WORLD COMMUNICATIONS DAY: THE MEDIA AT THE SERVICE OF PEACE

VATICAN CITY, JAN 24, 2003 (VIS) - Made public today was Pope John Paul's Message for the 37th World Communications Day which will be celebrated on June 1, 2003 on the theme: "The Communications Media at the Service of Authentic Peace in the Light of 'Pacem in Terris'." The Message, dated today, the feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron of journalists, was published in English, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and German.

Following are excerpts:

"In the dark days of the Cold War, Blessed Pope John XXIII's Encyclical Letter 'Pacem in Terris' came as a beacon of hope to men and women of good will. Declaring that authentic peace requires 'diligent observance of the divinely established order (Pacem in Terris, 1), the Holy Father pointed to truth, justice, charity and freedom as the pillars of a peaceful society.

"Pope John XXIII had the media especially in mind when he called for 'fairness and impartiality' in the use of 'instruments for the promotion and spread of mutual understanding between nations' afforded by science and technology."

"Today, ... peace, justice and social stability are still lacking in many parts of the world. Terrorism, conflict in the Middle East and other regions, threats and counter-threats, injustice, exploitation, and assaults upon the dignity and sanctity of human life, both before and after birth, are dismaying realities of our times. Meanwhile, the power of the media to shape human relationships and influence political and social life, both for good and for ill, has enormously increased."

"Media and Truth. The fundamental moral requirement of all communication is respect for and service of the truth. ... The mass media have an inescapable responsibility in this sense, since they constitute the modern arena in which ideas are shared and people can grow in mutual understanding and solidarity. This is why Pope John XXIII defended the right 'to freedom in investigating the truth and - within the limits of the moral order and the common good - to freedom of speech and publication' as necessary conditions for social peace.

"In fact, the media often do render courageous service to the truth; but sometimes they function as agents of propaganda and disinformation in the service of narrow interests, national, ethnic, racial, and religious prejudices, material greed and false ideologies of various kinds. It is imperative that the pressures brought to bear on the media to err in such ways be resisted first of all by the men and women of the media themselves, but also by the Church and other concerned groups.

"Media and Justice. ... The global outreach of the media carries with it special responsibilities in this regard. While it is true that the media often belong to particular interest groups, private and public, the very nature of their impact on life requires that they must not serve to set one group against another - for example, in the name of class conflict, exaggerated nationalism, racial supremacy, ethnic cleansing, and the like. Setting some against others in the name of religion is a particularly serious failure against truth and justice, as is discriminatory treatment of religious beliefs, since these belong to the deepest realm of the human person's dignity and freedom."

"Media and Freedom. Freedom is a precondition of true peace as well as one of its most precious fruits. The media serve freedom by serving truth: they obstruct freedom to the extent that they depart from what is true by disseminating falsehoods or creating a climate of unsound emotional reaction to events. Only when people have free access to true and sufficient information can they pursue the common good and hold public authority accountable. If the media are to serve freedom, they themselves must be free and correctly use that freedom. Their privileged status obliges the media to rise above purely commercial concerns and serve society's true needs and interests. Although some public regulation of the media in the interests of the common good is appropriate, government control is not. Reporters and commentators in particular have a grave duty to follow the demands of their moral conscience and to resist pressures to 'adapt' the truth to satisfy the demands of wealth or political power."

"Media and Love. ... Blessed Pope John XXIII expressed this simple but profound thought ... 'True peace among nations must depend not on the possession of an equal supply of weapons, but solely upon mutual trust'.

"The communications media are key actors in today's world, and they have an immense role to play in building that trust. Their power is such that in a few short days they can create the positive or negative public reaction to events which suits their purposes. Reasonable people will realize that such enormous power calls for the highest standards of commitment to truth and goodness. In this sense the men and women of the media are especially bound to contribute to peace in all parts of the world by breaking down the barriers of mistrust, fostering consideration of the point of view of others, and striving always to bring peoples and nations together in mutual understanding and respect - and beyond understanding and respect, to reconciliation and mercy!"

"Challenging as all this is, it is by no means asking too much of the men and women of the media. For by vocation as well as by profession they are called to be agents of truth, justice, freedom, and love, contributing by their important work to a social order 'founded on truth, built up on justice, nurtured and animated by charity, and brought into effect under the auspices of freedom'."

