FOR THE 59th WORLD DAY OF SOCIAL COMMUNICATIONS
Share with gentleness the hope that is in your hearts
(cf. 1
Pet 3:15-16)
Dear brothers and sisters!
In these our times, characterized by disinformation
and polarization, as a few centres of power control an unprecedented mass of
data and information, I would like to speak to you as one who is well aware of
the importance – now more than ever – of your work as journalists and
communicators. Your courageous efforts to put personal and collective
responsibility towards others at the heart of communication are indeed
necessary.
As I reflect on the Jubilee we are celebrating this year as a moment of
grace in these troubled times, I would like in this Message to invite you to be
“communicators of hope”, starting from a renewal of your work and mission in
the spirit of the Gospel.
Disarming communication
Too often today, communication generates not hope, but
fear and despair, prejudice and resentment, fanaticism and even hatred. All too
often it simplifies reality in order to provoke instinctive reactions; it uses
words like a razor; it even uses false or artfully distorted information to
send messages designed to agitate, provoke or hurt. On several occasions, I
have spoken of our need to “disarm” communication and to purify it of
aggressiveness. It never helps to reduce reality to slogans. All of us see how
– from television talk shows to verbal attacks on social media – there is a
risk that the paradigm of competition, opposition, the will to dominate and
possess, and the manipulation of public opinion will prevail.
There is also another troubling phenomenon: what we
might call the “programmed dispersion of attention” through digital systems
that, by profiling us according to the logic of the market, modify our
perception of reality. As a result, we witness, often helplessly, a sort of
atomization of interests that ends up undermining the foundations of our
existence as community, our ability to join in the pursuit of the common good,
to listen to one another and to understand each other’s point of view.
Identifying an “enemy” to lash out against thus appears indispensable as a way
of asserting ourselves. Yet when others become our “enemies”, when we disregard
their individuality and dignity in order to mock and deride them, we also lose
the possibility of generating hope. As Don Tonino Bello observed, all conflicts
“start when individual faces melt away and disappear”. [1] We must not surrender to this mindset.
Hope, in fact, is not something easy. Georges Bernanos
once said that, “only those are capable of hope, who have had the courage to
despair of the illusions and lies in which they once found security and which
they falsely mistook for hope... Hope is a risk that must be taken. It is the
risk of risks”. [2] Hope is a hidden virtue, tenacious and patient.
For Christians, it is not an option but a necessary condition. As Pope Benedict XVI noted in the Encyclical Spe Salvi, hope is not passive optimism but, on the contrary, a
“performative” virtue capable of changing our lives: “The one who has hope
lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life’
(No. 2).
Accounting with gentleness for the hope that is in us
In the First Letter of Peter (3:15-16), we find an
admirable synthesis in which hope is linked to Christian witness and
communication: “In your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make
your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is
in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence”. I would like to dwell on
three messages that we can glean from these words.
“In your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord”. The hope of
Christians has a face, the face of the risen Lord. His promise to remain always
with us through the gift of the Holy Spirit enables us to hope even against all
hope, and to perceive the hidden goodness quietly present even when all else
seems lost.
The second message is that we should be prepared to
explain the hope that is in us. Significantly, the Apostle tells us to give an
accounting of our hope “to anyone who demands” it. Christians are not primarily
people who “talk about” God, but who resonate with the beauty of his love and a
new way of experiencing everything. Theirs is a lived love that raises the
question and calls for an answer: Why do you live like this? Why are you like
this?
In Saint Peter’s words, we find, finally, a third
message: our response to this question is to be made “with gentleness and
reverence”. Christian communication – but I would also say communication
in general – should be steeped in gentleness and closeness, like the talk of
companions on the road. This was the method of the greatest communicator of all
time, Jesus of Nazareth, who, as he walked alongside the two disciples of
Emmaus, spoke with them and made their hearts burn within them as he interpreted
events in the light of the Scriptures.
I dream of a communication capable of making us fellow
travelers, walking alongside our brothers and sisters and encouraging them to
hope in these troubled times. A communication capable of speaking to the heart,
arousing not passionate reactions of defensiveness and anger, but attitudes of
openness and friendship. A communication capable of focusing on beauty and hope
even in the midst of apparently desperate situations, and generating
commitment, empathy and concern for others. A communication that can help us in
“recognizing the dignity of each human being, and [in] working together to care
for our common home” (Dilexit Nos, 217).
I dream of a communication that does not peddle
illusions or fears, but is able to give reasons for hope. Martin Luther King
once said: “If I can help someone as I pass along, if I can cheer somebody with
a word or song... then my living will not be in vain”. [3] To do this, though, we must be healed of
our “diseases” of self-promotion and self-absorption, and avoid the risk of
shouting over others in order to make our voices heard. A good communicator
ensures that those who listen, read or watch can be involved, can draw close,
can get in touch with the best part of themselves and enter with these
attitudes into the stories told. Communicating in this way helps us to become
“pilgrims of hope”, which is the motto of the present Jubilee.
Hoping together
Hope is always a community project. Let us think for a
moment of the grandeur of the message offered by this Year of Grace. We are all
invited – all of us! – to start over again, to let God lift us up, to let him
embrace us and shower us with mercy. In this regard, the personal and communal
aspects are inseparably connected: we set out together, we journey alongside
our many brothers and sisters, and we pass through the Holy Door together.
The Jubilee has many social implications. We can
think, for example, of its message of mercy and hope for those who live in
prisons, or its call for closeness and tenderness towards those who suffer and
are on the margins. The Jubilee reminds us that those who are peacemakers “will
be called children of God” (Mt 5:9), and in this way it inspires
hope, points us to the need for an attentive, gentle and reflective
communication, capable of pointing out paths of dialogue. For this reason, I
encourage you to discover and make known the many stories of goodness hidden in
the folds of the news, imitating those gold-prospectors who tirelessly sift the
sand in search of a tiny nugget. It is good to seek out such seeds of hope and
make them known. It helps our world to be a little less deaf to the cry of the
poor, a little less indifferent, a little less closed in on itself. May you
always find those glimmers of goodness that inspire us to hope. This kind
of communication can help to build communion, to make us feel less alone, to
rediscover the importance of walking together.
Do not forget the heart
Dear brothers and sisters, in the face of the
astonishing achievements of technology, I encourage you to care for your heart,
your interior life. What does that mean? Let me offer you a few thoughts.
Be meek and never forget the faces of other people;
speak to the hearts of the women and men whom you serve in carrying out your
work.
Do not allow instinctive reactions to guide your
communication. Always spread hope, even when it is difficult, even when
it costs, even when it seems not to bear fruit.
Try to promote a communication that can heal the
wounds of our humanity.
Make room for the heartfelt trust that, like a slender
but resistant flower, does not succumb to the ravages of life, but blossoms and
grows in the most unexpected places. It is there in the hope of those mothers
who daily pray to see their children return from the trenches of a conflict,
and in the hope of those fathers who emigrate at great risk in search of a
better future. It is also there in the hope of those children who somehow
manage to play, laugh and believe in life even amid the debris of war and in
the impoverished streets of favelas.
Be witnesses and promoters of a non-aggressive
communication; help to spread a culture of care, build bridges and break down
the visible and invisible barriers of the present time.
Tell stories steeped in hope, be concerned about our
common destiny and strive to write together the history of our future.
All this you can do, and we can do, with God’s grace,
which the Jubilee helps us to receive in abundance. This is my prayer, and with
it, I bless each of you and your work.
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