Pope urges the media to 'go out' to seek and only tell the truth
On a visit to the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication this morning, Pope Francis recited the prayer for the 55th World Communications Day. He also noted that “for a structure to be functional, everyone must have sufficient freedom to function. That they have the ability to take risks and not go asking for permission, permission, permission...: this paralyses. Functional, not functionalistic.”
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Pope Francis visited the Dicastery for Communication this morning to mark the 160th anniversary of L'Osservatore Romano and the 90th of Vatican Radio.
During his visit Francis met with the Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication Paolo Ruffini and its secretary, Mgr Lucio Adriàn Ruiz, as well as editors and journalists for Vatican Radio and L'Osservatore Romano.
The pontiff stressed the need to seek the truth and differentiate it from appearance, to go out to see and listen without biases. He also recited the prayer “Come and see” for the 55th World Communication Day.
Communicating by meeting people where and as they are
Lord, teach us to come out of ourselves / and to set out in search of the truth.
Teach us to go and see, / teach us to listen, / not to cultivate prejudices, / not to draw hasty conclusions.
Teach us to go
Where no one wants to go / to take time to understand, / to pay attention to the essential,
not to be distracted by the superfluous, / to distinguish the deceptive appearance from the truth.
Give us the grace to recognise / your dwellings in the world / and the honesty to tell / what we have seen.
Amen.
In his short address, the Pope emphasised the difference between “functional” and “functionalism”.
“To function is to go ahead... The great enemy of functioning well is functionalism. For example, I am the head of a section, I am the secretary of that section, the leader. But I have seven sub-secretaries. Everything is always fine, fine. Someone has a problem, goes to the under-secretary who has to solve it, who says: ‘Wait a moment, then I'll answer you’. He takes it and calls the secretary... I mean: they're useless. Incapable of deciding, incapable of taking the initiative.
“Functionalism is lethal. It puts an institution to sleep and kills it. Be careful not to fall into this trap: it doesn't matter how many places there are, whether the studio is beautiful or not. What matters is that it works, that it is functional, and not a victim of functionalism.
“Be careful, careful about that. And when something is functional, it helps creativity. Your work must be creative, always, and go beyond, beyond, beyond: creative. That is called functioning. But if a work is too well ordered, it ends up caged and is not useful. This is the only thing that, seeing such a beautiful organisation, so well done, seeing all of you together, I have to say: be careful!
“No functionalism. Yes, functional to the work, what you have to do. And for a structure to be functional, everyone must have sufficient freedom to function. That they have the ability to take risks and not go asking for permission, permission, permission...: This paralyses. Functional, not functionalistic. Understand? Go ahead and be brave. Thank you!”
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24/06/2022 19:32
11/06/2021 18:02
