HONG KONG (SE): The Asian Research Centre for Religion and Social Communication (ARC) announced the death of its co-founder and executive director, Divine Word Father Franz-Josef Eilers, in Manila, the Philippines, on January 13. He was 88-years-old.
Father Eilers was hailed for his great contribution to the promotion of academic research and interreligious dialogue and social communication in the Asian context in 20 years leading the ARC.
Widely respected for his scholarship in the field of social and pastoral communication with numerous published books and articles, Father Eilers founded the journal, Communicatio Socialis, in 1968, in Germany—the first academic publication in the area of Christian communications. It is still going strong after 50 years.
Among other positions, Father Eilers also served as the executive secretary of the Office of Social Communication of the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences; was director of the Catholic Media Council (Cameco) in Aachen, Germany; and was consultant to the Holy See’s Pontifical Council for Social Communication.
‘The ARC is deeply grateful for Father Eilers’ many years of hard work for the cause of advancing the field of social communication, especially in the tireless work that he has done on behalf of the centre. He will be dearly missed’
Father Anthony Le Duc
A highly regarded teacher, he taught at various institutions including the Pontifical Gregorian and Salesian Universities in Rome; the Divine Word School of Theology in Tagaytay, and the Pontifical University of Santo Tomas (UST) in Manila in the Philippines. The graduate programme in social and pastoral communication at UST, which he initiated in 2021, has yielded dozens of licentiate graduates from many countries throughout Asia.
He retired from teaching at UST in 2018 at the age of 86.
Father Eilers was also the recipient of the Titus Brandsma Leadership in Social Communication Award from the Carmelites (Philippines) and the Asian Media Information and Communication Award for Transformative Leadership.
“The ARC is deeply grateful for Father Eilers’ many years of hard work for the cause of advancing the field of social communication, especially in the tireless work that he has done on behalf of the centre. He will be dearly missed,” Divine Word Father Anthony Le Duc, deputy director of ARC, wrote in a communiqué on January 13.
“His joy, sense of humour, commitment to scholarship and selfless service will continue to inspire those who have known and worked with him to keep making strides in employing social communication to achieve interreligious, intercultural and interpersonal understanding and collaboration for the betterment of humanity and society,” Father Le Duc wrote.
May Father Eilers rest in peace!
