By Jesuit Father Myron J. Pereira
For many of us, specially the laity, the “conciliar revolution” (of Vatican II, 1962-65) was more fiction than reality.
The expectation was that the Catholic Church would open its doors to the modern world, to the other Christian Churches (ecumenism), to the world religions (dialogue), to a plurality of Third World theologies, and usher in a new age of freedom.
In reality, the institutional Church asserted itself, and returned to a more centralized authoritarian government with a charismatic pope as “universal leader,” helped by world television and a rigorist Roman curia.
But perhaps the fault lies with the churches on the periphery as much as the Church at the center.
If Rome intervenes so frequently, it is because local Churches seek an arbiter for their quarrels, unable to solve their problems by themselves. The result is a “bureaucracy of experts,” and local hierarchies being reduced to the level of “office boys” carrying out Rome’s instructions.
Are the media in Western democracies an ideal?
How is this different from the state of most Western democracies?
Unlike communist or theocratic governments, most democracies do not aspire to provide an “ultimate meaning” to life.
Here freedom of conscience is the supreme good; to be protected by the state, whose laws provide a climate of tolerance for the exercise of the private beliefs of its citizens. Tolerance is the ultimate value.
Most individuals living in contemporary Western societies use a free, subjective language where everything — politics, philosophy, morality — is open to question. Belief is just one opinion among others.
But this is not the way in which the Church sees orthodoxy. The Church believes in One who said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” The Church forbids its members to define their own beliefs according to an open-ended democratic system.
Cardinal Newman used to speak of a balance between the “three voices” in the Church — government (the hierarchy), theological expertise (the theologians), and pastoral experience (the laity).
What has happened is that the hierarchy has stifled the theologians, and all but ignored the laity. How then can anyone speak realistically of free speech in the Church?
Alain Woodrow, senior reporter with the French newspaper, Le Monde, speaks of his continuous battle with the hierarchy over “preaching the message” through the media. What the clergy see as their valid proclamation is seen by the secular press as propaganda.
The official Church still does not see any place for independent and impartial reporting. It has little room for professional journalists with minds of their own.
Five rules for journalists
Woodrow elaborates on his five rules for journalists working with the Church.
Competence: A journalist is to be judged not on his missionary zeal, but on his ability in his chosen field. Does he know his subject? Can he translate Church jargon and the abstruse language of many Roman texts to words that the average lay reader understands?
Many churchmen feel that a religious journalist needs to be an “insider” in order to understand the Church from within — yet they look with suspicion on journalists who are ex-seminarians!
Openness: Like all authoritarian societies, the Catholic Church too, loves secrecy. In spite of preaching virtue and claiming to be the “perfect society,” it does not like admitting its mistakes. After all, if no one knows what you are doing, no one can call you to question, as happened for years in the pedophile scandals.
But it is the duty of the journalist to break down these taboos. One more reason why the clergy distrusts reporters.
Truthfulness: The duty of the press is to publish the truth about an institution that claims that “the truth will make you free,” and yet trafficks in lies, censorship, and prevarication.
Journalists are blamed for focusing only on the negative aspects of Church life, but by their nature the media deal with the extraordinary and the sensational, and not with the banal and the humdrum. In the limited space of a headline, naturally, the focus will be on what grabs the readers’ attention.
Freedom: Freedom of speech is not a personal privilege but a necessary tool for investigation, or shaping public opinion.
It means that the reporter should be free to pursue his lead without being intimidated or bribed, which is what anyone in power tends to do. And every religious authority believes it has the sole right to “speak in the name of God,” and to deny this freedom to anyone else, specially the secular — ungodly! — media.
Fairness and Equalhandedness: Journalists should take care to present a “catholic” (i.e. universal) point of view, and not take the side only of the clerical establishment.
Since the Council, several new ideas have been openly discussed in the Church, by voices that earlier would have been peremptorily silenced.
Some of these voices are those of women, Dalits, tribals, and those of other faiths; many theologians too challenge the premises of a Western way of thinking, and wish “to drink from our own wells” (Gustavo Gutierrez).
The responsibility of Catholic journalists is to give fair and equal publicity to new ways of thinking and believing, and to encourage debate in a Church which has too long been fearful and ignorant.
Journalists are not another “teaching authority” (magisterium) in the Church. That role indeed belongs to the pope and the bishops.
But the media are rightly called the “fourth estate” for they investigate abuse, they shape public opinion, and they offer alternate perspectives.
This is why their freedom ensures a healthy society and a vibrant Church. – UCA News
*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.
