The Face of Mercy / Daniel Conway

Lens of faith shows Jesus as our Good News

Pope Francis is convinced that “we have to break the vicious cycle of anxiety and stem the spiral of fear resulting from a constant focus on ‘bad news’ [wars, terrorism, scandals and all sorts of human failure].”

The pope acknowledges the value of modern communications, which makes it possible for countless people to share news instantly and spread it widely. But he also warns that there is a tendency for members of “the communications industry” to glamorize evil, and to focus almost exclusively on the seamy side of human experience.

“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,” the pope says. “Moreover, in a communications industry which thinks that good news does not sell, and where the tragedy of human suffering and the mystery of evil easily turn into entertainment, there is always the temptation that our consciences can be dulled or slip into pessimism.”

A constant preoccupation with bad news seriously undermines how we feel about ourselves as people. In response, Pope Francis encourages communications professionals to engage in constructive forms of communication that reject prejudice toward others and foster a culture of encounter, helping all of us to view the world around us with realism and trust.

This has nothing to do with spreading misinformation, ignoring the tragedy of human suffering or “naive optimism blind to the scandal of evil.” Instead, Pope Francis asks 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.”

In short, we need more good news to balance, and provide context for, the bad news that seems to surround us everywhere. “I would like, then, to contribute to the search for an open and creative style of communication that never seeks to glamorize evil, but instead to concentrate on solutions and to inspire a positive and responsible approach on the part of its recipients.” With this in mind, Pope Francis asks communications professionals “to offer the people of our time storylines that are at heart ‘good news.’

“Life is not simply a bare succession of events, but a history, a story waiting to be told through the choice of an interpretative lens that can select and gather the most relevant data,” the pope teaches. “In and of itself, reality has no one clear meaning. Everything depends on the way we look at things, on the lens we use to view them. If we change that lens, reality itself appears different.”

For us Christians, that lens can only be the Gospel. According to Pope Francis, “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.”

In fact, the Gospel contains a lot of bad news, but the human suffering and evil we find there is presented in the overall context of Jesus’ love for the Father and for all humankind.

“In Christ, even darkness and death become a point of encounter with Light and Life,” the pope says. In the Good News of Jesus, “hope is born, a hope accessible to everyone, at the very crossroads where life meets the bitterness of failure. That hope does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts and makes new life blossom, like a shoot that springs up from the fallen seed.

“Seen in this light,” Pope Francis tells us, “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.”

So bad news should never be the end of the story. The whole point of Christian faith is the triumph of faith, hope and love over the power of evil and the darkness of sin and death.

The news media’s preoccupation with bad news sees the world through a fatalistic lens of negativity. To break this vicious cycle, Pope Francis says, we must search for storylines that are, at heart, good news.

Let’s urge communications professionals to employ the lens of Christian optimism rather than one of pessimism and fear. Let’s appreciate good news and not glamorize evil.
 

(Daniel Conway is a member of The Criterion’s editorial committee.) †