the Apostolic Library, where “books now dialogue with films, CDs, vinyls and photographs”, is increasingly “multimedia”. A dialogue that exists in many archives, as Don Dario Edoardo Viganò, Vice-Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, recalled in his speech, which “highlights a change in cultural perspective”, a change that began in the last century. “The change in the view of multimedia material of 20th century Christian-Catholic cinema also changes the value of the material preserved in the various archives of the various realities of the missionary Church”. Today “the focus is no longer on the spectacular nature of the product, but on its capacity to transmit ideas and content. In this perspective we can speak of 'Apostolic Cinema' - according to Viganò - a true genre in its own right, and what could have been a weak point in terms of communication now becomes cultural heritage”. In this regard, a fundamental contribution was made by the Historical Archive of Propaganda Fide, praised by all those present not only for the wealth of existing sources but, above all, for being a «model» archive in which paper coexists with celluloid, photographs and many other formats. And precisely the photographs were the central theme of the presentation by Don Flavio Belluomini, archivist of the Dicastery for Evangelization, entitled: «The photographic heritage of Fides Agency preserved in the Historical Archive of Propaganda Fide: source for the history of the missions». During the sessions, various aspects were discussed, above all the importance and urgency of valuing this heritage that the various archives of the different missionary realities possess.
As these are dated audiovisual media, the state of conservation of the material is at risk of being compromised. The issue of the serious need to digitize the sources in our possession was addressed by all the speakers so that the testimonies of the immense missionary work of the 20th century are not lost. A need that is often hindered by high economic costs. Another equally significant point that was highlighted was the lack of metadata for the various audiovisual sources. The lack of knowledge of the complete historical and geographical location of the audiovisual products (sometimes the place is known, sometimes the time in which they were made, but often the complete information is not available) makes their archiving and dissemination difficult and makes it difficult to know the objective immensity of this "treasure". Hence the idea of a questionnaire intended for the various organizations, in an attempt to quantify and catalogue all the materials, thus making the history of missionary realities emerge from the dust of time. (Agenzia Fides, 16/10/2024)
