Listening to each other

Church and Media: that’s the main theme to be discussed at the plenary assembly of Presidents of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe (CCEE) to be held at Esztergom in Hungary from 30 September to 3 October. The meeting will also be the occasion to present the results of the European survey promoted by the CCEE among the Bishops’ Conferences aimed at defining what perception the media have of the Church in Europe, what Church issues are treated in the media and what means the Bishops’ Conferences have at their disposal for their mission of communication of the gospel in a changing world. A second stage of the meeting will focus on the service of the CCEE to the Church in Europe with a presentation of the activities of the various CCEE Commissions (Media; Migrations; Catechesis, schools and universities, and vocations), without forgetting the theme of collaboration between CCEE and other continental organizations: with SECAM (Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar) and CELAM (Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano). Also on the agenda are the programme of the first Catholic-Orthodox Forum (Trento, Italy, 11-14 December 2008) and the election of the new general secretary of the CCEE. In view of the meeting Maria Chiara Biagioni, on behalf of SIR, interviewed the Most Rev. Jean-Michel di Falco Léandri, Bishop of Gap et d’Embrun, and chairman of the Council for Communication of the French Episcopal Conference, who will participate in the Esztergom meeting in his role as President of the European Episcopal Commission for the Media (CEEM).A preliminary assessment of the situation of how the Churches communicate in Europe: How are Church issues treated by the media?“A survey has been conducted involving all the European Bishops’ Conferences on relations between Church and media, on the presence of religious information in all the types of media and the ways in which it is treated. We have tried to evaluate the phenomena of defamation, of calumny, of instigation to hatred against the Church, against Christians and against Christianity. We have unfortunately been forced to recognize that in a Europe whose roots are Christian, in a Europe that claims to promote human rights, these phenomena exist, to a greater or lesser degree. There is no question of any defamatory strategy, but the media can appropriate a particular fact to blow their own trumpet, and arouse a debate on what’s true and what’s false, mixing together the true with the false. For example it’s said that remarried divorcees are excommunicated when that’s not the case, because lack of access of eucharistic communion is confused with exclusion from the community of the faithful. It’s said that the Church is in favour of over-zealous therapeutic treatment when it is against it, because over-treatment is confused with the rejection of euthanasia”.What are the most frequent questions posed by journalists to the Church and the most frequent difficulties the Church encounters in its relations with the media?“The questions most frequently asked regard marriage, the family, sexuality, the end of life, relations between Church and State, and between Church and governments. In Eastern Europe, the thorny question of the restitution to the Church of properties expropriated by the Communist regimes is added to these. The links maintained by society and the media with the Church are very ambivalent, in the sense that people want to know what the Church thinks but are unwilling to listen to her word, or what she has to say about man. As for the difficulties encountered, they are almost never linked to bad faith on the part of the media, but are due to the ignorance of journalists on Church issues. We know that clichés have a difficult life. Yet too often journalists unfortunately contribute to the perpetuation of a good many of these. But we must not blame too easily! We Christians should question ourselves instead whether our way of living in the world makes people believe different things than what we profess. When something goes wrong, the blame is generally on both sides!”And what’s the contribution of the Catholic media to the construction of a Europe of peoples?“So far I’ve spoken mainly about the so-called lay or ‘profane’, the non-confessional media. The Church must consider them as possible places of dialogue, listening, mutual esteem, something that is not in the least incompatible with debate, exchange, and an energetic rectification of disinformation! These media are in some ways places of evangelization. But we cannot be evangelisers if we are not evangelised ourselves. The Catholic media must set an example in this sense; they must let themselves be inspired by the Gospel before trying to evangelise others. Only when the Catholic media really express communion in diversity do they become evangelisers, since they testify to the finality of each communication: they live in communion”.