VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter
Thomas Reese | Jun. 20, 2013 NCR Today
Journalists should “be uncompromising against the hypocrisies which result from the closed, the sick heart,” said Pope Francis to a group of Jesuit journalists. “Be uncompromising against this spiritual illness.”
Telling journalists to attack hypocrisy might sound suicidal to most church leaders, especially after more than two decades of investigative journalism on the sexual abuse crisis, but it shows how much Pope Francis hates the vices he believes undermine the Gospel message: clericalism, careerism and hypocrisy.
Beyond exposing hypocrisy, Francis said the main task of journalists “is not to build walls but bridges” and to establish dialogue with all people. At a time when ratings and readership are built by stirring up antagonism and fights, this will not be an easy teaching.
Although he was speaking to the Jesuit staff of the Italian journal La Civilta Cattolica, Pope Francis laid out a dynamic vision relevant to the vocation of anyone in journalism. “The great spiritual questions are more alive today than ever,” he said, “but there is need of someone to interpret them and to understand them.” But the approach to these questions should be through dialogue not screaming heads.
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