To Representatives of the Social Communications Sector (16 June 1984)

On Saturday, 16 June 1984, the Holy Father spoke to the Operators of Social Communication, whom he reminded of their great responsibility, before God and before men. "in a context often hostile to the Christian ideal of life, commit all your competence to the defense of man and his dignity as well as to the maintenance and development of the positive values ​​of contemporary society.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

1. These days and weeks have certainly involved some additional effort for you and all those who work with you in the press, radio and television. I am therefore all the more pleased about this brief meeting with you as the representatives of all media professionals in Switzerland. I would like to sincerely thank you and your colleagues for your great efforts to convey the many events and the spiritual message of my pastoral visit to the people of this country and far beyond in a way that is suitable for the media. Thanks to your helpful work, I am able to approach all of Switzerland's inhabitants, or at least the vast majority of them, personally from a few places in Switzerland and to address you.

As with every pastoral visit, my visit to your country, to which you also make a significant contribution through your work, is primarily concerned with the cause of Jesus Christ, his mission and his message to the people of our time. He has shown us a way to make our personal and community lives dignified and worth living. However, to personally understand the religious events of these days and their profound content and to convey them to other people in the right way through words and images, requires more than a good writing talent or a first-class telephoto lens and film material. It requires the eye and heart of a person who is open to spiritual and religious values ​​and truths, who is prepared to search for them. Above all, it requires the explanatory, in-depth, evaluative word of the commentator who brings the deeper meaning of these rich religious events to his readers, listeners or viewers. This means that those working in the media sector are not only required to be someone who has a good command of their technology, but even more so as a person with heart and conscience, with deep human empathy and a sense of responsibility. I therefore hope that you will convey the events and the message of this pastoral journey to your audience in a way that is suitable for the media and in its spiritual content, but above all that you will also absorb it personally and consider it for your own life and work.

2.) .. .on the basis of your mission : As media professionals, you have a great responsibility. Thanks to the constant development and progress of the means of social communication, people and nations have become closer to one another. Reciprocal influences and mutual dependencies are becoming more and more pronounced. Your role and your competence in the field of media lead you to ask yourself questions on a daily basis: how can we succeed in putting the available means and knowledge at the service of people in an ever more effective way? What should be offered to the listener or reader for their information, their development and the progress of their education, in order to deepen in them the sense of the human community and to enlighten their view of their brothers? In a correct answer to these questions is engaged your high responsibility before God and before men, as well as the decisive influence that you exercise in shaping public opinion.

In his work, the journalist knows that his responsibility does not only concern what is said, what is written or what is shown, but also how it is done. Do not allow the media to be used to manipulate public opinion. Be careful to avoid remaining at the superficial aspect of things in the news, and also to avoid the tendency to emphasize the negative or sensational aspects without taking into account the individual rights of each person. There is no information or communication that does not involve values. It is up to you to express the values ​​worthy of being disseminated to the extent that they contribute to the building of the community and the promotion of man. I encourage you: in a context often hostile to the Christian ideal of life, commit all your competence to the defense of man and his dignity as well as to the maintenance and development of the positive values ​​of contemporary society. I hope that my pastoral visit to your country and our present meeting will support you in your important tasks and responsibilities. With all my heart I entrust to God's help and blessing your work in the field of social communications.

© Copyright 1984 - Vatican Publishing House

Copyright © Dicastery for Communication - Vatican Publishing House