VATICAN CITY
Holy See Press Office
July 1, 2019
By Cardinal Mauro Piacenza
[Note: The following is the Google translation of the first paragraphs of the original Italian document.]
“With the Incarnation the Son of God has united in a certain way with every man”[1] ; with his gestures and his words, he illuminated his highest and inviolable dignity; in himself, dead and risen, he restored fallen humanity, overcoming the darkness of sin and death; to those who believe in him he opened the relationship with his Father; with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, he consecrated the Church, a community of believers, as his true body and participated in his own prophetic, royal and priestly power, so that he would be in the world as the extension of his own presence and mission, announcing to the men of all times the truth, guiding them to the splendor of its light, allowing their life to be truly touched and transfigured.
In this time of human history so troubled, the growing techno-scientific progress does not seem to correspond to an adequate ethical and social development, but rather a real cultural and moral “involution” which, forgetting about God – if not hostile – becomes incapable to recognize and respect, in every sphere and at every level, the essential coordinates of human existence and, with them, of the very life of the Church.
“If technical progress does not correspond to progress in the ethical formation of man, in the growth of the interior man […] , then it is not progress, but a threat to man and the world”[2] . Even in the field of private and mass-media communications the “technical possibilities” grow out of proportion, but not love for the truth, commitment to research, sense of responsibility before God and men; a worrying disproportion between means and ethics is outlined. Communicative hypertrophy seems to turn against the truth and, consequently, against God and against man; against Jesus Christ, God made man, and the Church, its historical and real presence.
A certain “craving” for information has spread in recent decades, almost regardless of their real reliability and opportunity, to the point that the “world of communication” seems to want to “replace” reality, both by conditioning perception and by manipulating its understanding . From this tendency, which can take on the disturbing traits of morbidity, unfortunately the ecclesial structure itself, which lives in the world and sometimes assumes the criteria, is not immune. Even among believers, frequently, precious energies are employed in the search for “news” – or real “scandals” – suited to the sensitivity of certain public opinion, with goals and objectives that certainly do not belong to the theandric nature of the Church. All this to the grave detriment of the announcement of the Gospel to every creature and the needs of the mission.
In fact, invoking the judgment of public opinion as the last tribunal, information of all kinds is made known too often, also concerning the most private and confidential spheres, which inevitably touch the life of the Church, induce – or at least favor – rash judgments unlawfully and irreparably damage the good reputation of others, as well as the right of every person to defend their intimacy (cf. can. 220 CIC). In this scenario, the words of Saint Paul to the Galatians sound particularly current: “For you, brothers, have been called to freedom. Provided this freedom does not become a pretext for living according to the flesh […] . But if you bite and devour each other, look at least not to destroy each other completely “( Gal 5,13-15).
In this context, a certain worrying “negative prejudice” towards the Catholic Church seems to assert itself, whose existence is culturally presented and socially re-understood, on the one hand, in the light of the tensions that can occur within the same hierarchy and, on the other, starting from the recent scandals of abuse, horribly perpetrated by some members of the clergy. This prejudice, oblivious to the true nature of the Church, to its authentic history and to the real, beneficial incidence that it has always had and has in human life, sometimes translates into the unjustifiable “claim” that the Church herself, in certain matters, come to conform its own legal order to the civil systems of the states in which it finds itself living, as the only possible “guarantee of correctness and rectitude”.
In the face of all this, the Apostolic Penitentiary considered it appropriate to intervene, with this Note , to reaffirm the importance and promote a better understanding of those concepts, typical of ecclesial and social communication, which today seem to have become more foreign to public opinion and sometimes to the same civil legal systems: the sacramental seal, the confidentiality inherent in the internal extra-sacramental forum, the professional secrecy, the criteria and the limits proper to any other communication.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.