“The Fantastic Society of Curious Children”, a Juan Diego Network podcast that has captured the imagination of children and families alike, received the 2024 Gabriel Award for Best Podcast Series at the ceremony held in this American city last Thursday. Since 1965, this prestigious award has celebrated the best in Catholic media, highlighting excellence in its ability to uplift and nourish the human spirit.
“It is an incredible honor to receive this recognition,” said José Manuel De Urquidi, founder of the Juan Diego Network. “Our mission has always been clear: to create and produce quality content that forms and nourishes spiritually and that leads to sacramental life and charity towards others. In times when the concept of love is very distorted, children must discover true love.”
“The Fantastic Society of Curious Children” follows five children on an adventure-filled journey to learn about love. Not only does it unmask entertainingly erroneous concepts of what love is, but it also discovers the different types of love. Five children, each with very different personalities, question their conceptions of love and delve into different types of love to finally discover Christian love.
The Gabriel Awards ceremony featured Jim Wahlberg as master of ceremonies, who shared his inspiring life story. Wahlberg recounted his childhood marked by a belief in a punishing God, and how his desire to address his existential emptiness led him to a life of addictions and criminality. “It wasn’t until I met Mother Teresa in prison that I began to discover that God is Love,” Wahlberg shared in front of the Catholic producers and communicators present at the award ceremony. His testimony highlighted the importance of teaching children from an early age about the true love and mercy of God, which is the reason for the existence of “The Fantastic Society of Curious Children.”
The Gabriel Awards, organized annually by the Catholic Media Association, celebrate and honor the best productions that promote positive and educational values. This year, in its 58th year, the ceremony was held in Atlanta, Georgia. The awards highlight work in various categories, including film, television, radio, and new media, recognizing those projects that inspire through quality and ethics.
This podcast has stood out for its innovative and attractive approach, allowing children to explore different types of love in a fun way while they learn. “We cannot compete for the attention of our little ones with the giants of secular entertainment such as Disney, YouTube and Netflix or against social networks if we do not offer high-quality productions,” said De Urquidi. “As the Catholic Church has always done, we need to evangelize and catechize through beauty and truth.”
Statistics reinforce this need, especially related to the new generations of Latinos in the United States. A recent Pew Research Center report notes a significant decline in the number of young Hispanic Catholics in the United States over the past decade. Likewise, the results of the V Meeting, reveal that it is essential to reach Latino children and young people so that they know they are attracted by the love of God towards the Church. That’s why Juan Diego Network urgently offers content that connects children with their faith.
The mission of the Juan Diego Network focuses on evangelization on the digital continent, the new missionary frontier according to chapter 17 of the Synthesis report of the first session of the Synod of Synodality of October 2023, where José Manuel De Urquidi He is a delegate with the right to vote. “We must be where our children, but mainly where adolescents and young people, spend many hours of their days today: in the digital world,” De Urquidi highlighted. “Our efforts in evangelization and digital formation seek to offer an attractive alternative, always faithful to Tradition, Doctrine and Magisterium, so that new generations know they are loved by God and return or walk towards being part of His Body: the Catholic Church.”
