Vatican City, Jan 24, 2017 / 03:52 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his annual message to communicators around the world, Pope Francis again condemned the tendency for media to focus on the “bad news,” saying journalists, while being accurate, must also offer a message of hope.
“We have to break the vicious circle of anxiety and stem the spiral of fear resulting from a constant focus on ‘bad news,’” such as war, terrorism, scandal and other human failures, the Pope said in his message for the World Day of Social Communications.
It was published Jan. 24 to mark the feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron of writers, journalists and the Catholic press. The actual day of communications will be celebrated May 28, and will focus on the theme of the Pope’s message: “Fear not, for I am with you: Communicating Hope and Trust in our Time.”
In his message, the Pope said steering clear of bad news “has nothing to do with spreading misinformation that would ignore the tragedy of human suffering,” and neither does in involve “a naive optimism blind to the scandal of evil.”
“Rather, I propose that all of us work at overcoming that feeling of growing discontent and resignation that can at times generate apathy, fear or the idea that evil has no limits,” he said.
Pointing to those in the communications industry who operate with the mentality that “good news does not sell,” and where evil and human suffering often become a form “entertainment,” Francis stressed that “there is always the temptation that our consciences can be dulled or slip into pessimism.”
He urged those who work in the field of communications to pursue “an open and creative style of communication that never seeks to glamourize evil,” but rather tries to focus “on solutions and to inspire a positive and responsible approach on the part of its recipients.”
“I ask everyone to offer the people of our time storylines that are at heart ‘good news,’” he said.
Pope Francis’ appeal for a more positive take on the news isn’t the first time he’s made such a request, nor is it the first time he’s condemned journalists who always focus on negativity and scandal.
In an interview with Belgian weekly magazine “Tertio” published Dec. 7, 2016, the Pope gave a stern warning to journalists to steer clear of the temptations of slander, defamation, misinformation and focusing excessively on scandal.
Using vivid language, he compared the latter to the disease of “coprophilia,” a mental illness in which a person has an abnormal interest in feces.
A few months earlier, Francis dedicated his prayer intention for October 2016, to praying for journalists, specifically asking that they be truthful and ethical in their reporting.
In his message for the world day of communications, the Pope noted that thanks to modern technology, media “makes it possible for countless people to share news instantly and spread it widely.”
“That news may be good or bad, true or false,” he said, recalling how early Christians compared the human mind to a “constantly grinding millstone.” In this image, it is up to the miller to decide what grind: “good wheat or worthless weeds.”
For those who are constantly “grinding out information” in their personal and professional lives, it’s important to engage in “constructive forms of communication that reject prejudice toward others and foster a culture of encounter,” he said, adding that this will help everyone “to view the world around us with realism and trust.”
When it comes to reporting the good news rather than always focusing on the bad, Francis said we have to change the lens thought which we view reality. For Christians, he said, this above all means viewing reality through the lens of “the Good News par excellence: the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God.”
“This good news – Jesus himself – is not good because it has nothing to do with suffering, but rather because suffering itself becomes part of a bigger picture,” he said, noting that this suffering is “an integral part of Jesus’ love for the Father and for all mankind.”
With Christ, “even darkness and death become a point of encounter with light and life,” he said, adding that from here a hope “accessible to everyone” is born and “does not disappoint,” since from this hope God’s enters our hearts.
“Seen in this light, every new tragedy that occurs in the world’s history can also become a setting for good news, inasmuch as love can find a way to draw near and to raise up sympathetic hearts, resolute faces and hands ready to build anew,” he said.
Pope Francis then used Jesus’ Ascension into heaven as an example of what our hope is based on, saying that even though the Lord might appear distant at the moment, “the horizons of hope expand all the more.”
With the help and power of the Holy Spirit, we can become both “witnesses and communicators” of a renewed and redeemed humanity throughout the world, he said.
Confidence in “the seed of God’s Kingdom” spread throughout the world ought also shape the way we communicate, he said, adding that this confidence allows everyone in the communications field to carry out their work with the conviction “that it is possible to recognize and highlight the good news present in every story and in the face of each person.”
In a Jan. 24 news briefing for the publication of the Pope’s message, Msgr. Dario Eduardo Vigano, Prefect of the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications, stressed the importance of having “constructive communication,” that leans neither toward scandal nor optimism, but is realistic.
