An old
friend of mine once said she wished she could buy a newspaper. If she
could, she said, she’d publish nothing but good news for a year. Imagine
what a difference it would make if we were surrounded by the positive in the
world instead of the negative.
I thought
of her when the controversy about Fr. Groeschel erupted some weeks ago.
Now that the controversy over the comments has died down a bit—even as the
rhetoric on both sides in the election gears up—I have a few (probably
controversial in themselves) reflections on what passes for reporting these
days.
To wit:
when you get right down to it, a good deal of it is no more
than an institutionalizing of detraction. Not to mention
outright calumny and certainly wholesale gossip. From my perspective, at
least, it has made me think twice about what I choose to read—even in Catholic
blogs and on Catholic sites and especially in Internet comboxes.
Our
society has become so polarized and so sensitized and so antagonistic,
sometimes selectively so, that I think it behooves Christians to be
particularly careful of what we say and what we read. I believe the old
term is to cultivate inner and outer
silence and the virtue of prudence.
It’s a
habit we sorely need. These days
everyone seems to be pushing words, thoughts, and ideas with little thought to
what they mean or what they do—simply giving them birth and then denying any
responsibility for their often dreadful effects. It is well to be reminded we will be called
to account for every word we speak.
Perhaps also for every word we write, or say to ourselves in the
solitude of our minds or seek out to
hear or read as well?
Anyone
following the national news even casually knows how quickly the media, aided by
a pervasive sense of off-beat self-righteousness, can gin up a controversy
out of almost nothing. When it comes to Christians—especially
Catholics—especially priests—that is particularly so. That there has been a deterioration in journalistic
standards seems pretty evident. Take a
look at this
article that presents an view of the journalist’s job not even honored much
in the breach any longer: accurately (or
justly) quoting informed voices on both sides of an issue to permit a reader to
make an intelligent decision in the matter.
Which
brings me to the Groeschel interview.
There is
no doubt that Fr. Groeschel said what he said; I assume the reporter can report
words accurately. But reporting is also a skill that involves judgment
and, in the case of a Catholic publication, an awareness of the community of
faith, the responsibilities of one to another and of the need of all of us for grace.
It is that which I found lacking in the publication of the interview as it was,
particularly galling given that it was in National Catholic Register.
Repeat:
there is no question Fr. Groeschel said what he said. But there is
a real question about what he was trying to convey and neither the interview
itself nor the way in which it was published served to clarify the meaning of
the comments. There is also no question
that Fr. Groeschel has worked for many years to help the American Church
respond appropriately—in all arenas-- to sex abuse and priestly scandals. His efforts in
counseling and in helping to establish norms, guidelines and procedures that protect
children and prevent potential abusers from entering the ranks of clergy are a
monument to his dedication to his vocation as a Franciscan and his profession as
psychologist. His life has been one of self-sacrifice in the service of
Jesus, the extent of which most of us will never know and the like of which we
cannot even imagine.
All of
the latter is now mostly lost to the larger world; what will be remembered is
the single, unfortunate comment of an elderly and debilitated man, impaired by
an old head injury and stroke, recovering from surgery, made in the course of a
wide ranging interview that, as published, did not clarify what he meant, or
put it into context. Perhaps what was
needed was a clearer exercise of judgment to determine whether it was really representative
of Father Groschel’s opinion or even needed publication.
I think
this is, in part, a result of the “public has a right to know” mentality that
pervades the news media—and the J-schools-- these days. Instead of
providing informed voices on both sides, the standard, in practice, at least, now
seems incorporate a more sensationalist aspect: Is the person in the public eye? Will it sell papers? And too often, in the secular media, there
are the corollaries: Will it shed
negative light on someone in the public eye?
And if it can do both at the same time, so much the better! The publication of an interview with
Father Groeschel certainly had the potential to be a lovely human-interest
story for the Catholic community.
Instead, it provided fodder for the secular press to attack the Church
all over again when those corollaries came into play.
There’s
no question that some scandals need to be aired. A president who lies under oath rightly makes
himself the subject of inquiry as does one who orchestrates a break-in of a
rival’s political office. In no way do I
advocate such a closed approach to reporting that cover-ups of necessary
information—things people really do need to know to make informed decisions in
their lives-- become the rule of the day.
But the
pendulum has swung far, far to the other side, and there seems very little
discretion at all in any media—sadly, it seems, even Catholic ones--in
reporting damaging information, perhaps for fear of being accused of covering up. And that is a pity. If the reporter failed to appreciate that the
comment was potentially damaging, that’s even worse.
