Pope Francis names Indian priest to Vatican’s Communication office

Father George Plathottam, Executive Secretary of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC)-Office of Social Communication (OSC) has been named as one of the new consultors of the Dicastery for Communication.
 
Pope Francis, 29 September, appointed two new members and 10 new consultors to the Dicastery for Communications, reported Vatican News.
 
He is the lone representative from Asia among the new consulters.

“I am humbled by this appointment,” Father Plathottam told RVA News.
 
The new members include Archbishop Ivan Maffeis of Perugia-Città della Pieve (Italy) and Bishop Valdir Jose De Castro of Campo Limpo (Brazil). 
 
The Dicastery's new consultors are Fr. Plathottam; Oscar Elizade Prada, coordinator of the Department of Communication of CELAM; Helen Osman, president of SIGNIS; Fr. Fabio Pasqualetti, dean of the Faculty of Communication Sciences at the Pontifical Salesian University; Sr. Veronica Donatello, head of the National Service for the Pastoral Care of Persons with Disabilities of the Italian Bishops' Conference, Sister Adelaide Felicitas Ndilu, national executive secretary of the Commission for Social Communications of the Kenyan Bishops' Conference and director of Radio Waumini; Father Andrew Kaufa, coordinator of the Office of Communications of the AMECEA Regional Conference of Bishops; Tomas Insua, executive director of the Laudato Si movement; Professor Antonio Cisternino, president of the University of Pisa's Ateno Information System (CIO); and John E. Corcoran, founder of Trinity Life Sciences.

In 2015, Pope Francis established the Dicastery for Communication to oversee the Apostolic See's entire communications network. It has a three-layered structure—members, superiors and consultors.
 
From Asia, three prelates are already members of the Dicastery— Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, Archbishop of Yangon, Myanmar and president of FABC; Cardinal Thomas Aquino Manyo Maeda, Archbishop of Osaka, Japan and Bishop Pierre Nguyên Văn Kham of My Tho, Vietnam.
 
Since 2019,  Father (Dr) Plathottam has been heading FABC-OSC, which is responsible for Radio Veritas Asia (RVA), the only continental Catholic Radio service broadcasting in 22 languages of Asia for the last 52 years.

He is a media trainer, journalist and communication expert.

Under his leadership, in 2019, the FABC-OSC instituted its training arm Veritas Asia Institute of Social Communication (VAISCOM) in Manila, the Philippines. VAISCOM forms pastoral personnel in Asia in social communication. It offers leadership and management competence to pastoral personnel and undertakes research on the Asian communication situation to enhance their ministry.

Plathottam teaches undergraduate and graduate students at the College of Communication, Polytechnic University of the Philippines and guides Doctoral students of Communication at the Don Bosco University, Assam, India.  

He previously served as the director of the Mass Media Department at St Anthony's College in Shillong, India, and the president of the Indian Catholic Press Association (ICPA) and the South Asian Catholic Press Association, and as the editor of South Asia Religious News.

He is a member of Guwahati Don Bosco province. He holds three master's degrees in theology, sociology, and journalism and mass communication, and a doctorate in mass communication from North Eastern Hill University in Shillong.

He has spent four decades working in Northeast India, primarily in Guwahati, Shillong, and Tura. 

From 2008 to 2015, he was the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India's national secretary for communications, and from 2012 to 2015, he was the Director of the National Media Training and Research Institute (NISCORT).

He serves on a number of media-related academic and consultative boards. 

He has been a founding member of the 25-year-old BOSCOM India (Don Bosco Communications) and the founder of the Salesian news agency, which is now the official news agency of the Salesians in South Asia under the name Bosco Information Service (BIS).

In 1992, he received the North-South Friendship Prize from the Union of Catholic International Presses and the German government.

He previously served as Rector and Principal of Don Bosco Tura in Meghalaya and Director of Don Bosco Academy Tura, a Civil Service preparatory training and career guidance center. - With input from Vatican News and Bosco Information Service