Speaking of Journalism

Pope Francis had a few words to say about journalism as he gave out papal honors to senior Vatican journalists.

Conferral of Honors on Senior Vatican Journalists

We are travelling companions! And today we are celebrating two experienced journalists, who have always followed the Popes, the information on the Holy See and the Catholic Church in general. One is your “doyenne”, Valentina Alazraki: for 47 years she has been on the Papal flights, as a journalist here – she came straight after her First Communion! When she was very young boarded the plane that took Saint John Paul II to Puebla, in 1979, the first time, and gave the Pope a sombrero, one of those Mexican hats. 

Your mission is to explain the world, to make it less obscure, to make those who live in it less afraid of it and look at others with greater awareness, and also with more confidence. It is not an easy mission. It is complicated to think, to meditate, to study more deeply, to stop and collect ideas and to study the contexts and precedents of a piece of news. The risk, as you well know, is to be overwhelmed by the news instead of being able to make sense of it

To listen is a verb that concerns you as journalists, but it concerns us all as a Church, at all times and especially now that the synodal process has begun. For a journalist, listening means having the patience to meet face to face with the people to be interviewed, the protagonists of the stories being told, the sources from which to receive news. Listening always goes hand in hand with seeing, with being present: certain nuances, sensations, and well-rounded descriptions can only be conveyed to readers, listeners and spectators if the journalist has listened and seen for him- or herself. This means escaping - and I know how difficult this is in your work! – escaping from the tyranny of always being online, on social networks, on the web. The journalism of listening and seeing well requires time. Not everything can be told through email, the telephone, or a screen. 

The second, to investigate, is a consequence of listening and seeing. Every piece of news, every fact we talk about, every reality we describe needs to be investigated. At a time when millions of pieces of information are available on the web, and when many people obtain their information and form their opinions on social media, where unfortunately the logic of simplification and opposition sometimes prevails, the most important contribution that good journalism can make is that of in-depth analysis. Indeed, what more can you offer to those who read or listen to you than what they already find on the web? You can offer the context, the precedents, the keys to interpretation that help to collocate the fact that has happened.

To listen, to investigate, and the third verb, to report: I don't have to explain it to you, who have become journalists precisely because you are curious about reality and passionate about telling it. Reporting means not putting oneself in the foreground, nor setting oneself up as a judge, but allowing oneself to be struck and sometimes wounded by the stories we encounter, in order to be able to tell them with humility to our readers. Reality is a great antidote to many “ailments”. Reality - what happens, the lives and testimonies of people - deserves to be told

 I am grateful to you for your effort to recount reality. The diversity of approaches, of style, of points of view linked to different cultures or religious affiliations is also a wealth of information. I also thank you for what you tell us about what goes wrong in the Church, for helping us not to sweep it under the carpet, and for the voice you have given to the victims of abuse: thank you for this.

And, please, remember also that the Church is not a political organization with left and right-wingers, as is the case in parliaments. At times, unfortunately, our considerations are reduced to this, with some root in reality. But no, the Church is not this. It is not a large multinational company headed by managers who study at the table how best to sell their product. The Church does not build itself on the basis of its own project, it does not draw from itself the strength to move forward and it does not live by marketing strategies. Every time she falls prey to this worldly temptation – and at times she falls, or has fallen - the Church, without realising it, believes she has a light of her own and forgets that she is the “mysterium lunae” of which the Fathers of the early centuries spoke – she is authentic only in the light of Another, like the moon - and so her action loses vigor and serves no purpose.