Posted on 03/24/2014 6:05:57 AM PDT by markomalley
In extemporaneous remarks to members of Carollo, an Italian association of broadcasters, Pope Francis said that the “sins of the media” are misinformation, calumny, and defamation. The last two, he said, “are grave, but not as dangerous as the first.”
The Pope said that calumny (which involves falsehoods) “is a mortal sin” and defamation (which involves truths that unjustly damage a person’s reputation) “is a mortal sin,” but a broadcaster can later issue corrections to help repair the damage. But misinformation involves saying “half of things, those that are most convenient for me,” preventing viewers and listeners from arriving at a “complete judgment.”
Pope Francis urged broadcasters to seek truth, goodness, and beauty. In doing so, the broadcaster should avoid the trap of becoming an “intellectual without intelligence,” an “ethicist without goodness,” or one who “makes up” a beauty of “cosmetics, which try to make an artificial beauty that does not exist.”
Citing St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, Pope Francis said that each member of the Body of Christ has its own function, and one is not greater than the other, since all are small before God. “Who is the most important in the Church? The Pope or the old woman who prays the Rosary every day for the Church?” The Holy Spirit, who harmonizes this diversity, is the most important. In this context, the Pope asked broadcasters not to follow “the logic that the big fish swallows the small.”
In addition, the Pope spoke of clericalism as “one of the evils of the Church.” Priests are tempted to “clericalize the laity,” but “so many laity, on their knees, ask to be clericalized, because it is more convenient, it is more convenient!” The lay vocation, which derives from baptism, should not be “sold” or “negotiated.”
In Argentina, the future Pope “so many times” heard a priest praise a layman and ask, “Eminence, why do we not make him a deacon?” “The proposal of the priest at once” is “to clericalize.” The Pope added, “Is he a good layman? He should continue so.”
Sounds like the Pope is getting fed-up with the media ....
How many battles have we fought here on FR over what Francis said and what it means to the Catholic faithful! All because the liberal media cherry pick his statements to fit their context.
Calumny (which involves lies) and Defamation (which involves truths) are mortal sins, but misinformation (which involves half-truths) is presumably venial?
Perhaps he is learning. Trial by ordeal.
IB4TPWMA
Pope Francis talks about the “spiritual side” of “libal and slander” .
Isn’t defamation, by definition, also misinformation? And its really not that easily cured. Usually very few see the retraction or correction and the lie lives on for years.
You might want to brush up on your reading comprehension skills...
He clearly said the former was more grave.
“If someone who misinforms, calumnises, and defames, who searches for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge?”
**The Pope said that calumny (which involves falsehoods) “is a mortal sin” and defamation (which involves truths that unjustly damage a person’s reputation) “is a mortal sin,” but a broadcaster can later issue corrections to help repair the damage. But misinformation involves saying “half of things, those that are most convenient for me,” preventing viewers and listeners from arriving at a “complete judgment.” **
BTTT!
I’m not Catholic and strongly disagree with many of the RC Church belliefs, but what’s done in Christ’s name concerns every Christian, and this Pope, it seems, is good at being ambiguous and talking out of both sides of his mouth. He seems liberal to me, but he will throw carrots to conservatives as cover to do liberal things. He also reminds me of Rick Warren, who says one thing to one crowd and then something else contradictory to another. He mentioned some conference of secular intellectuals, including, media people, the Five Fundamentals and that they came about a century ago, and then said he wasn’t a fundamentalist himself. Then when there was an uproar, he corrected himself.
The fivee fundamentals: the Bible as inerrant and infallible, the Virgin birth, Jesus’s sacrifice as atonement for us, His literal resurrection, and the historical truth of His miracles. What woulld Warren object to? But he has also said that Islam worships the same God Christians do.
This pope is like that.
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