THE CHURCH MUST EVANGELIZE THE COMMUNICATIONS MEDIA

VATICAN CITY, NOV 15, 1999 (VIS) - This morning John Paul II addressed the first group of prelates from the German Episcopal Conference who have just completed their "ad limina" visit. The Pope's address concentrated on the Church, universal sacrament of salvation.

The Holy Father praised the German bishops for "all the good that the Church in Germany is doing through her presence and work in civil society, in political life, in the charitable field and through her financial generosity wherever the need exists. As one example among many others I would like to recall here the important service that the Church's consultors carry out in numerous fields, especially that in support of pregnant women who live in situations of conflict."

Later in his address he referred to the phenomenon of the mass media. On this subject he highlighted that "the information society represents a challenge to pastors. It is necessary to make great efforts, on the one hand to increase people's critical maturity, ... and, on the other, to promote a higher quality of news. The Church is also called to 'evangelize' the mass media. ... Great attention must be given to selecting the men and women charged with making the Church's voice heard in the committees and councils of radio and television."

"Your mission as pastors," he went on, "is carried out in an ever more laicized society, where religious values do not have great importance. ... The Church must question herself about her own role in a society in which reference to God becomes ever less frequent, because in many places there is no longer room for Him." The Pope went on to deplore "the numerous defections of faithful and the consequently diminished influence of the Church in the life of civil society."

John Paul II encouraged the prelates to "be open to dialogue, that is, to critical and reasonable confrontation, enduring the tensions that, at the present moment, cannot be resolved. The evangelical solution is not that of withdrawing from society. You must speak out on all occasions, in season and out of season. ... A lay society which is ever more silent about God needs your voice."

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