Voices September 03, 2020
It’s not the Church that’s intolerant
By Paul Schratz - Life In The Schratz Lane
My last column looked at the Catholic Social Teaching principle of subsidiarity and how its loss is contributing to the decline in government and society. In short, subsidiarity says there’s a proper role for every person and organization, and higher levels of authority should not take over responsibilities more proper to a lower one.
I suggested many of today’s political and social conflicts could be eased or solved by adopting the principle of subsidiarity.
Subsidiarity usually applies to hierarchies of government, organizations, and family. But any consumer of media should be able to see its relevance to our chief means of finding out what’s going on in the world, the communications industry.
The traditional press – newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, and by extension social media and bloggers – have always had an essential role in pursuing truth and disseminating information. They hold privileged positions that give them access to those in authority and people with expertise on matters of importance to the public. Journalists are mandated to seek out that information, make sense of it, and convey it as accurately as possible to the news consumer.
Until recently, there was an assumption that journalism had at least a veneer of neutrality about it. Politicians would debate and make decisions, and the media would gather the necessary information and transmit it with the appropriate context to the public.
Somehow along the way, many journalists have forgotten their role. They began seeing themselves not as conduits between the powerful and the man on the street, but as powerful in themselves. They took on an advocacy role for voices they approved of, and critics of those they didn’t.
I remember a recent experience with a journalist while the Delta Hospice euthanasia debate was in full swing earlier this year. I found myself in a Twitter argument with a reporter covering the story and who displayed a “what’s the big deal?” attitude about the government takeover of the hospice.
After she parroted several government talking points, I asked her whether a reporter shouldn’t instead be challenging some of the government’s positions.
She replied that she was just stating facts, so I responded that her choice of facts was determining the narrative she wanted to present, and it was clearly supportive of the government and antagonistic to those opposing assisted suicide at the hospice.
I’ve written quite a bit about the decline in journalism, its impact on social problems, and how it stems from abandoning the search for truth. That’s what happens when God is removed from every corner of society, and irresponsible journalism has made a large contribution to his removal.
It’s also apparent that a loss of subsidiarity has played a large role. Journalists have abandoned their role of conveying information for new positions of power, as influencers and decision makers. No longer interested in telling balanced stories, they’ve taken on advocacy for those they support, and misrepresentation of those they oppose.
The decline has been getting worse in recent years, but the upheaval since the pandemic broke out has been extraordinary, with media – both traditional and social – now contributing to an effort to impose groupthink upon society. The imposition of acceptable points of view and intolerance for unacceptable ideas has reached alarming levels, and anyone who speaks an unapproved thought risks consequences ranging from shunning to job loss to personal harm.
It’s ironic how the Catholic Church frequently gets criticized for its supposed intolerance, and yet the Church has always remained open to responsible discussion on issues that haven’t been decided doctrinally. As Pope Benedict XVI said, “No one can claim to speak ‘officially’ in the name of the entire lay faithful, or of all Catholics, in matters freely open to discussion.”
And yet today’s news stories and social media content increasingly claim to speak officially, whether in the name of government or political correctness, in an effort to impose uniformity on public thought.
In a future column I’ll suggest ways newspapers can regain their search for truth by adopting a role of subsidiarity, in the process making themselves more valuable in a world that increasingly views them with irrelevance.