To her great
and everlasting credit, the Editor responsible for this article apologized for
a lack of oversight but in the end it is too little, too late, for great damage
has been done to a good man. The
Franciscan Friars of the Renewal had to issue a statement about the
matter. EWTN (parent company of the National Catholic Register) took Fr.
Groschel’s show off the air. The
internet was alive with caustic commentary and a brief look at blogs in the
aftermath confirms that the story unleashed all manner of hostility and rush to
judgment—not of the reporter, or even of Father Groeschel--but of the Church:
The interview serves to confirm what horrible
people populate the upper echelon of the Catholic Church….
Yet more proof that it is Catholics leaders who are a danger to morality and
children….
And on
and on and on.
Guess
what? I have neither the right nor the need to know every utterance of
Fr. Benedict Groeschel, or anyone else, whether on the journalistic record or
off—even in the interests of a human interest story. I rely on journalists to exercise good—no,
excellent, for they are professionals--judgment when it comes to what gets
printed and offered for my review.
And this
brings me to the sin of detraction: the unjust
publication of an unkind truth to those who have no need of the information,
especially when it will serve to reduce the individual in the eyes of those who
receive it. I am particularly outraged by the publication of this interview
because, in my eyes, it represent just that: detraction. Unthinking and unintended perhaps, but
detraction just the same.
As a
lawyer, I suppose the whole matter turns on the definition of unjust.
In an
environment where these is a heightened sense of outrage over abuse in the Church
(but not, apparently in schools, Planned Parenthood clinics, or in Hollywood)
perhaps Fr. Groeschel’s comments would be important if and only if they really
revealed a blame-the-victim mentality within the Church or even in his own
ministry. But a fair examination of his life and his work would indicate
that they did not. And from the advantage of external hindsight—always
risky but all I have—it would seem that reflection on what would happen when the
comments, unedited and unexplained, hit the media would pretty quickly tip the
balance, in my analysis to the “unjust” side of the scale.
Perhaps
it’s time that journalists really, truly stopped to consider the larger context
of what they report before hitting the send button. Perhaps the right to
know isn’t always as important as the right to reputation and the need not to
destroy common ground to no good end.
Maybe it’s time for a little heightened sensitivity for those who end up
in the crosshairs of social commentary simply because they are who they are,
regardless of what they say.
I am
reminded of a very high profile divorce that occurred in my old Florida hometown. One spouse of a very prominent local couple publicly
accused the other of some particularly egregious—potentially criminal—behavior
and the papers ran with it careful to couch it in terms of "alleged" misconduct and reports of "the complaint filed stated that...". Front page
news, it went viral long before the term was commonplace, making the national
news in very short order. For weeks,
there was an endless stream of articles and broadcasts “updating” the public on
the latest allegations and speculation, for there really were no facts in the
matter at all and would not be for a very long time.
No one
seemed to consider the potential fallout, which was this: Both spouses—professionals--suffered in their
business reputations and both found their respective practices hard-hit because
the community was split into two camps—one supporting the wife, the other the
husband. Friendships suffered, even ended,
as gossip and discussion “among friends” became heated. The children of the marriage were
scandalized, placed in the untenable position of having to choose between
parents and made fun of at school; both began acting out, one taking to petty
crime, the other to promiscuity. An indigent legal-aid clinic that depended on
one of the spouses for support had to close because lawyers were reluctant to
refer to it and clients reluctant to utilize it because of the allegations that
had been so publicly made against its benefactor. The accused spouse spent well over $200,000
in legal fees, which meant that, had the clinic remained open, there would not
have been funds available to support it anyway. The children had to transfer
from their private school to a public one and the family home had to be sold as
the expenses mounted and incomes declined.
And at
the end of it all, it turned out to be a case of bitter misunderstanding with
no wrongdoing at all on the part of the accused. It turns out the other spouse had been
listening to rumors and innuendo too… The story was never adequately corrected in the public
record; what had been a front page headline was followed by an obscure story buried in the local section more than a year later as the criminal charges were dropped and the divorce was finalized. And the Adversary, the
Scatterer, still laughs.
All that
damage because it seemed the public has “a right” to be kept informed of a
marital dispute that was really none of their business in the first place. Dear
wages indeed, and not a cent paid by the journalists who wrote the stories, or
the editors that promoted them or the outlets that published them.
When I
look at the news, I have begun to wonder why anyone thinks many of the stories—or
the details in them—are newsworthy.
Worse yet, I detect—even when I read stories on my favorite outlets or
follow some of my favorite bloggers—a sense of acrimony, recrimination and
elation in the fault of others that is troubling indeed.
