By the time this is posted, President Obama and Pope Benedict XVI will be sitting down for their first face-to-face meeting – highly anticipated by both political and Church watchers, to say the least, especially in the context of the release of Caritas in Veritate three days ago.
Leading up to the meeting, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told the traveling press that the president anticipates “frank discussion” on issues he and the pope don’t agree upon. Whispers in the Loggia quotes the exchange, in which Gibbs yet stressed a “common ground” approach that can be taken on issues such as outreach to the Muslim world or reducing nuclear arms.
Knights of Columbus leader Carl Anderson told CNA that he’s hopeful the meeting will be a “wonderful opportunity” for both sides of the Vatican-U.S. relationship and, in particular, a significant teaching moment for Pope Benedict.
It’s a chance for the Holy Father to “make clear why the Church’s teaching covers a broad spectrum,” Anderson said, “why it arises from a consistent ethic and a consistent view of the person, and why it is that those in public policy, such as the president, whether he’s a Democrat or a Republican, should try to understand the foundation for the Church’s teaching.”
Meanwhile, some Catholic Democrats on Capitol Hill are eagerly linking the pope’s new encyclical to President Obama’s agenda, saying Caritas in Veritate serves as “a road map for how we can move ahead to accomplish economic justice” – particularly in terms of regulations of the financial industry, environmental policies and health care reform. (The quote’s from Connecticut representative Rosa DeLauro, whom Bloomberg reports is also behind a “Pope Greets Hope” campaign meant to link Catholic social teaching with policies of the Obama administration).
On a different note, Archbishop Charles Chaput – without a doubt one of the most visible prelates in the Church in America these days – gave a very insightful address recently on the importance of cultivating media criticism skills.
“The media’s power to shape public thought is why it’s so vital for the rest of us to understand their human element,” Archbishop Chaput said. “When we don’t recognize the personal chemistry of the men and women who bring us our news – their cultural and political views, their economic pressures, their social ambitions – then we fail the media by holding them to too low a standard.”
He added, “We also – and much more importantly – fail ourselves by neglecting to think and act as intelligent citizens.”
The archbishop also made some pointed comments on the changing ways we consume our information.
“Visual and electronic media, today’s dominant media, need a certain kind of content. They thrive on brevity, speed, change, urgency, variety and feelings,” he said. “But thinking requires the opposite. Thinking takes time. It needs silence and the methodical skills of logic.”
New media technology can be “a very powerful force,” Archbishop Chaput allowed, but if it undermines our intellectual discipline – our critical thinking skills – “that is not a good development. In fact, it’s a very dangerous thing in a democracy, which is a form of government that demands intellectual and moral maturity from its citizens to survive.”
If you’re reading this blog, chances are you’re also familiar with the impact of the “brevity, speed, change and urgency” of today’s media. Here at Headline Bistro, we use Facebook and Twitter to communicate the news, and as a constantly updated news site (by 7 every morning!), believe me when I say we know the 24-hour news cycle.
But actual thinking, not just consuming information off a glowing screen, takes time, Archbishop Chaput is reminding us. “It needs the silence and the methodical skills of logic.” And that’s a huge reason why we write this News Wrap every week day – to help everyday Catholics discern what’s important in the news, what needs to be drawn out and when, as the archbishop so eloquently put it, we need to bear “honest, vigorous, public moral witness on abortion and every other vital social issue.”
“Our moral witness needs to be formed not by the nightly news, but by learning and living an authentic Catholic faith,” Archbishop Chaput concluded.
I think that’s an excellent place to start.
-- Elizabeth Ela, Headline Bistro editor
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