Public Relations and Propaganda Public Relations and Propaganda by Wendy Chadwick Montreal, October 27,1994. First stop, the library. This indicator led me to question the relationship between the two words. What was odd is that when I did the reverse and entered propaganda, it did not refer me to public relations. It is strange how in some circles these two words can be understood to be synonymous while general perceptions of them are quite different.
Public relations connotes a positive image while propaganda carries a very negative one.
Perhaps this is due to its association with wartime propaganda, communism and Hitler. Nevertheless, its use has a much more historical background. In January 1622, as Pope Gregory XV was reviewing the state of the church in Europe, he realized that the Catholic church was losing ground and wanted to counteract the effects of the Protestant Reformation. In 1627 Pope Urban VIII founded the Collegium Urbanum, the seminary of the Propaganda, providing a central training school for missionaries. The methods and the detailed presentation of material were left to the discretion of those in the field, to be determined in the light of prevailing circumstances, subject only to the broad definitions of policy set down by the Propaganda.