Bishops confront media failures

You're not likely to know it from the nightly news, round-table discussions on Larry King's talk show or commentary by a congressman on C-SPAN, but the U.S. bishops recently issued a significant document about the media.

Many statements from Church leaders get swallowed up by other news, relegated to a short item on the page about religion in the Sunday daily newspaper or neglected entirely. That shouldn't be the fate of "Renewing the Mind of the Media: A Statement on Overcoming the Exploitation of Sex and Violence in Communications."

What the bishops had to say about the media (which they defined as everything from television to the internet to telephones) should not be missed by anyone with a TV set in their living room or internet access in the den. So that you won't miss it, I want to give the bishops space here to share their ideas. In this column, I'll offer their rationale for talking about the media's treatment of sex and violence. In upcoming columns, I'll share the bishops' solutions.

Philosophy

"The media have such potential to bring truth and beauty into the lives of billions of people that we cannot permit them to be the arena of those who would pervert God's gift of the body and sexuality....Contemporary means of communication have made the depiction of pornography and graphic, gratuitous violence more intense and widespread.

"Though not legally obscene or as offensively violent, nearly equally objectionable uses of sex and violence have become prevalent even in some forms of mainstream media. Short of these extremes, the media often use sex and violence in a frivolous and titillating way which causes a great deal of concern because it pervades the media, both in news and entertainment programs. All of this has contributed to the loss of a sense of an objective right and wrong in these matters.

"Pornography, excessive violence and other irresponsible uses of sex and violence in the media gravely harm the moral and psychological health of both society as a whole and its individual members -- children and adults. Even people who do not consume a great deal of media are well aware that they live in a society whose environment and values are affected by media influence, for good or ill, and they can be affected themselves, even indirectly.

Responsibility

"Consumers of media also share the blame. Those who freely choose to support the industries which purvey pornography and graphic violence have a responsibility not only for themselves but for those who will be trapped in what the Catechism of the Catholic Church calls 'the illusion of a fantasy world' filled with sex and violence.

Violence

"As in the case of sexuality, it is not so much the portrayal of violence that is wrong but its misuse, which makes it an end in itself and draws either no consequences or the wrong ones from it."

So what can individuals, families and communities do about the sex and violence that pervade so much of the media? Tune in to my next column for the bishops' suggestions.

(08-06-98) [[In-content Ad]]