Archbishop says mass media today seems more hostile to Christian values
DENVER (CNS) – A new sentiment in the mass media seems more hostile to Christian values, Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput told a conference of 150 religion reporters Sept. 24. He urged the journalists from across the nation and overseas “to understand believers and religious institutions as they understand themselves” and to have humility in their work. “Freedom of the press clearly includes the right to question the actions and motives of religious figures and institutions,” the archbishop told the gathering. “But freedom doesn’t excuse prejudice or poor handling of serious material, especially people’s religious convictions,” he said. “What’s new today is the seeming collusion –or at least an active sympathy — between some media organizations and journalists, and political and sexual agendas hostile to traditional Christian beliefs.” Archbishop Chaput’s talk, “Religion, Journalism and the New American Orthodoxy,” was the keynote address at the Religion Newswriters Association 61st annual conference in Denver. “This new orthodoxy seems to influence the selection of religious news and how that news gets presented,” he said. “It seems to frame which opinions are appropriate and which ones won’t be heard. And it seems to guide the historical narrative that media present to their audiences. This new thinking seems to presume a society much more secular and much less religious than anything in America’s past or warranted by present facts,” he continued, “a society where people are free to worship and believe whatever they want, so long as they don’t intrude their religious idiosyncrasies on government, the economy or culture.”
