Since it's Thursday, Bruno Mastroianni is back with his weekly blog. Occasionally, he throws out some arguments that are incomplete or need to be better qualified, or may be downright disputable. This is one of those.
Waking up from torpor
Translated from
May 13, 2010
It is right to think that the Church could improve its communications. But it would be an error to think that at the root of the summary and unjust criticisms of the Pope is simply lack of journalistic professionalism. Nor does the problem lie in the media per se. Many of them, in recent days, have provided prompt and correct information.
[I don't think any thinking Catholic assumes that the root problem is the media. Only that the media and their reporting on the Church and the Pope are the most obvious manifestations of a secular culture that openly opposes the most basic teachings of the Catholic Church.]
What's happening is more profound: It is the manifestation of a friction between current thinking and the logic of the Gospel, which already predicted, "Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil falsely against you because of me". (Mt 5,11).
[More than friction, it is open contradiction/opposition, but then, the Gospel also tells us that Jesus is 'destined to be a sign that will be contradicted"].
What's interesting is that, from the perspective of the media spotlight, though this friction seems to be exclusively a threat to the good image of the Church, it actually has some good results.
Just think that these days, leaving aside the polemical debates, people are also talking about the importance of holiness in priests, the relationship between the Pope and his bishops, the concept itself of sin and redemption.
Just think of the opportunity to reflect on the nature of the Church: a holy institution that was divinely founded, but made up of imperfect men, and because of this, she must courageously
[and incessantly!] heal her own wounds.
When else would these topics come up if the media were left to their usual fare of economic-political concerns that occupy them most of the time?*
In fact, the media scuffles that have marked the pontificate of Benedict XVI so far have always highlighted significant issues, and are not just as consequences of a communication gap. Media simply register the fits and starts of a world that is shaken from its usual torpor.
[Only if the media were reliably objective and not systematically engaged in pushing a secular agenda that strikes at the heart of everything that it means to be a Christian!]
*Provided the issues are discussed enough. But there is a tendency to drop a topic when the media has lost interest in it.
Consider the Pope's Letter to the Irish Catholics! It is dense with doctrinal, spiritual, ecclesiastical and sociological insights, not to mention its concrete exhortations to all sectors of society with their respective stakes in the sex-abuse issue, and its prescriptions for penance that must be done - not simply in terms of justice for the victims - but in spiritual ways.
All of that appear to have been forgotten in the snap of a finger. It wasn't even a nine-day wonder in the media. No, this did not fit into their stereotype of Benedict XVI, and before the world could take proper notice of it, "Quick, let's find something that will make him look so bad no one will even remember he wrote the Letter to the Irish!"
They certainly succeeded in their diversionary tactics using Fathers Hullermann, Murphy and Kiesle as red herrings, even if the 'cases' they purported to make against Joseph Ratzinger quickly deflated for lack of substance.
They succeeded so well that they have even forgotten Benedict covered all the bases about sinful priests and bishops and the damage they have done to the Church in that epochal letter - so they have greeted every statement he subsequently made as something 'new' that the Pope has come to 'admit' because of 'media pressure'.
And is anyone talking at all about everything the Pope wrote in the Letter to the Irish? I hope the Irish Catholics and their bishops are, at least!
