By Michael F. Flach
Herald Staff Writer
(From the issue of 12/11/03)

Soren Johnson (right), the new diocesan communications director, is proficient in several languages, including Russian and Latin, but there is nothing foreign about his message.

"I’m very excited to be here in the Diocese of Arlington," said Johnson, who is married and the proud father of a fast-crawling nine-month old daughter. "I’m ready for new challenges and am looking forward to serving the Catholics of this diocese in the realm of communications."

Johnson said his overarching priority as spokesman of the diocese will be to convey the good news of the diocese to its parishioners as well as to non-Catholics through diocesan and secular media.

"If we take St. Paul’s metaphor of the Church as the body, then communications is the nervous system, conveying the news from one part of the Church to the other – and moreover to the world – so that its members can serve society and each other in a more integrated way, a more catholic way," Johnson said. "It’s absolutely crucial for a healthy body."

"The diocese is young and vibrant," Johnson said. "The sense of optimism here is as tangible as the scaffolding going up throughout the diocese, thanks to the generosity of Catholics in the diocese’s recent capital campaign. A top priority will be to tell the stories of how our faith and generosity is impacting real lives. It is a privilege to serve both an inspiring shepherd in Bishop Loverde and a diocese where the faith is alive and growing."

The Chicago native received his bachelor’s degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University in 1997, majoring in Russian area studies. "Soon after the Soviet Union collapsed, I was just taken up with the Russian language, culture, and people." While an undergraduate, Johnson wrote for the university newspaper, interned for a summer at the Moscow bureau of the Chicago Tribune, and spoke on Chicago-area radio stations on the subject of Russian politics. Johnson went on for a Master’s degree in Eastern Orthodox theology at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York.

Johnson brings to the diocese his appreciation for Catholic schools, having taught religion and Latin in the honor’s program at Archbishop Carroll High School in Washington, DC, from 2001-2002. For the last year and a half, Johnson worked as a communications officer for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Bishop Loverde said, "Soren is committed to his faith and brings to the diocese a strong background in communications, Catholic education, and theology. His energy and experience will serve the diocese well. He will build on the good work accomplished by Ms. Linda Shovlain, the former director of the Office of Communications."

"In some sense, Catholic communications lies at the nexus of journalism, theology, and education, so I feel at home in this position," said Johnson.

Johnson is still a student at heart, finding inspiration in the teachings of the Church for the role of communications. "One of the Vatican II decrees which touch on the media," said Johnson, "states that ‘all members of the church should make a concerted effort to ensure that the media are utilized in the service of the many works of the apostolate…as energetically as possible.’ This energetic ‘utilization’ of the media in service to the good news will be the core of my work, a work which many in the diocese have already begun."

At the USCCB, Johnson assisted with media relations, drafted press releases, designed media kits, conducted surveys, and analyzed media coverage of the sexual abuse scandal which broke in Boston in 2002.

"It was a very painful and disorienting time for Catholics and non-Catholics alike," said Johnson. "Amidst the media’s saturation coverage of the crisis, incidents of abuse which happened twenty or thirty years ago were perceived as happening today or yesterday. The Church didn’t have the facts on hand, and therefore couldn’t tell its own story as effectively as it could have. One part of the story that was lost was that most bishops have addressed this tragic problem with considerable success in their policies since the early 1990s."

More recently, he helped USCCB spokeswoman Sr. Mary Ann Walsh in the editing of her Catholic bestseller and tribute to the pope’s 25^th anniversary, John Paul II: A Light for the World (Sheed & Ward, 2003).

"My experience at the Conference afforded me a solid background on the issues facing the Church at a national level, and I think this will serve me well as I look to conveying these types of issues in clear, straightforward, and creative ways at the local level," said Johnson.

Among the local issues to which Johnson anticipates devoting his time are two studies mandated by the bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in Dallas, 2002.

"In the life of the Church in the next few months, we’ll learn two important things," said Johnson, who will work closely with Catherine Nolan, director of the diocese’s Child Protection and Safety Office, to disseminate this information in the months ahead.

"First of all, on Jan. 6, 2004, an independent auditing firm commissioned by the bishops will issue a Compliance Audit reporting the degree to which every diocese has followed through on the commitments made in the Charter," Johnson said. "It will be a good opportunity for the Church to say once again, ‘This has been a serious problem for us and for our society, and here are the concrete and straightforward steps by which we are ensuring to the best of our ability that no child under our care ever again be sexually abused.’"

The John Jay College of Criminal Justice Study will be released Feb. 27, 2004. "This study on the ‘nature and scope’ of the sexual abuse of children and young people by clergy in the United States over the past 50 years will be painful to read," said Johnson. "Yet as Bishop Loverde said back in May of 2002, confronting the reality of our past in this ‘period of purification and conversion’ is essential if we are to ‘work together, repair the damage done,’ and move forward into ‘genuine renewal.’"