Troubling
and sometimes, a real stumbling block to my daily walk in the Christian
faith. After all, if I have been hauled into high dudgeon by a piece
of reporting or a scathing blog, or caustic combox rhetoric, it makes it a little
difficult for me to remember that my first job is to love the person with whom
I am currently so very—and perhaps unnecessarily—angry.
My problem
is that I just don’t see how this analysis even enters in any significant way into the reporting process. And just as
I am troubled at the unfiltered reporting of Fr. Groeschel’s comment in an
interview, I am troubled by the exploitation of ugly and angry comments brought
to the public view simply for the purpose of ridiculing or marginalizing the
some individual in those public crosshairs—even if it’s someone I don’t like or
support.
God
knows—and He really does—that I have made more than my share of thoughtless,
heated, downright stupid and often unguarded comments that make me look like a
first class idiot, some of them quite publicly. I would hope that those
who know me know that I am more than the sum total of those comments and that a
single gaffe (or even two or three) doesn’t entirely revise my moral position
(and yes, I am trying to remember that is true of heated rhetoric as well). I would also hope they would have the charity
and prudence not to pass them along….
The
likelihood of my changing the reporting world is diminishingly small, so I have
taken control of what I can control.
First and
foremost, I am trying—and I know from experience how hard it is—to control my
own tongue. Too much of what passes for
conversation is really gossip. I’m
trying, really trying, to refrain from negative comments, period. Seems Grandma was right: If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. And if
you have to disagree, disagree without being disagreeable. When it comes to discussions rather than
conversation, I am making every effort to balance my words. To discuss issues and ideas rather than
people. It’s hard. (And yes, thank you
very much, I am very well aware that I may not have hit the mark all that well
in the writing of this particular post.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t a standard to aspire to…)
I don’t
listen to the news much any more, and I particularly don’t listen to shows
where shouting each other down passes for sophisticated argument. I find
I can live life just fine without knowing about every terrible event everywhere.
In fact, I am probably more useful in studied ignorance of some of these
details—time I would spend angry, I can spend in enjoying life, interacting
with the people who are actually in front of me, or—here’s a thought—in more
prayer and meditation. A good trade, I think.
When I
encounter something that amounts in my mind to detraction, I make a studied decision
whether or not to continue reading or listening. Sometimes that’s a tough
one, especially when one of my favorite bloggers is haranguing on one of my pet
peeves. But detraction is detraction even when I like it and it poisons
me just as surely as it injures the other. For this reason, I’ve almost
ceased reading comments on the Internet—it only takes a few inches of combox
space before the vitriol comes out. Who needs it?
I’m
trying on the old custom of custody of the eyes, especially in the checkout
line at the grocery store, where every magazine cover is a studied exercise in
gossip. I have long since ceased reading those magazines; now I am trying
to avoid their covers. Do I really need
to know whether Queen Elizabeth and the Duchess of Windsor get along? Really?
There’s
an old saying that who the Devil cannot make evil, he at least makes busy. Too much news, especially too much of the
wrong kind of “news” makes me too busy: too busy following stories I cannot
change and leaving alone those stories around me that I can affect , too busy
being outraged to be loving, too busy making arguments in my head even to
notice the need around me.
And I am
finding that I am still quite able to respond to those things that really do need
my attention. I am on top of the HHS
Controversy. I heard about the Supreme
Court decision on Obamacare and I read the opinion. I know the issues in the upcoming election
and am prayerfully considering my response.
(I don’t know who is ahead in the polls nor do I know what outrageous
comment has been made by either party in the last 24 hours; nor do I care). I don’t seem to have missed the fact that
people in Haiti need my help recovering from the hurricane, nor have I missed
the fact that there is turmoil in the Middle East. I even know about the new medical services
offered at our local hospital.
I find
that the really important news, the real news, finds a way to my ears despite
my near-total avoidance of mainstream TV, radio and newspapers. I find I am not buried under a rock, ignoring
the world; I am more engaged than ever because I can focus my energies on and direct my
efforts to things that really matter.
And, quite serendipitously, I find—to
my utter delight-- that I am not constantly in a state of outrage over things
ultimately beyond my control. There’s a
peace that I have come to love and rely on.
I am beginning to understand in my bones if not my heart of hearts the
admonition to let not your hearts be
troubled. I am beginning to realize
part of that peace is not to go looking for troubling things….for after all sufficient to the day is the evil thereof….
So I will
continue ignoring—studiously—the noise that distracts me from how to engage in
love the world around me and trying to figure out—with God’s help—just how I am
meant to respond. But I’d sure appreciate it if the media would filter out some
of the noise a little more to make my job a little easier.
Especially
the noise of detraction.
Amen. Agree with every word, was only confused with the implication of your first five words: "An old friend of mine...."
ReplyDeleteWasn't aware you had young friends.