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OPINION: Church
Needs Formidable PR Machine to Counter Media
Posted: Wed, Apr 01, 2009
By Fr. Deogratias Ekisa
Just as I was gathering my thoughts to shoot an article to CISA on the media
coverage of Pope Benedict’s visit to Africa, Henry Makori beat me to it by
penning an excellent analysis of the relationship between the media and the
Vatican. I would like to discuss further some points the CISA editor raises.
Experts in interpersonal relationships say that when there is a breakdown in
communication, it is best to start the discussion by taking the blame. For
example, if someone did not understand something you said it is better to
say, “I am sorry, it seems I was not very clear,” rather than, “I am sorry,
you did not understand me.” In the recent media blitz against the Pope,
however, I will dispense with the political correctness of this principle and
lay the blame squarely where it lies.
As Makori hinted, much of the Western media is clearly the handmaid of
secularism. (Secularism is an ideology which must be distinguished from the
ideologically neutral concept of secularisation, the process of separating
religion and secular society). Now secularism has an agenda, which is to
drive out (not merely separate) religion from the public square. This
ideology, which believes in the absolute primacy of reason and utility,
considers religion to be an obstacle to its most cherished values. And so, if
anybody seriously thinks that the recent media onslaught on the pope was
about condoms, then they need to think again. For much of the Western media,
this was a chance to put down religion and show how silly and opposed to
scientific “progress” religion, especially the Catholic religion is.
But leaving aside the media’s secularist and ideological intentions, the
modern press is inherently incapable of understanding what the Church
teaches, since they operate in a different worldview and paradigm. The media
looks for literal, straightforward meanings; the Church for the fundamental meaning
of life. In the condom case for example, it is very clear for the media that
condoms save physical lives; but that point of view is markedly different
from the Pope’s position who is not commenting on the scientific capabilities
of condoms, but on their capacity to promote a lifestyle that is inimical to
life (both physical and spiritual). It is like the Pope and Western media
were speaking different languages, since they were starting from different
fundamental premises.
Even worse, much of the media is either incapable of understanding the
subtleties of profound intellectual thought or merely ignores them. That is
why they rightly consign scientific, economic and other specialised
disciplines to esoteric specialist magazines and occasionally call in the
help of expert scholars to enlighten the public about these complex issues.
Religion, however, is considered to be a common man’s possession and is not
conceded that luxury. But how can we expect the theologically untrained
journalists to understand the theological nuances of Christian thought? Most
of them do not even make the effort to inform themselves on the subject.
Besides, religious thought does not seem to fit the categories of sound
bites, which are the bread and butter of media coverage.
But we cannot blame the media alone. As I said earlier, any breakdown in
communication could be caused by either the sender or recipient or both. We
Catholics are sometimes unwitting supporters of this secularist attack on
religion. This happens especially when we dissent loudly and virulently
against the Pope and Church teaching. Of course there has always been
internal dissent in the Church. One just has to refer to the differences
between Paul and Peter on the requirement that non-Jewish converts observe Jewish
laws. Various Early Fathers of the Church approached and explained the
mystery of Christianity differently, sometimes disagreeing bitterly. Even
saints have sometimes disagreed, like the different takes on the sacrament of
penance by the Dominican position of St. Thomas Aquinas and by the Franciscan
position of St. Bonaventure. These agreeable disagreements, however, have
never been about the fundamental message of God’s saving love in Jesus Christ
and his Church, which is an instrument of that message.
Now of course today’s disagreements by Catholics are on such issues as
contraceptives, abortion, war, immigration, excommunications etc. One might
argue that these are still those peripheral issues that are only tangentially
related to the fundamental message of the Church. And sometimes that is truly
the case. Often, however, is a naive interpretation of the situation. As I
have said above, if anyone for one moment thinks that the “condom” issue on
the recent papal trip to Africa was a debate about condoms, then they have
another thing coming. This was a debate about the fundamental role of
religion in life, with the media towing the secularist line, and the Pope
promoting the Catholic vision of things. And so, when a Catholic who
disagrees with the Pope on that or any issue attacks him like the media has
done or dissents in a vehement way, he is in effect promoting the more
fundamentalist secular agenda and not just that specific issue.
I am reminded of an incident a couple of years ago when President Hugo Chavez
made a bitter attack on President Bush at the United Nations in New York; he
compared him to the devil himself etc. When this happened, even starry-eyed
left-wing Democrats who are naturally opposed to Bush and tend towards the
liberal mindset of the Venezuelan President abandoned Chavez and ran to the
defence of their President, because they realised that the stakes here were
higher; it was the presidency itself and their country that were under attack
and not Bush’s particular ideological stand.
