Not unexpectedly after the brief gushing upon his election
about the humility, compassion, love of the poor radiating from Pope Francis,
the media is now on their typical tear, attacking, attacking, attacking,
without of course irrefutable evidence.
Truly while we should pray for, heed, love Pope Francis, we
should also pray for the souls of those men and women, in the media and
elsewhere, who spend their lives in absolute opposition to Christ, His Church,
His Pope, His people.
We have developed such a culture of the angry, negative,
tear down and destroy that it seems to me the media in particular have lost
their way.
Media should inform with verifiable fact.
To be sure within the reality of human life not all
reporting will be of good news stories, however these days things are so tilted
towards the aggressive, the negative, the accounts of human hatreds, wars,
violence, yes sins, rooted in the awful adage: if it bleeds, it leads.
We are left with a perception of human life, of various
cultures, indeed of purported reality in our own cities, towns, countryside,
which hardly reflects actual reality.
Perhaps part of the media fury is a reaction to the simple
yet powerful, clear and challenging teaching Pope Francis gave in his first
homily as Pope.
In this teaching he notes: “Walking: our life is a journey
and when we stop, there is something wrong.”
Those who relish finding reasons, real or imagined, to
attack others, irrespective be it the Pope or any person, are people who have
stopped walking, thus they sink ever deeper in the mire of the dark and the
negative.
Pope Francis also taught: “Build up the Church…..With every
movement in our lives, let us build!”
We can extend this call to build, with every movement in our
lives, beyond Church to society at large.
Always finding fault with family or co-workers or the
government or culture or other races, religions, yes with the media [mea culpa]
is to tear down, to destroy, rather than build.
To build is movement as elegant as ballet, as dance in
general.
To tear down is a nasty, dusty, noisy aggressive, harsh
action.
Drawing on words of Leon Bloy, Pope Francis continued: “’Whoever
does not pray to God, prays to the devil.’ When one does not profess Jesus
Christ, one professes the worldliness of the devil.”
The Holy Father concluded with a call to true holiness in
union with Jesus Christ, reminding us we too, like Jesus, must carry the cross:
“When we walk without the Cross, when we build without the Cross, and when we
profess Christ without the Cross, we are not disciples of the Lord. We are
worldly…..I would like that all of us….might
have the courage – to walk in the presence of the Lord, with the Cross of the
Lord….My hope for all of us is that the Holy Spirit, that the prayer of Our
Lady, our Mother, might grant us this grace: to walk, to build, to profess
Jesus Christ Crucified. So be it.”
