Man’s genius has, with God’s help, produced marvellous technical inventions from creation, especially in our times. The Church, our mother, is particularly interested in those which directly touch man’s spirit and which have opened up new avenues of easy communication of all kinds of news, of ideas and orientations. Chief among them are those means of communication which of their nature can reach and influence not merely single individuals but the very masses and even the whole of human society. These are the press, the cinema, radio, television and others of a like nature. These can rightly be called “the means of social communication”.

With these words, the Second Vatican Council began the Roman Catholic Church’s reflection on the media and called for the development of pastoral instruction on the proper use of the instruments of social communication. Promulgated on December 4, 1963, “Inter Mirifica – On the Means of Social Communication” was the second document from the Council, and is available online from the Vatican’s website.