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"We must always lead others towards heaven. But we must lead those who live today, not those who lived ten or more centuries ago. We have to take the world and mankind as they are today, in order to do good today." Bl. James Alberione The Media as Wondrous Gifts of God, Given for Our Sanctification Part Four: By Fr. Bob (Bernard R.) Bonnot, S.T.L., Ph.D. A friend who long worked in media was astonished to learn lately that Vatican II teaches us to see the media as "gifts of God." Pope Pius XII called them that in 1957. Inter mirifica did not use those words, but the 1971 Vatican document (Communio et progressio), which outlines ways to implement Inter mirifica’s directives, cites it prominently in its second paragraph. Thinking of the media that way -- as gifts of God -- has wonderful effects and entails important responsibilities. The principal effect is to change our attitude from worry to wonder, from skepticism, caution and even hostility to appreciation, affirmation and support. Wisdom recommends that we "never look a gift horse in the mouth." Yet that seems to be what people of faith almost always do with the media. We are full of concern, complaint, lament and protest rather than wonder, compliment, encouragement and promotion. That disposition comes from a long tradition in our faith community. Our heritage endows us with a highly ambivalent attitude toward the media. One of the Ten Commandments forbids "false gods," often taken to mean any image of God. Images were often automatically deemed to be false. So great was the Hebrew sense of God’s otherness that they would not even speak God’s proper name, "Yahweh," much less image God. Our ambivalence about images manifested itself ferociously around 800 years after Christ when a huge and destructive controversy broke out within the Church over icons or sacred images. The iconoclasts wanted all icons removed from the churches and destroyed; the iconifiers defended them, kept them in place and kept making them. This ambivalence surfaced again during the Reformation. Protestant Reformers cleansed their churches of statuary, imagery and symbols of all sorts. Only the pulpit and altar were left, sometimes not even the altar. Catholics counterreformed by adding image to image and statue to statue until many of our churches became baroque forests of art. Nonetheless, in those same times Catholic officials worried about the impact of the printing press, a medium the Reformers were using to put the Bible into people's hands. In more recent times the ambivalence surfaced when Pope Gregory XVI condemned the first newspapers in 1832 by a document titled Mirari vos. When films came along, the Catholic community here in the U.S. established a Legion of Decency to carry on a militant campaign against their perceived indecency. Films were a source of worry, not wonder! Inter mirifica actually continued this ambivalent tradition. It is largely a moralizing document urging caution toward the media, calling all to special responsibility because of their dangers. Still today, U.S. Catholics are being asked to support a campaign to "Renew the Mind of the Media"-- meaning not so much our minds as those of the media moguls! Affirming the media as gifts of God requires rather that we first renew our own minds, our attitude, our approach. If Inter mirifica didn’t ask that of us, its implementing document, Communio et progressio (1971), did. Given this heritage, it is no wonder that my friend was surprised to learn that the Church considers the media "gifts of God." She set about renewing her own mind with that perspective and is committed to helping others do so. Since Vatican II, God has been calling us all to turn the corner toward an appreciative approach to the media, and Vatican documents since that time have been, in fact, much more positive and affirming. We each need to turn that corner, personally welcoming the media as gifts given to help us become more holy and to help us share our love with others. This is not to say that everything in the media is good, beautiful and sanctifying. Today’s media industry produces, distributes and sells a vast array of products. Appreciating the media as a gift entails discerning the good in the gift and using the gift properly in a way that will benefit us as daughters and sons of God. This is the role of the ratings that accompany most media. Ratings are the ribbons on the gift. They signal the quality of what is inside, the care with which the gift has been crafted, the way we can best approach and use it, the value we ought to assign it and the place we might give the gift in our lives. We are blessed with several rating systems that enable us to be wise and appreciative recipients of God’s gifts. The media themselves provide these ratings. The Motion Picture Association of America rates every movie seen on American screens, in theaters or on television sets, or warns us with an NR (not rated) if the film has not been submitted for the Association's scrutiny. The television industry now does the same for most programs on television. (Watch the upper left-hand corner of your TV during the first 15 seconds of any given program, and you should see its rating.) Television sets themselves now have V-chips built in to enable owners to block out any program carrying a rating they do not care to see or do not want their children to see. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops provides informative critiques (not condemnations) of all movies issued and of many TV programs, concluding with its own recommended-age and morality-based rating. All of this is available over the internet and is variously published in newspapers and magazines. Ratings are part of the wondrous gift of the media. Appreciating a gift involves using it properly and learning how to use it if we don’t know what to do with it. That is why many individuals and groups today encourage media literacy. Just as the Church became a great educational force helping people learn to read so they could understand the Scriptures properly, so the Church today is putting significant energy into helping people become media literate at the dawning of this age of new media. Finally, appreciating a gift involves telling others about it. Promoting good media products is one of the most important ways we can praise and thank God for the gift of the media. The sheer abundance of media products results in a lot of extremely good and worthwhile programs getting buried and going unnoticed. Nobody knows about them. So when we find something good and nourishing, something that edifies us (builds us up with God’s light), inspires us (fills us with God’s Spirit) and brings home the meaning of our life as God’s beloved (incarnates the Word in us), we need to tell others about it so they too can be graced. The Media are Gifts of God given for our Sanctification. We need to appreciate them as such and respond accordingly, now and in the future. More about that future in the next and final essay of this 40th anniversary series. Fr. Bob Bonnot is a priest of the Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio, U.S.A. currently serving as Senior Vice President of Programming for the Hallmark Channel in Los Angeles, California. Ordained in 1967, he has spent nearly 25 years in communication ministry.
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