” ““Authentic communication demands courage and determination. It demands the resolve of all those who work in mass media not to bend under the weight of so much information and not to adapt to incomplete or short-lived truths. It demands instead the search for and the spreading of what is the ultimate meaning and foundation of human, personal and social life”. According to Benedict XVI, this is the way in which “mass media can proactively contribute to the spreading of all that is good and true”. In his message for the World Social Communications Day next May 28th about “Mass media: a communication, communion and cooperation network”, released today, the Feast of Saint Francis from Sales, the patron saint of Catholic journalists, the Pope warns: “even if mass media facilitate the exchange of information and ideas, at the same time they can be contaminated by ambiguity”, thus risking to “generate a single culture that dims creative genius, reduces the subtlety of complex thinking and depreciates the peculiarity of cultural practices and the individuality of religious beliefs”. Thus, mass media, instead of being a “big round table for the dialogue of mankind”, turn into an “industry which is an end in itself, which is only oriented to profit making, thereby losing sight of the sense of responsibility in serving the common good”. In this respect, the Pope insists on the need to “guarantee an accurate report of the events at all times, an exhaustive explanation of the subjects of public interest, an honest presentation of different points of view” by supporting and encouraging “married life and family life”. “In cooperation with parents, the social communication media and the performing industries can support the difficult but highly rewarding bent for raising children, by showing edifying models of life and human love. How disheartened and dejected we feel writes the Pope when the opposite is true!”. (to be continued)
