Paul VI's unscripted reproach
to irresponsible media in 1971
by Angela Ambrogetti
Translated from
August 27, 2012
Contemporary information media often create what they report. When, in fact, media should not create but describe things as they are. But in creating stories, they also create - or better, shape - public opinion.
The more the media system develops, the more the media is able to create stories which lead the [gullible] media consumer to "think according to what the media tell them". Even if it is not true
[And most of it often is not].
It is an old trick to 'muddy up the water', which provoked public criticism of the media even by Pope Paul VI, son of a Catholic journalist.
It was 1971, and times were different from today.
[The media system was far simpler and far less pervasive, without the 24/7 instant convenience of the Internet.] A program on RAI, the Italian state TV, carried interwoven interviews with Cardinal Jean Danielou and Father Ernesto Balducci.
[I had to look him up - apparently, Balducci (1922-1992) was quite a prominent peace activist in Italy whose ideal was a supranational world community in which there would be social justice ad peace for everyone.] It was a post-Conciliar debate which continues to be very actual: the 'contrast' between the Church apparatus and the 'Church of the poor'.
The program was aired in connection with an upcoming Synodal assembly of bishops which was to open September 30, 1971, with a Mass in the Sistine Chapel. The Synod's theme was "Justice in the world and the priestly ministry" but the theme was hardly discussed in the program, which was dominated by the Danielou-Balducci 'debate'.
The French cardinal spoke for the 'institutional' Church, while Balducci spoke about
a Church 'remote' from the oppressed, not open to social justice and not concerned about peace. [It is always appalling how sanctimonious Catholics, including priests and bishops - and assorted types like Paolo Gabriele - can see nothing but evil in the Church and ignore the good it does!]
Balducci generalized without considering the good work of so many priests, religious and bishops, and the cardinal
[an academic theologian, above all, professor, author and Church historian whose career did not include much pastoral work] appeared unable to answer effectively.
However, the newspapers at the time picked up and reported not so much the TV program itself but the reaction of Paul VI. The day after the broadcast, Sept. 29, the Pope had a General Audience. It so happened that the discourse prepared for the day was precisely on the subject of how the Church had come to be commonly thought about for her 'negative' aspects rather than for what she actually is.
A reflection that, just six years after Vatican II, was meant to tell the faithful, in direct language, the salient points of the dogmatic constitution on the Church
Lumen gentium.
Paul VI's reaction was unusually direct, especially for him. At a certain point in his address, he departed from the text and said extemporaneously: "Even yesterday, on Italian TV, there were strong attacks against the Church because of the way she is constituted, the way she is built. What has entered into the soul and brain of so many people, otherwise good and honest, who feel that they must turn against the Church and criticize her despite all the good that they themselves have received from the institutional Church? If there had not been this Church constituted by Christ, what would happen to their souls?"
[In fairness to RAI, the attacks against the Church in the program apparently came from the priest, Balducci, not from RAI, who can be faulted for creating an 'unequal' debate by juxtaposing two separate interviews in which Cardinal Danielou was most likely unaware that his answers to an interview with him alone were to be matched against charges made by an activist-polemicist.]
He then resumed reading his written text which, read today, despite Paul VI's not easy way with language, is very much actual. The Pope spoke to pilgrims coming to the tomb of St. Peter
"seeking a sensible as well as spiritual impression of this central point for the Church... (as well as) to enjoy the positive aspects of the Church" , He went on:
Whereas today, through what has become an almost habitual deformation, we see too many persons predisposed to see only her negative aspects - or those that are reputed to be negative - such that too many observers of the Church have a tendency to be critical and intolerant of ecclesial reality, and on the pretext of being oriented towards an ideal Church, they find it boring to even consider any positive contact with the Church as she is...
They would like a Church that is spiritually pure which fits into their own ideas of what she should be. This critical, disputatious, and discontented attitude, is widespread, and is fundamentally decadent, incapable of admiration, enthusiasm or love, and therefore devoid of joy and of the spirit of sacrifice.
The official published text includes but does not indicate the impromptu words inserted by the Pope, though these were reported as such by the newspapers in the following days.
It was clear that the issue was very much a concern for Paul VI, who was disappointed that the media - in this case, RAI-TV - were contributing to confuse the faithful.
Some commentators saw in his reaction a 'nervous release' of pent-up feelings, while others criticized the broadcast harshly, saying "The Pope could not have acted otherwise".
Re-reading the accounts 41 years later, it is evident that many issues in the internal Catholic debate are far from resolved.
[What an understatement! And yet, perhaps, it is inherent to have an internal debate for as long as there exist two extremely polarized sides, i.e., the progressivists on the left, and the rigid traditionalists on the other, both seemingly unmindful of the broad conservative and orthodox center that is open to necessary practical changes but always respectful of tried-and-tested Tradition - in short, those who advocate 'renewal in continuity'.]
Equally evident is that often, the way the media report on the Church is intended to generate controversy, even to the point, in fact, of creating what they purport to describe.
The question we can ask today is the same one Paul VI asked: What is it that gets into the heart and mind of so many good and honest persons who feel that they must speak only of the 'evil and corruption' in the bosom of the Church? What is triggered in the minds of those who, like Paolo Gabriele, reading media reports constructed to pre-condition simple minds, think, "Seeing evil and corruption everywhere in the Church... I was sure that a shock, like one from the media, would help to put the Church back on the right track".
[Gee, would it not be the devil, whose workshop is idle minds - not to mention minds that are incapable of thinking for themselves, happy to let others think for them? Paolo Gabriele was/is simple-minded enough to mistake the sanctimonious, presumptuous spirit that 'infiltrated' him to be the Holy Spirit, unable to discern the devil himself in the guise of media sanctimony and censoriousness of the Church, nor to remember the age-old adage that pride (hubris - presumptuous arrogance - in his case) always precedes a fall.]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 28/08/2012 20:00]