Similarly, it is time for Catholics to discern when they can reasonably
disagree with the Pope and Church teaching and when their disagreement
constitutes an attack on the very foundations of the Christian faith. This
call goes not only to the more progressive members of the faithful whose
rebellion tends to be the loudest, thanks to the more liberal media, but also
to the right-wing sections of the Church, who have been known to wage silent
but equally vituperative attacks on certain members of the hierarchy whom
they consider too liberal for their liking. Actually, in the 1960s and 1970s,
the attacks from the right were the ones damaging the Church. Now when
confronted by a common enemy, secularism, it is time for us to lay aside our
ideological differences and confront that enemy. The very survival of God’s
Church is at stake. If we let it fall, or in fact, if we assist in pushing it
over, then we shall have failed in our mission, which is to establish the
Kingdom of God here on earth. It is time to stand up and be counted. The
battle lines have been drawn; on which side are we fighting?
An effective weapon to include in the Church’s arsenal for this battle is a
radically new communication attitude and strategy for dealing with the media.
Here I am not talking about the usual spiel about using the mass media for
communicating Jesus’ message; we are doing this already through Catholic
television, Catholic radio and Catholic print-media. I am instead suggesting
a more profound public relations exercise. Let me explain what I mean with
two examples.
Several years ago when I was a first-time parish priest, I had to preside
over the election of the Parish Council officials. Naively, I thought that
the best people would be elected, since “good always prevails over evil.” And
so, I did not share with anyone my thoughts on the candidates, nor try to
“campaign” for any candidate, trusting in the “inherently” just process of
democracy. To my surprise, the candidates I thought would have been elected,
barely got any votes; I later found out that some members of the Council, for
obviously private interests, had done their homework and had ensured they had
the votes to push their men into office. I admit that I failed miserably, in
putting forward my vision of what kind of Parish Council leadership I thought
was best for the parish.
I now turn to an example as far removed from the parish situation as
possible. I recently learned that in the recent war between Georgia and
Russia, the news we were getting about the war (or at least most of it) was
being managed or influenced by two Western European public relations agencies
based in Brussels. So, both sides hired (at great cost I suppose) two
professionals to put their side of the story to the world.
This is the kind of strategy we need in the Church today: a full-fledged,
professional, well-financed PR team to front the message of Jesus to the
world. It is this kind of team that would advise, for example, whether a
particular papal document would be more effective if released on a Friday
rather than on a Monday. Such a professional PR machine would know who to
contact in particular media houses or particular temples of power for the
achievement of a specific goal. It is such a PR strategy that would organize
a major media blitz to counter certain situations or to explain them.
Now some people might find my idea objectionable, on the grounds that God’s
everlasting message is being subjected to secular concerns and being managed
by methods more suited to the things of this world. Such an objection does
not stand up to scrutiny, if one critically looks at how God has dealt with
the world throughout the history of salvation. A cursory look at the Old
Testament reveals that imperfect men Moses and David, imperfect institutions
like sacrifice, imperfect methods like wars were used to achieve God’s plan
of salvation. Even more fundamentally, the fact that the Son of God took on
human nature (an imperfect condition), to bring about salvation shows that
the things of this world can certainly be used for the achievement of God’s
glory and the salvation of humankind. Even in post-biblical times, the
Fathers and the Scholastics both used pagan philosophy to explain the
mysteries of God. The structure of our Church has largely followed secular
models of both monarchy and democracy.
And so, while the basic message of Christ has not changed, the way it has
been expressed and presented to the world has changed over time. Today we
need a serious public relations campaign to overcome the media machine that
has been kidnapped by secularism or at least that chooses to operate on
purely secularist principles. It is quite naive and disingenuous for anybody
to think that because God’s Kingdom is the truth, it will just establish
itself.
I repeat: the survival of the Church is at stake. The predator is attacking.
We need to stock the Church’s armoury with the necessary weapons to help us
win this battle. I suggest that part of this arsenal has to be not just a
prayerful and exemplary life from all Catholics, but a media-savvy approach
and all Catholics pulling together to publicly counter what is becoming a
death blow to religion, even if it is often clothed in convincingly
reasonable sheep’s clothing. It is time to wake up from our slumber!
[Fr. Ekisa is a priest of the Archdiocese of Tororo, Uganda, now at
Pontificio Ateneo Sant’Anselmo, Rome]
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