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OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, JAN 24, 2003 (VIS) - The Holy Father:

- Appointed the following as auxiliaries of the archdiocese of Chicago (area 3,653, population 5,803,000, Catholics 2,394,000, priests 1,693, permanent deacons 618, religious 4,673), U.S.A:

- Fr. Francis J. Kane, of the clergy of the same archdiocese and pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Wilmette, U.S.A. Bishop-elect Kane was born in 1942 in Chicago and was ordained a priest in 1969.

- Fr. Thomas J. Paprocki, of the clergy of the same archdiocese and pastor of St. Constance Parish in Chicago. Bishop-elect Paprocki was born in 1952 in Chicago and was ordained a priest in 1978.

- Fr. Gustavo Garcia-Siller, M.Sp.S., superior of the Christ the Priest Vicariate of the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit in California. Bishop-elect Garcia was born in San Luis Potosi, Mexico in 1956 and was ordained a priest in 1984.

- Accepted the resignation from the office of auxiliary of the archdiocese of Chicago, U.S.A., presented by the following prelates upon having reached the age limit: Bishop Raymond E. Goedert, Bishop John R. Gorman and Bishop Thaddeus J. Jakubowski.

- Appointed Bishop Javier Lozano Barragan, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, as his special envoy to the celebration of the 11th World Day of the Sick which will take place on February 11, 2003 in Washington, D.C.

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AUDIENCES

VATICAN CITY, JAN 24, 2003 (VIS) - The Holy Father today received in separate audiences:
- Seven prelates from the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (Southern Region I) on their "ad limina" visit:

- Bishop Luiz Antonio Guedes of Bauru.

- Bishop Orani Joao Tempesta of Rio Preto, apostolic administrator "sede vacante et ad nutum Sanctae Sedis" of the territorial Abbey of Claraval.

- Bishop Francisco Jose Zugliani of Amparo.

- Bishop Eduardo Benes de Sales Rodriguez of Lorena.

- Bishop Gorgonio Alves da Encarnacao Neto, C.R., of Itapetininga.

- Bishop Jose Luiz Bertanha, S.V.D., of Registro.

- Bishop Salvatore Paruzzo of Ourinhos.

- Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

This afternoon the Holy Father is scheduled to receive in audience Archbishop Angelo Amato, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

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CANONICAL NORMS ARE INSPIRED BY A REALITY THAT TRANSCENDS THEM

VATICAN CITY, JAN 24, 2003 (VIS) - This morning the Pope received participants in an academic day organized by the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the promulgation of the Code of Canon Law.

John Paul II said that "in these twenty years the Church's need for the new Code has been noted. Fortunately, debate about the law has now been overcome. However, it would be naive to ignore what remains to be done in order to consolidate a true juridical-canonical culture in the present circumstances of history, and an ecclesiastical procedure which is attentive to the instrinsical pastoral dimension of the laws of the Church."

The idea of writing a new Code was that pastors and the faithful would have "a clear normative instrument that had the essential aspects of the juridical order. However, it would be simplistic and misleading to view the law of the Church as a mere collection of legislative texts with the vision of juridical positivism. The canonical norms are inspired by a reality that transcends them."

"The new Code of Canon Law - and this criteria is also valid for the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches - must be interpreted and applied with this theological vision. In this way, certain interpretive reductions that impoverish science and canonical procedure, distancing them from their true ecclesiastical horizon, are avoided. This happens, obviously, especially when the canonical norm is put at the service of interests foreign to the faith and Catholic morality."

The Holy Father warned about "a dangerous reductionism that attempts to interpret and apply the ecclesiastical laws, separating them from the doctrine of the Magisterium. If this were to happen, the doctrinal pronouncements would have no disciplinary value, and only the formally legislative acts would have to recognized." However, he continued, "the juridical dimension, being theologically intrinsic to the ecclesiastical realities, can be the object of magisterial teachings, including definitive teachings."

One of the "most significant new aspects" of the two codes, he added, "is the norm that the two texts contain on the duties and rights of the faithful." The personal dimension allows one "to understand better the specific and irreplaceable service that the ecclesiastical hierarchy must lend for the recognition and protection of the rights of the individuals and communities in the Church."

The Pope recalled that the laws, procedures and canonical sanctions "thus acquire their true sense, a sense of authentic pastoral service." This service, he concluded, "sometimes can be misunderstood and challenged: precisely then it becomes more necessary in order to prevent decisions which cause and even unconsciously favor real injustice."

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