A LESSON IN JOURNALISM LIKE THE COUNCIL

Gian Franco Svidercoschi

It was a major, radical turning point, the Second Vatican Council. A turning point for the Church as, although in continuity with the past, with Tradition, she embarked on courageous reflection about her nature, her mission, resuming and developing dialogue with the contemporary world.

But it was also a major turning point for the world of communications. Because the Council, if we may put it this way, obliged it to undertake a general re-thinking of its method of approaching religious matters. A Church which was opening up to the outside world, telling about herself and even questioning herself, a Church like this, could not be described with the usual clichés, and even less with the old anti-clerical prejudices.

It was therefore a Church with a "new" image which emerged from Vatican II. And new - in the sense that it was more sensitive, more capable of getting to the bottom of religious problems - was the manner in which the entire universe of communications spoke of the Church and of her renewal.

Indeed personally, having lived that experience, I have always thought that the Council was a unique lesson: in journalism, but, before all, in truth. All the more because, Vatican II, its documents, the stories that characterised it and even the very air of the gathering, contained the key to better understand the meaning of successive events in the Church.

And this process was superbly explained by Pope John II in a meeting with about a thousand journalists of different nations, in January 1984 on the occasion of the Jubilee of the Redemption. «The role and duties of those who work in this specific field (that is in the field of religious information) have been subjected to a progressive evolution beginning with the Second Vatican Coucil, indeed thanks precisely to the Council».

And again: «...new, wider spaces of interest have opened for the religious journalist», who «has had therefore, to acquire certain knowledge which has led him to take a closer look at all the aspects of human and social reality of our times: from the religious dimension, obviously, to politics, economy, the great themes of today such as peace, disarmament, development, problems concerning the family, youth, culture etc. All this, on the one hand, brings an increase in responsibility for the religious journalist, but on the other, demands from him greater efforts to understand and to analyse the major phenomena of contemporary society».

A "photograph" - we must admit - very clear and very positive. But does it correspond to the situation in recent years? Does it correspond to the way in which, generally speaking, information is given about the Church and about religion? The answer can only be a definite no. Precisely because it carries elevated values, values proper to the human person and therefore of a reality more profound and intimate and also more complete and articulated, the "religious" fact" is the one which has been most penalised by the progressive degradation of the world of communication. And which, therefore, has suffered the gravest consequences of the tendency, noticed above all in written journalism, to both spectacularize and banalize of all news.

And this on one hand has gradually led - with communication which tends ever more to relativise the objective representation of reality - to the creation of a sort of "virtual religion", characterised first of all by is subjectivism. On the other hand, we have seen a blanket of silence cover completely the faith as it is "lived", in other words, the daily story of the local Churches, parishes, movements and associations; of all those volunteers who generously dedicate themselves to works of charity, helping those most in need who are often the most forgotten by society, by the state.

And the Jubilee too, the Great Jubilee which will mark historically the passing of a millennium, how has it been "treated" so far by the world of communication? Much has been said of business, tourism, urban chaos, there is much political discussion. In brief, the Jubilee has been represented mainly in its external aspects, indeed mostly from aspects foreign to it. In this way it has been emptied of its proper religious and spiritual significance, which is in fact its essence and actual reason for its celebration.

At this point, therefore, we should ask ourselves in all frankness, if the world of communication should not also make that "examination of conscience" which Pope John Paul II proposed in the Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennium Adveniente as one of the main roads on the journey of conversion and purification towards the Jubilee.

The Pope naturally asked this of Christians who, he wrote: «need to place themselves humbly before the Lord and examine themselves on the responsibility which they too have for the evils of our day». But regarding the list of these "evils", for example, "Religious" indifference which leads many people today to «live as if God did not exist or to be content with a vague religiosity, incapable of coming to grips with the question of truth and the requirement of consistency» or «confusion in the ethical sphere, even about the fundamental values of respect for life and the family», with regard to this list of "evils" can the world of communication feel it is not involved? Can it say, in all certainty, that it has no responsibility?

Each of us will have to respond to his own conscience and not only his conscience as a professional. But also the world of communication, as a whole, in its collective conscience, should feel the need, or better, the duty to make a moral leap. Returning to the roots, to the ethical inspiration of its work: that is, its deontology, its social dimension, its intellectual honesty, attention for those primary values of man, such as his religious dimension.

The coming Jubilee will be of special importance, since it falls two thousand years after the birth of Christ, and therefore celebrates the mystery of the Incarnation. And it will also be, as the Holy Father pointed out, the "first Jubilee of the age of computer technology". And therefore able to make use of the super powerful instruments produced by the technological revolution.

So, for the world of communication, the Jubilee of 2000 comes as an extraordinary occasion, a great challenge: to succeed in bringing into people's homes the message which is at the origin of Christianity and also, in a certain sense, of human history. And if this happens, then we can really hope - just as it was with the Council - for a new relationship between the media and the world of religion.