Pope's 2025 Media Plea: Go Gentle into that Good Fight

Pope Francis says journalists face a tough assignment these days. In this polarized world, it’s never been more important for communicators to remind us of our responsibilities— and to help us carry them out.

The media serve socieites which must respect and serve their people. This starts with planting seeds of hope, according to the Pontiff’s 2025 message for World Communications Day. He spoke of a virtue which demands action and courage, not merely passive optimism.

To accomplish this, he urged “communicators of hope” to do something they’re not trained for: “disarm” today’s weaponized dialogues and “purify” public squares of aggressiveness. The task is expressed in the just-released document’s title: “Share with Gentleness the Hope that is in Your Hearts.”

“Try to promote a communication that can heal the wounds of our humanity,” the Pope instructs in the Vatican’s 59^th annual message for its World Day of Social Communications, occurring on June 1.

The message was previewed on January 24, the feast day of St. Francis de Sales, who is the patron saint of journalists and (paradoxically?) is also regarded as a “saint of kindness.”

Here are some highlights from the document:

• “I dream of a communication that does not peddle illusions or fears, but is able to give reasons for hope,” says Pope Francis. This requires journalists and their audiences to be “healed of our ‘diseases’ of self-promotion and self-absorption,” open to recognizing the dignity of every individual.

• “I encourage you to discover and make known the many stories of goodness hidden in the folds of the news.” This will encourage consumers of information to rein in their indifference toward the poor and marginalized and to build up a “culture of care.”

• Gentleness will help journalists and other communicators ensure that their audiences can “draw close” to the stories being told and “get in touch with the best part of themselves.”

• Allow information to be shared in an “attentive” and “reflective” way that points out possible paths for dialogue. “This kind of communication can help to build communion, to make us feel less alone, to rediscover the importance of walking together.”

Pope Francis connects this to his previous proclamation of 2025 as a Jubilee Holy Year, whose theme summons Catholics to be “Pilgrims of Hope.” He envisions people interacting with information in ways that resemble the relaxed conversations of “fellow travelers” on a journey.

The theme also ties in with his book, Hope: The Autobiography. Its recent publication was timed with the start of the Jubilee year.

In the World Communications Day document, he says this about hope: It’s not easy because it takes boldness to challenge and forsake the “illusions and lies” which provide many with a false sense of security. Christians need hope because our knowledge of God’s presence and grace for eternal salvation sustains us through times of sacrifice and suffering.

“Hope is a hidden virtue,” giving us tenacity and patience. However, others can see when we reflect this “new way of experiencing everything.” The Epistles tell us to evangelize through this behavior: “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence.” (1 Peter 3:15-16) Remember, there are Jubilee Year graces for the sharing of hope, Francis points out.

“The one who has hope lives differently,” he says. “The one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life.”

Sadly, in the standard-issue secular realm, the communications media too often erode hope. The Pope critiques this harshly.

Much of the media’s output “uses words like a razor” to sharply divide. “False or artfully distorted information,” reducing reality to slogans, sends messages which agitate, provoke, or hurt.

He warns of damage from our digital screens, where “verbal attacks on social media” create a “paradigm of competition, opposition, the will to dominate and possess, and the manipulation of public opinion.”

Francis advises careful stewardship of hope and gentleness among professional communicators and whole nations. “In the face of astonishing achievements of technology, I encourage you to care for your heart, your interior life.”

Our computer apps are “profiling us according to the logic of the market,” altering our perception of reality. We experience an “atomization of interests” that reduces one’s sense of community and the common good. Identifying others as enemies, we lose our ability to listen or try to understand.

Resisting the online appeal to emotions, “do not allow instinctive reactions to guide your communication.” We should not let digital distractions make us “forget the faces of other people.” He tells journalists, “Speak to the hearts of the women and men whom you serve.”

The goal for this heart-to-heart communication, whether in a journalist’s work-product or a pilgrim’s travels, is to emulate Jesus as “the greatest communicator of all time,” as Pope Francis points out. His encounters with people brought truth and love.

Inspired and informed by the Holy Spirit, we can “perceive the hidden goodness quietly present even when all else seems lost.” And we can learn the lesson that “hope is always a community project.”

The ultimate goal for conscientious communicators is to spread concern about our common destiny so we can “strive to write together the history of our future.”

The Pontiff’s wish for all those reading his World Communications Day message requires constant training, perhaps with the intercession of St. Francis de Sales: “May you always find those glimmers of goodness that inspire us to hope.”

Image from ClipSafari.com, a collecton of Creative Commons designs.

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