To Publicists and Artists (19 November 1980)
ShareOn 19 November 1980, the Holy Father addressed publicists and artists in Munnich, speaking of the “eventful history” of the relationship between the Church and art, the Church and journalism.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
My cordial greetings go to the artists and journalists who have come to Munich from all parts of the Federal Republic of Germany on the occasion of my visit. It's a pleasure to meet you in this city, which has always been the center of the arts and which has recently become an important center for the mass media. This meeting of ours should be a contribution to the conversation between church and art, between church and communication media, a contribution to a conversation that had been silent for a long time or was marked by opposition and contradiction. In the following, allow me to point out some of the connections that exist between church and art, church and journalism, which can contribute to a better mutual understanding and to fruitful cooperation in the service of man.
1. The relationship between church and art in architecture, fine arts, literature, theater and music has an eventful history. Without the efforts of the monasteries, for example, the treasures of ancient Greek and Latin authors would probably not have come down to us. At that time, the church entered into dialogue with ancient literature and culture with great frankness. For a long time, the church was considered the mother of the arts. She was this as a client; the content of the Christian faith formed the motifs and themes of the art. How true this is can be seen from a simple thought experiment: Take away everything that has to do with religious and Christian inspiration from art history in Europe and Germany and you will see how much, that is, how little, remains.
In the modern centuries, most strongly since 1800, the connection between church and culture and thus between church and art loosened. This was done in the name of autonomy and was exacerbated in the name of progressive secularization. A gulf developed between church and art, which grew ever wider and deeper. This became most evident in the realms of literature, theater and later film. The mutual estrangement increased through the criticism of the church and Christianity, indeed of religion in general. The church, for its part, became - and this is somewhat understandable - suspicious of the modern spirit and its various forms of expression. This spirit was considered anti-religious and anti-church, critical of revelation and religion. The attitude of the church was defensive,
2. A fundamentally new relationship between church and world, between church and modern culture and thus also between church and art was created and laid by the Second Vatican Council. It can be described as a relationship of devotion, of opening, of dialogue.
This is linked to the focus on today, the "Aggiornamento". In the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, the Council Fathers devote a separate chapter to the proper promotion of cultural progress and, as in the ancient Church, approach the problem with frankness, without narrowness or timidity. The world is an independent reality, it has its own laws. This also affects the autonomy of culture and with it that of art. Properly understood, this autonomy is not a protest against God or against the statements of the Christian faith; Rather, it is the expression of the fact that the world is God's own creation, released into freedom, handed over and entrusted to man for culture and responsibility.
This is the prerequisite for the church entering into a new relationship to culture and art, into a relationship of partnership, freedom and dialogue. This is all the easier and can be all the more fruitful when art is free in your country and can be realized and developed in a space of freedom. When it comes to the responsible freedom of your professions, the Church wants and must always be your partner, partner in caring for human dignity in a world that has been shaken to its foundations.
3. The Church sees the professions of artists and publicists in a definition that also describes the center, the size and the responsibility of their professions. According to Christian belief, every human being is made in the image and likeness of God. With regard to creative activity, this applies in a special way to the artist and the publicist. Your profession is a creative profession according to your respective task. They give shape and form to reality and the stuff of the world. They do not remain in the mere illustration or in the description of the surface. They try to "condense" the reality of man and his world in the original sense of the word. They want to give an idea of the truth and depth of the world and of people in word, sound, image and design and make it audible,
Saying this does not mean a clandestine Christian or ecclesiastical appropriation of art and artists, the media and publicists, but an appreciation from the point of view of the Christian faith, an appreciation filled with positivity, respect and recognition. The German Cardinal Nikolaus von Kues wrote the sentence: “Creativity and art, which a soul receives in case of happiness, are not the essential art that God is, but they are communication and participation in it”.
4. Let us ask further: where are the mutual connections and links between church and art, church and journalism? The answer to this is: The theme of the church and the theme of artists and publicists is man, the image of man, the truth of man, the "Ecce homo", which includes his history, his world and environment, as well as the social, economic and political context.
The Church, as the mediator of the message of the Christian faith, will always remind us that human reality cannot be fully described without the theological dimension, without forgetting that man is a creature, limited in time and space, to be helped and supplemented reliant. That human life is a gift and a receipt, that man searches for meaning, asks for salvation and redemption, because he is entangled in compulsion and guilt in many ways. The Church will always remember that in Jesus Christ the true and proper image of the human being is given. According to the German philosopher Karl Jaspers, Jesus Christ remains the most authoritative of all authoritative figures in history. And the Council emphasizes: "Christ, the new Adam, ...
