Media’s challenge
Our world is made smaller by communications. We’re part of that communications mix, and why we remind people “There’s a world beyond your church and a church beyond your world.”
Communications also make the world more knowable. That’s the goal; it doesn’t always work.
As it does each September, the Vatican made the first of several statements about media, announcing Pope Benedict XVI’s theme for World Communications Day 2006. Archbishop John Foley, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, uses a speechwriter’s ploy: Tell ’em what you’re going to say; say it; then tell ’em what you said.
That began with the announcement of the theme for the Communications Day, “The Media: A Network for Communication, Communion and Cooperation.” He said it underlines the pope’s “own appreciation of the ability of the communications media not only to make known needed information, but also to promote fruitful cooperation.”
Then, on Jan. 24, the feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron of journalists, the pope will release his text. Finally, World Communications Day is May 28.
The pope’s theme isn’t much different from previous years. Pope John Paul II encouraged media to be a bridge of understanding and contribute to peace and justice.
High-sounding words. The result is often something less. And it shouldn’t be that way.
OK, I’m starting to sound like an apologist. It also shouldn’t be that way. But some things shouldn’t pass without comment. That’s a media role, too.
Following our last issue, archdiocesan officials released a Vatican ruling affirming the decision by Cardinal George, under the 2002 USCCB Charter for the Protection of Children and Youth, to permanently remove from ministry 11 priests accused of sexual misconduct with minors. Other canonical penalties were also applied, including prohibiting them from representing themselves as priests or acting as agents of the church. One priest had died in the two years it took the Vatican to rule and two others will face canonical trials.
Pretty cut-and-dried. But not in media reports or from protestors.
Let’s review it: The priests had been accused of misconduct. The archdiocese reported each accusation to civil authorities, even though the statute of limitations had passed and they could not be civilly prosecuted.
An independent board investigated the allegations and determined that there was reasonable cause to believe that misconduct occurred. The cardinal removed the men from ministry and placed them in a monitored setting with no contact with young people. The September ruling confirmed that the cardinal acted properly. Nothing new.
However, there were complaints by protestors—repeated without challenge by media—that the church had “shielded” the men who now wouldn’t be registered as sex offenders. Fact is, that couldn’t happen because there was no civil conviction since the statute of limitations had expired. Besides, the determination by the independent board had a lower threshold of proof than required in court.
Nor were the men “defrocked.” They remain priests, but unable to function as such. Removing them from the priesthood would also remove them from continued monitoring. The charism of ordination is not well understood by the media, or by ordinary people. The priesthood, as Cardinal George has repeatedly said, is not just a job.
There also was criticism that the church didn’t officially release the priests’ names, even though all had been named when the allegations first removed them from ministry.
Clerical sexual misconduct is a shameful thing. And it’s been made worse by the actions, and inactions, of some dioceses which failed to act appropriately. There, criticism is warranted. But that’s not Chicago and media and protestors should at least get the facts straight.
That’s the hope and cooperation both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI would have liked to see from media.
Tom Sheridan
Editor and General Manager
