As I listened with joy last week to Teresa Romero thanking God, St. James the Apostle, Sister Patience and her fellow doctors for her cure from Ebola, I thought of the importance of clarity in messages. In that clarity usually lies its correct reception by the media and the recipients of public opinion.

The nurse's aide's words were understood by all and the order of her speech reflected the deep reflection of one who has spent hours delving into her pain and, surely, rediscovering what is truly important and essential in life.

By contrast, I evoked the media messages that were generated a month ago around the Synod on the Family focused on the possibility of admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons living with a new partner, and the recognition of homosexual unions as equivalent to marriage. There was a proliferation of contradictory messages suggesting a change in the Catholic doctrinal attitude in this regard, based on brief statements or interviews with some participants in the synodal classroom .

The cocktail of messages about the Synod on the Family and the confusion generated by the way the information was handled will most likely have served as experience for those in charge of communication more directly involved, who in the future will know how to foresee situations or respond promptly to untimely or unwise statements.

A recent meeting of the bishops manager of Communication of the European Episcopal lecture gathered 30 prelates, including Bishop José Ignacio Munilla, in Athens from November 3 to 5. I was able to access the discussion paper of the Bishop of San Sebastian in which he offers suggestive ideas for communication in the Church based on four points of Evangelii Gaudium that Bishop Munilla applies to communication.

"The four hermeneutical criteria of Evangelii Gaudium applied to communication," as the Bishop of San Sebastian titled his lecture , following the Apostolic Exhortation, are well known: 1- Time is superior to space. 2- Unity prevails over conflict. 3- Reality is more important than the idea. 4- The whole is superior to the part.

With regard to the first point, the bishop proposed a therapy that overcomes the urgency of immediacy with these words: "Good communication requires patience. Here is a concrete application of the hermeneutical principle expressed by Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium: 'Time is superior to space'".

With reference letter to the second point, the prelate suggested: "Unity prevails over conflict, good communication requires: Capacity to listen to critical positions, capacity for discernment, capacity for empathy, and faith in the truth that makes unity possible."

Bishop Munilla interpreted the third proposition of Evangelii Gaudium as a call to charity: "Reality is more important than the idea; good communication requires love of neighbor. To speak of one's neighbor without loving him is not communication, but something else".

Finally, the Bishop of San Sebastian addressed the fourth point: "In final -'The whole is superior to the part'-, good communication requires a vision of globality, but combined with the necessary concreteness in what is small, close and simple".

These four proposals in Athens were framed by the prelate also glossing the message of Pope Francis for the XLVIII World Communications Day workshop under the degree scroll: "Communication at the service of an authentic culture of meeting".

Returning to the beginning of this article, I think Teresa Romero has been able to communicate a message, clear, positive, hopeful, staff, grateful to God, to Santiago Apostle, to the medical team and to Sister Patience, once again generously stating that she herself is willing to donate her blood for the healing of future patients.

The nursing assistant has statement very well, favoring the authentic culture of meeting.

In contrast, the communications surrounding the last Synod generated mostly mixed messages, blurred, ambiguous in their formulations and, unfortunately, divisions and, in the end, "misunderstandings". Many of them came from brief interviews with the participants that ended up becoming headlines.

Not a month has passed since the Statement of Director of the Holy See's Press Office conference room on behalf of the Synod's administrative office General, which made the problem explicit and unambiguous: "The administrative office General of the Synod, following the reactions and discussions originating from the publication of the Relatio post-disceptationem, and the fact that it has been attributed a value that does not correspond to its nature, reiterates that the said text is a document of work, which summarizes the interventions and the discussion of the first week, and which will now be proposed for discussion by the members of the Synod gathered in the minor circles, as foreseen by the same rules of procedure."

Would this grade have been necessary with daily care and monitoring of the statements made to the media by some participants?

In addition to the suggestive proposals presented at the last meeting in Athens, the popular committee that so many mothers and grandmothers give to their children when they rush into their conversations comes to mind: "Think before you speak". Many of those who spoke before the microphones and cameras during the Synod, did they previously reflect on what they were going to say? Did they foresee the scope of their words?

In Ethics classes we have frequently commented on the importance of striving for a communication manager and adequate to the reality of the facts.

Teresa Romero has launched a well thought out message, which she meditated on during her weeks of convalescence, therefore it is understandable and also touches the heart of anyone. It is to be hoped that the upcoming news about the Synod on the family and the meetings of 2015 will include in the minds of those who participate and declare before the media the simple skill communicative of a reflection prior to their words.