Pope: no to false, destructive stories,
tell the good that unites
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| Nigerian children in a school library (AFP) |
The message of Pope Francis for the 54th World
Communications Day has as its theme, “That you may tell your children and
grandchildren (Ex 10:2), Life becomes history”. Underscoring the value of
storytelling, the Pope underscores how urgent it is also for the Catholic world
to overcome the temptation of destructive stories.
By Alessandro Gisotti
Stories “can help us understand and communicate who we are”
because we “human beings are storytellers” who need to be “‘clothed’ with
stories to protect our lives”. Pope Francis emphasizes this in his message for
World Communications Day 2020, published on Friday, the memorial of St. Francis
de Sales, Patron Saint of journalists. The message, however, embraces a much
broader horizon than the profession of journalism, which the Pope has got us
accustomed to since his first message for World Communications Day (2014) when
he established an ideal link between the evangelical figure of the Good
Samaritan and the mission carried out today by “good communicators”. At a time
marked by the deceptive and divisive use of the word, an “illness” from which
the Catholic world is unfortunately not immune, the Pope reminds us that
communication is authentic if it builds and not destroys. It should be “humble”
in the “search for truth”, as he stressed to the journalists of the Foreign
Press Association last May. And in the face of the spread of “false and evil”
stories – including the sophisticated aberration of deepfake -
the Pope encourages that narration speaks “of ourselves and of the beauty all
around us” and help us “rediscover the roots and the strength to go ahead
together”. We need, he exhorts, “to make our own the truth contained in good
stories”.
Sacred Scripture, a “Story of stories”
The Pope’s message mentions storytelling, a technique
increasingly in vogue in various fields from advertising to politics, but the
story that Pope Francis thinks about does not follow the worldly logic. It has
a deeper value that revives “our memory of what we are in God’s eyes”. Moreover,
a revealing indication of what the Pope considers to be a model of narration
already comes from the theme chosen for the Message: “That you may tell your
children and grandchildren (Ex 10:2), Life becomes history”. Noting that Sacred
Scripture is “a story of stories”, the Pontiff says that the Bible shows us “a
God who is both creator and narrator”. “As narrator,” the Pope continues, “God
calls things into life, culminating in the creation of man and woman as his
free dialogue partners.” Just ahead of the celebration of the “First Sunday of
the Word of God” (January 20), instituted by the Apostolic Letter “Aperuit
Illis”, Pope Francis also invites us with this message, to be close to Sacred
Scripture, to make it our own, reminding us that “the Bible is thus the great
love story between God and humanity”. On the other hand, as the Book of Exodus
teaches us, and from which is taken the theme of the message - we learn that
the “knowledge of the Lord is handed down from generation to generation mainly
by telling the story of how He continues to make Himself present”.
Temptation of false and destructive stories
An important part of the Pope’s message is dedicated to
“destructive stories”, which are reminiscent of many of his homilies at Mass at
Santa Marta. Once again - as has already been dealt with in his message for the
World Day of Communications 2018, which is dedicated to the phenomenon of fake
news – Pope Francis this time warns against the temptation of the serpent, as
narrated in the Book of Genesis, which “introduces into the fabric of history a
knot difficult to undo”.
The Pope denounces those stories that “lull us, convincing
us that to be happy we continually need to gain, possess and consume”. And,
taking up a theme very dear to him, he stigmatizes the greed of “chatter and
gossip” of which “we may not even realize”, as well as “how much violence and
falsehood we are consuming”. The ultimate consequence is the spread of
“destructive and provocative stories that wear down and break the fragile threads
binding us together as a society.” The message says that what is at risk is
human dignity, which is stripped away by the combination of “unverified
information” with the repetition of “banal and deceptively persuasive
arguments” that strike with “hateful messages”. The Pope urges all to react to
these with “courage” and reject such threats. “Amid today’s many troubles,” the
Holy Father says, “we need stories that reveal who we truly are, also in the
untold heroism of everyday life”.
No human story is insignificant to God
Pope Francis, therefore, turns his attention to the story of
Jesus, which shows how God has taken man to heart and that for Him “no human
stories are insignificant or paltry”. “By the power of the Holy Spirit,” the
Pope explains, “every story, even the most forgotten one,… can be reborn as a
masterpiece, and become an appendix to the Gospel.” He cites some stories that
have “admirably scripted the encounter between God’s freedom and that of man”
from Augustine’s “Confessions” to “The Brothers Karamazov”. He invites us to
read the stories of the saints and to share those “stories that have the
fragrance of the Gospel” that each of us knows. “Telling God our story is never
useless,” he reiterates, because “no one is an extra on the world stage, and
everyone’s story is open to possible change”. For this reason, the Pope noes,
“when we tell of evil” we can also “recognize the working of goodness and give
it space”.
Pope Francis concludes his message with a prayer to Mary so
that she can listen to our stories so that she can cherish them. Recalling an
image dear to him, which has featured in many of his homilies at Santa Marta,
the Holy Father implores the Virgin Mary to untie “the tangled knots in our
life” and “help us build stories of peace, stories that point to the future”.
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