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Posted: February 26
Father Jerry Martinson SJ from Kuangchi Program Service in Taipei, Taiwan, has been staying at the Curia while attending a two-day symposium titled, “The Church and the Media: an Unlimited Future.” The Pontifical Council for Social Communication sponsored the symposium to celebrate the 40th anniversary of “Inter Mirifica,” the Vatican II document that established the Vatican’s official organization to deal with the mass media in the modern world.
Jerry estimated that almost 200 people took part in the symposium. Many were members of the Council who had just finished one of its regular meetings; others like Jerry were invited to give brief presentations on their work around the world. Many others were journalists and working members of the Italian press. Besides Jerry, two other Jesuits took part: Father José Martínez-de-Toda y Terrero from the Gregorian University and Father Federico Lombardi from Vatican Radio.
One of the more interesting aspects of the meeting were the parallel but contrasting presentations on what the media expects from the Church and what the Church expects from the media. Frantz-Olivier Giesbert, editor of France’s “Le Point,” gave a presentation in which he said that the media expect openness, transparency and a lack of fear from Church people. He commented that too many Church people are passive and too few are present to the media. As an illustration, he cited the positive impact that he has had on the work of the Jesuit social activitist, Pierre Ceyrac, by writing about his work and drawing attention to it. By contrast, he said that the Church does not adequately promote people like Ceyrac who are making a contribution to the world. Archbishop Milton Gregory from Atlanta in the United States spoke about what the Church expects from the media. He stressed great ideals about the role of the media. According to Jerry, people were impressed with him, especially when he talked about enduring the painful discussion of the sexual abuse scandal in the U.S. media since he was often interviewed in his role as head of the U.S. bishops conference, but they found his language esoteric and idealistic.
A member of the audience commented on the difference between the language of the media and the language of the Church. This contrast generated much discussion. Another contrast that caught Jerry’s attention was the difference between the work of a Belgian production company that aimed at young people and sought to build up Catholic culture, and his own work at Kuangchi Program Service which aimed at being in dialogue with a predominantly non-Christian world and followed a service orientation. Jerry thought that the Belgian presenter spoke in the language of the Church, while he resonated more with the language of the media.
Fr. Lombardi gave one of the final presentations which traced the development of the Vatican’s use of modern communication such as television, radio and internet. Clearly the Church has done a lot, yet we still have much more to learn in order to bridge the gap between what remains at the very least two different ways of presenting ourselves to the world.
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