It’s important to not “make evil the protagonist,” even when reporting on tragic events, he said, and also warned journalists to steer clear of hypocrisy, which he called an “impure gaze” of reality that “impedes charity.”
Also present at the briefing was Delia Gallagher, Vatican correspondent for CNN, who said the Pope’s document was “an opportune message” that’s important for news agencies to keep in mind.
She focused specifically on the need to be accurate when reporting the news, saying one “can’t be a good journalist if they are not certain of the facts.”
Pope Francis’ message provides a path “if not of truth, precision – to give the news accurately,” she said, and used the Pope himself and how he is often reported as an example.
While it’s not always easy to convey his message due to translations and a variety of other challenges, it’s important to stick to the facts and “to give the context when he says something,” rather than just reporting on snippet of what he said without offering the reader the full picture.
“It’s a job that seems easy, but requires experience,” she said, encouraging her colleagues to be accurate and precise, adding that “from the good news can also come from this.”
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#1. The Pope should be concentrating on how to help Catholics attain eternal life.
#2. The Pope should realize that Islam – led by Iran – DECLARED WAR against the West a long, long time ago. Some of us in the West are just now waking up to that fact. Islam wants to see Westetn Culture, including Christianity, wiped off the face of the earth. Unfortunately, Pachamama Popes can’t see through all the smoke they generate to see this.
How does Iran “lead Islam”? You realize we are defending Islamic countries in this conflict including those that have supported genocide against Christians?
If you’re triggered by popes decrying war, you probably need to log off for a bit. How dare the pope lament a conflict that has already resulted in 100+ schoolgirls get killed by an errant US missile strike
Jesus said that wars “must come.” All leading to deception, false peace. “Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth.” –Catechism 675
Deacon: Didn’t you study Catholic Social Teaching in Deacon School?
Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood – Mahatma Gandhi
As there appears to be no intersection between The Islamic Revolutionary Regime running the police state over the Iranian people, and “the innocent,” it seems Mr. Ghandi’s quote is not apt.
The Islamic Revolutionary Regime agrees, and has reminded the world for some 50 years: “Death to America,” etc.
Please explain that to the Iranian regime, Dr.Coelho. It would save many lives.
Right. This is the same Ghandi whose every “non-violent” protest broke out into mob violence. Hardly a coincidence, and hardly someone who should be held up as an example.
Iran has been the largest instigator of terrorism for the last forty years. Countless diplomats and national leaders have attempted to negotiate with this rogue state to no avail. Terrorism has marched on and nations have wrung their hands in chagrin. Exactly what should the nations of the world do – any nation. Should any nation dare to strongly reprimand Iran? As for me and my house, we will not worry for one instant that any nation will finally attempt to cut the head off of the beast.
We will continue to support the people of Iran. They are loved and supported even as their national leaders murder them in the tens of thousands as they protest for change. May the war continue until the Iranian people are free.
Do I have this right?
The Pontiff Leo, who with his “vice-president” the Eminent Pietro Parolin, persists in maintaining a Secret Accord with the Homicidal Chinese Communist Party Regime, whereby their “co-accordists” decapitate the Body of Christ in China, and substitute Chairman Xi in place of Jesus, is calling on us all, including our “Vatican-betrayed” brethren in China, to “come out of cramped spaces” and “walk in the light of love.”
That’s “rich.”
Yep. You have it right. Except we might make note of the overall entropic moral sloth that currently passes for Catholic witness from Rome. Unless I missed it, I’m still waiting for a prominent prelate, anywhere, just one prelate, to publicly announce to the world that Catholics hold to the truth that raping a child is an intrisically evil thing to do.
At times with the first gush of victory papal admonitions appear the same old same all. That illusion of victory has passed, the U.S. now drawn into an increasing, complex spread of hostilities.
A visibly battered foe, most military assets presumed demolished, except for tenacity and hidden missile sites, retains a crushing grip on our most valuable, private assets. Oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz.
Netanyahu has played Pres Trump like a fiddle convincing him the decapitation of command would spell defeat for our common enemy. Israel has behaved excessively in Gaza and Lebanon to the detriment of Christians.
Now, perhaps, the usual papal appeals for negotiation and peace do not appear so naive. Our President is struggling for a resolution, a means to avoid a non ending war, the resumption of oil flow, the stability of world economies.
President Trump, his advisors require our prayers and support. If an administration that has achieved so much good loses its balance and falls, the Church and the world will suffer greatly because of it.
