MEN ARE TIRED OF LOOKING DOWN

Federico Lombardi

Director of Programming at Vatican Radio

The Great Jubilee is a challenge for the operators of communication: and its a chance that they cannot miss, because an opportunity such as this one does not come by often. In this world of the ongoing technological revolution and of the globilization of every kind of problem - economic, social, environmental..., - with the backlash of change of the balance of the great world powers, with poverty and dramatic conflicts, there is someone who has had the courage and the originality to say that the most important focus of reflection towards 2,000 is God, and the inaudible claim that God has reincarnated himself; someone who insists in claiming that the men and populations of today must still measure themselves with the seriousness of these affirmations, because they have nothing better to do than to find the sense and the desire to enter into the history of the new millennium.

This could seem baffling, or could draw a smile, but in reality it hides a formidable and potential outburst. This is news; and it will be extremely interesting to verify what impact this proposal will have on the Catholic Church, on Christians and on humanity of this time. It is an alternative proposal for the larger number of communicators, with respect to the normal way of seeing things, and it has some possibilities of success. In fact, I believe that there is a secret and underlying fatigue for a kind of life that brings us to continually look downwards. Instead, when the target is raised, it is easier to breath, and we are stunned with joy to rediscover that the true, the good and the beautiful exist. There is a nostalgia for a season of hope and ideals, but we look for someone who has the courage and the authority to speak of it. The innovation of the Pope to the Jubilee offers this chance. It offers thanks, praise, breath for the spirit, joy, reconciliation, conversion, forgiveness, peace. It gives the news that this is possible and is happening today. It contradicts the common places which attract the attention, those places that are conflictual, while reconciliation is much more original.

Certainly, we must try no to think solely of the numbers, of the organization, of the public works in Rome, and try instead to see the spiritual sense of the Jubilean walk. But this does not just depend on the communicators; it mostly depends on how the Church lives the Jubilee. If often the media reduces or even alters reality, there are many times in which the reality is seen as stronger than the media and forces them to change their attitude and to reflect different situations and attitudes than those which they originally expected.

Some clear examples can be seen in recent trips of the Pope, like that in France last autumn, or even that in Poland in June. The genuine spiritual participation of a massive assembly of the people of God is by itself evidence that speaks through the images, the sounds, it involves all those who participate through the media and does not leave the observer indifferent and the informer objective.

From this point of view, you can be sure that the great Jubilee, being a prolonged event of mobilization of the people of God on a whole, will at the end leave an image of its dense and effective spirituality and of the capacity that the Church will have shown, on every level, to answer the invitation of the Holy Father: celebrate and announce for humanity of the year 2,000 the fact that Christ is effectively the Savior of the world and of all of history.

Therefore: it is not about making the Jubilee at the forefront of communication through the media (and especially through television): this, instead of converting, would be to fall in the trap of temptation. Instead, its about celebrating well the Jubilee, according to its interior significance, which is manifested in life and in the renewed Christian witness: sooner or later the media will understand what they have to speak about and what they have to show.