Art, too, in all its areas - always including the possibilities of film and television - is about people, about the image of people, about the truth about people. Although the evidence often speaks against it, these deep determinations and concerns are not entirely alien to today's art. The religious and Christian origins of art have not entirely dried up. Themes such as guilt and mercy, entanglement and redemption, injustice and justice, yes, mercy and freedom, solidarity and charity, hope and consolation recur in today's literature, in scripts and screenplays and find great resonance.
A partnership between church and art with regard to people consists in the fact that both want to free people from foreign slavery and lead them to themselves. They open up a space of freedom for him - freedom from the constraints of use, performance at any price, effect, planning and functionalization.
5. We said that the Church and art are concerned with man, with his image, with his truth, with the disclosure of his reality - and this in the present hour, in the current "Aggiornamento", to use a word from Vatican II to use the council.
For this task, the art of the Church renders a great service, the service of concreteness. The church depends on this service; because the truth is concrete. In today's art, in literature and theatre, in the visual arts, in film and, to a large extent, in journalism, man is stripped of all romantic embellishment and transfiguration - he is, as they say, portrayed in unvarnished reality. In today's art, this includes the demonstration of aberrations and confusion, fears and despair, absurdity and meaninglessness, the depiction of a world and history that has degenerated into a caricature. This is often associated with breaking down all taboos.
Literature, theatre, film and the fine arts are now widely understood as criticism, as protest and opposition, as an accusation against the status quo. The beautiful seems to drop out as an art category in favor of a depiction of man in his negativity, in his contradiction, in his hopelessness, in the absence of any meaning. That seems to be the current "Ecce homo". The so-called "ideal world" becomes the subject of scorn and cynicism. Vatican II also openly addressed these questions in its decree on the means of social communication.
In the name of the Christian faith and the Church itself there is nothing to be said against the portrayal of evil in its forms and forms. Evil is a reality whose dimensions our century, especially your country and my homeland, have experienced and suffered to the extreme. Without the reality of evil, the reality of good, of redemption, of grace, of salvation cannot be measured either. This is not a license for evil, but an indication of its location. And here is a fact that is not unimportant and not without danger. Can't the mirror of the negative become an end in itself in the diversity of today's art? Can't it lead to enjoyment in evil, joy in destruction and decline, can't it lead to cynicism and contempt for human beings?
If the reality of evil is shown, then this wants to show the terrible as terrible, to shake it, also in the inner logic of art. Thus, this presentation does not aim at sticking with evil; rather that it doesn't get worse, but different, better. You have to change your life, you have to turn around and make a new start, you have to resist evil so that it doesn't have the last word and become the all-determining reality.
This is not just a call and admonition from the Church, it is also the task of art and journalism in all areas - and not just as a subsequent and additional moral mortgage. The helping, healing, purifying and cleansing power was already ascribed to art by the Greeks; there is also the encouragement of hope and the attempt to make sense of it, even if not all questions about why can be solved. Today's art must not lose all this for its own sake and for the sake of people. In this service, there can and should be a connection between church and art, without blurring what is personal.
6. If the church is concerned with the "aggiornamento", with the Christian faith, its instructions and promises becoming today, then it must be said: Nowhere is the situation, the attitude to life, but also the question horizon of today's people so impressively presented as in of contemporary art and journalism. The church is referred to and dependent on this. If the Christian faith is to be communicated as a word and as an answer for people, then the questions about it must be named and made conscious.
The church needs art. She needs them to convey her message. The church needs the word that gives testimony and knowledge of the word of God and is at the same time a human word that wants to enter into the linguistic world of today's people, as encountered in today's art and journalism. Only in this way can the word remain alive and move people at the same time.
The church needs the image. The gospel is told in many pictures and parables; it should and can be made clear in pictures. In the New Testament, Christ is called the image, the icon of the invisible God. The church is not only the church of the word, but also of the sacraments, of holy signs and symbols. For a long time, alongside the word, images represented the gospel of salvation, and this continues to this day. That's good. Faith applies not only to hearing but also to seeing, the two basic faculties of man.
Music is also placed in the service of faith, as expressed in the service.
Everyone knows that many great creations and works of music owe their invitation to the living faith of the church and its worship. Faith not only wants to be known and spoken about, it also wants to be sung. And the music points out that the matter of faith is also a matter of joy, love, awe and exuberance. This motivation and inspiration is still alive today. In many cases, the music is still looking for new forms within the framework of the reform of the liturgy. There is still a wide field open here. The connection between church and art is lively and fruitful in the field of music.