“Netanyahu has played Pres Trump like a fiddle convincing him the decapitation of command would spell defeat for our common enemy”
What a lot of CRAP!
Whether one is a fan of Donald Trump or not I think most of us understand that no one plays him like a fiddle.
Well, how about a viola de gamba?
Yes, wholeheartedly, especially to your last comment.
A dire situation today, but one added perspective might be this: how would things look in a few years, instead, if Iran’s cards included nuclear blackmail?
Peter Beaulieu. Although we’re in a difficult bind, unexpected since strategic forecasts: civilian rebellion, collapse of hierarchical structure, complete destruction of delivery systems didn’t occur, the resiliency of the Iranians, the effectiveness of their drones – I certainly hope we eventually meet the objective of at least pushing back, and to continually degrade their nuclear capability.
Since we had already destroyed their major nuclear development sites with the B-2 stealth bombings, there was only an alleged stockpile of uranium that we could have eventually detected and destroyed. The Strait had remained open. At the moment the decision to go all out hoping to topple the government has failed. Iran’s hold of the Strait of Hormuz has to be resolved. A major dilemma.
Given the vast cultural divide, the initial goal of eliminating a nuclear capability, the navy, and ballistic missile program was precise and coherent, before assuming a western style regime change in a non-western context.
About that context, what if what we’re dealing with is not radical Islam, but rather the absorbed Zoroastrian (and Persian) ingredient. Meaning that the world rejects the peace of cosmopolitan Islam because the fallen world is the doings of a second and evil deity, and not a sin “original”, instead, to ourselves (Islam rejects the Redemption because it does not recognize original sin). A small step, then, even in the 21st century to see the outside world and the west as Satan.
A bit of clumsiness for some clericalists and witless journalists to use interchangeably the term interreligious and interfaith.
To oppose this war is to favor the status quo, which is Iran killing many thousands of its own citizens, as it did in January, to continue funding and supplying weapons to terrorists – Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthi’s, to issue fatwas against foreign leaders, etc. Just as those who believe that this war fits Just War criteria, and must accept the consequences, those who oppose it should state clearly that they accept the consequences (listed above) of continuing the status quo.
All well and good, but where and how to go from here while people are still dying and suffering?
You must mean the 20,000 Iranians who were murdered by their islamic mullah leaders.
I believe most of “the narratives” and attempts at explanation fail to grasp the fundamental situation.
It appears that the fundamental situation is that The Islamic Revolutionary Regime, an ally of homicidal empire of Red China and homicidal empire of Russia, intends that the world and its own people submit to its conventional terror, until such time as they acquire nuclear weapons, when the world will be told to submit to its nuclear terror.
As the Islamic Revolutionary Regime has been content to have the world and its own captive Iranian people live in terror for 50 years, it is time now to turn the script against them, and provide for the Islamic Revolutionary Regime that they will now themselves live in fear every day, year in and year out, until their power is somehow brought to an end.
If they are unwilling to end this voluntarily, they should live in constant threat of annihilation, because annihilation of others is the only thing they live for.
While the Pope and the bishops continue to endanger us, our families and our children by protecting people whose first evidence of ethical behavior is to disregard and violate our laws by entering illegally.
An illegal alien, released into the United States by the Biden administration, is now charged with murdering 18-year-old Sheridan Gorman, a freshman at Loyal University in the sanctuary city of Chicago, Illinois.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/03/23/illegal-alien-charged-murder-sheridan-gorman/
Feds Charge Azerbaijan Migrant with $90M Healthcare Fraud
Federal prosecutors have charged an Azerbaijani national with perpetrating $90 million in healthcare fraud.
Anar Rustamov, 39, “who appears to have entered the United States illegally,” has been indicted on 14 counts of allegedly orchestrating a scheme to file thousands of false claims for medical equipment with the Medicare Advantage program, according to a statement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.
https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2026/03/23/feds-charge-azerbaijan-migrant-90m-healthcare-fraud/
Pape Leo and non-Muslims to convert to Islam to avoid death by these punishments from God natural disasters floods wildfires strong earthquakes more mag 7 earthquake tsunami volcano meteorites plane crash in Europe in Africa in Asia in Pacific Ocean in North and South America March 24, 2026 and to avoid hell if the world end of the world on March 27, 2026 Surah Al-Imran 85/3.