This Friday, papal preacher Raniero Cantalamessa took a stand in favor of the educational role of media reporting. In his first Lenten sermon, the cardinal also referred to undesirable developments, such as media unrest or one-sidedness. Cantalamessa made specific recommendations for Curia staff.
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The media deserved “all respect and respect” when they pointed out “distortions in society or in the Church”, said the Capuchin in his sermon in the Paul VI auditorium. in the Vatican. He drew on the words of the martyred bishop Ignatius of Antioch: “I am the wheat of God and must be ground by the teeth of animals to become the pure bread of Christ.”
The media, on the other hand, is not fulfilling its mission if it engages in incitement and “turns against someone for their own reasons, just because they are not on their side.” This is done with evil, destructive and non-constructive intentions, Cantalamessa said. The people who are attacked in this way today are “poor people who today are subjected to the meat grinder, regardless of whether they are laymen or clergy”.
The Capuchin then made some recommendations on how to deal with this. You can react and “state your reasons in the competent committees”, this is legitimate, says Cantalamessa. If this does not work, one can seek refuge in Christ, “who was scourged, crowned with thorns, and spat upon,” and trust that “truth will triumph over falsehood.” Perhaps “silence” would be better than “aggressive self-defense,” he continued.
To the Curia: Don't be arrogant
Being exposed to public criticism is “especially difficult and painful when the natural or religious family is at stake,” he added. However, God's grace can also make such a crisis “an opportunity for purification and healing,” the papal preacher emphasized.
Wanting to be ground in the “flour of God” also means “allowing yourself to be contradicted, renouncing justification and not wanting to always be right if the importance of the matter does not require it”, the cardinal mentioned another aspect in his Lenten sermon. . Sometimes we have to “put up with someone whose character, whose way of speaking or acting irritates us,” he said. We should not get angry inside, but imagine that “maybe for someone else we are a person like that too”, recommended the Capuchin.
These two “touchstones” are particularly important for the officials of the Roman Curia. The Curia “is not a religious or conjugal community, but a “community of service and ecclesiastical work”, recalled the religious, who recommended, among other things, the Gospel of John and the self-revelations of Jesus for mediation.
(Vatican news -pr)