Something similar can be said of the church's understanding of architecture and the fine arts. The church needs the space as a place of worship, as a space for the gathering of God's people and its diverse activities. After the terrible destruction of the last world war, church architecture emerged all over the world, especially in the Federal Republic of Germany, which is the testimony of a living church. Modern church architecture deliberately did not want to be an imitation of the Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo styles, the most beautiful German creations of which are in Bavaria; modern church architecture wanted to give form and expression to the faith of our time, based on the spirit and sense of style of our time and with the means possible today, and at the same time give it a place of home. This has been achieved in many excellent examples. Thanks are due to all those involved in this great work - the architects and artists, theologians and builders, the pastors and lay people.
7. The Church needs art. She needs them in many ways. Does art also need the church? That seems largely not the case today. But if the connection between religion, church and art is as close as I have tried to show, above all with regard to people, to the image of people and the truth about them - and if the Christian faith in its content, which the Church conveys, which inspired art in its greatest epochs and in works that have not been surpassed to this day, also and especially in Germany, then the question is permissible: Doesn't art become impoverished, doesn't it lose crucial content and motifs when it raises renounces the reality represented by the Church?
Today's encounter itself would like to be a sincere invitation to all artists to enter into a new cooperative, trusting cooperation with the Church, an invitation to rediscover the spiritual and religious depth dimension that has distinguished art in its noblest and highest forms of expression at all times.
8. Publicists and journalists have always been included in the previous considerations, as well as the variety of jobs in the press, radio and television.
The media, that is, you, the publicists and journalists, helped to prepare the Pope's visit to the Federal Republic of Germany; you are currently accompanying it with live broadcasts, information and comments, most of which express goodwill and approval. Thank you very much for all of this. Through your work, what is happening in some cities in the Federal Republic of Germany is multiplied in a million ways. Never in history has the preaching of the gospel had such an opportunity to reach so many people. Thank you again for this service - it is a service to faith, to the church and therefore a service to people.
On this occasion it will become apparent to everyone what power is placed in your hands, in the hands of publicists and journalists. They have a tremendous influence on the public, on the formation of opinion and the consciousness of millions. The word and the picture that you convey of the reality of the world, of people, of society, or of the Christian faith and of the church, is decisive for the judgement, for the behavior and actions of many people.
A plural press system was able to develop in the Federal Republic of Germany as a reaction to the conformity and abuse of the press during the National Socialist era.
In view of the situation of political and ideological differences, the journalist is constantly faced with the task of dealing with other convictions and positions, recognizing and disclosing ideological tendencies and clarifying and determining his own point of view. This great chance of freedom comes with an equally great responsibility.
Press information and news commentary should always be guided by objectivity, judgment and fairness. The danger of manipulating the news itself through tendency is just as obvious as the danger of giving preference to sensational news. There are many lamentable examples of this in the tabloid realm.
The ethos of the journalist is particularly evident in the field of news politics. The weight of his responsibility can hardly be overestimated. The journalist cannot adequately perceive this without a clear basic moral conviction and without a sense of the great importance of public communication in a free society.
9. The publicist's responsibility becomes particularly clear when the effects of the media are taken into account. It is part of the publicist's responsibility to consider the possible effects of his work. Research into the effects of the media is still in its infancy within science. There are first indications of the effect of depictions of violence in the media on young people. It seems true that the media are not solely responsible for the nature and degree of these effects, but they also must not deny their role and dismiss it in a comfortable defensive attitude. Alongside families and educators, publicists are called upon to recognize the harmful effects of such depictions of violence and to help prevent them.
It is similar with the development of political culture. Here, too, the media are embedded in a web of relationships. The responsible journalist will be aware of the opportunities he has to contribute to the positive development of political culture, to more truthfulness, to more consideration for the personal values of others.
An analysis of the development of our moral values provides clear indications of a pioneering role played by the media, especially television. The media have played a broad role in changing people's attitudes, norms and moral ties.
In the field of sexual behavior of both adolescents and adults, in the views of marriage and family and their lived reality, in the upbringing of children. Some of these changes in attitude prepared by the media have given people more freedom in dealing with each other, perhaps deepening personal relationships with one another. But it is also becoming all too clear today what the media and the publicists working in it may have paid too little attention to: the reversal of a supposedly greater freedom into instability; the abandonment of moral ties in favor of new constraints that no longer do justice to human beings in all their dignity; the weakening of trust in personal relationships. The media are certainly not solely responsible here,
The journalist is called upon to become better acquainted with the effects of his actions and not to close his eyes to them. Because the power placed in his hands does not become a danger unless it is combined with conscientiousness and responsibility. The measure of journalistic action should not be effect, but truth and justice. With this you serve the cause of your profession, with this you serve and help people.
For such an authentic service to the truth and to people in art and journalism, I sincerely wish and request you, who are present here, and all your professional colleagues, from God's light and support.
© Copyright 1980 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
