Golden Jubilee For Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference SOCIAL COMMUNICATIONS: A VOICE FOR THE CHURCH IN ZIMBABWE C ommunication is as old as humanity itself. The Church's mission is primarily to communicate the word of God; a communication that builds, connects, coordinates and empowers his people. Social Communications is not something that is optional or peripheral to the pastoral ministry of the Church. It is part of the mission of the Church and it strives to enrich God’s people through information that is true, reliable and factual. It is the ministry of the Catholic Church to communicate well and convincingly, thus Social Communications has a role to play in every aspect of the Church's mission (Aetatis Novae 17). Since the beginning, the Church embraced the power of communication drawing from Jesus Christ who is the communicator Br. Alfonce Kugwa National Coordinator par excellence. She realized the need of sharing and empowering people through communication. Thus the idea led to the establishment of the Pontifical Commission for the Study and Ecclesiastical Evaluation of Films on Religious or Moral Subjects by Letter Protocol No. 153.561 from the Secretariat of State of His Holiness Pope Pius XII on 30 January 1948. On 17 September 1948 the Holy Father approved the statutes of this new Office of the Roman Curia, which was renamed the Pontifical Commission for Educational and Religious Films. The Pontifical Commission for Educational and Religious Films examined the complex educational and pastoral problems of the audiovisual era just coming into being and quickly realized that action was going to be needed. Through their President, Bishop O'Connor, they informed Mons. Giovanni Battista Montini, at that time Deputy Director of His Holiness' Secretariat of State, of their conclusions, namely that to be pastorally effective, the Commission would have to study the problems raised by motion pictures as a whole and engage bishops and believers alike in an apostolate in this field which could respond to the changed conditions of society. On 1 January 1952, the Commission was replaced by the Pontifical Commission for Cinema which later changed, this time to the Pontifical 31