Go for the jugular (from Novell)!

The painful events of the past few weeks show that weakness is always present in our Church, both in the person who errs and in those who turn this very weakness into a reason for attack and public humiliation.

September 18, 2021-Reading time: 2 minutes

Several weeks have already passed since the painful news of the resignation of the incumbent of Solsona, for strange reasons to say the least, which has shaken the general and religious newsrooms in Spain.

For most of the world, even within the Church, Solsona was one of those dioceses that you have to look for on the map. An ancient and historic see for many forgotten that has starred, and still at this point remains in the limelight, covers, gatherings and opinions around the world.

If this story has revealed some things, it is how weakness can always be present in our Church and how, for many and especially within this Church, instead of being a reason for personal and community examination, the fact becomes a weapon and a reason for attack, scorn and public humiliation.

Evidently, this fact, or at least what we know about it, has been a scandal in its true meaning: because of the characteristics, the connotations or the lack of knowledge... but no less scandalous is the morbidity, the sacristy gossip and the "blood" that is being made with this case and its protagonists, especially in the "religious" media.

That there are those who, from outside the Church, take this type of matter to attack or mock the faith is normal, we could say that it comes almost as a matter of course. But that those of us who confess to be Catholics, and every Sunday we beat our chest proclaiming our guilt, have launched ourselves, within hours, to the jugular, judging intentions, hearts and lives of others, without showing a minimum of charity or supernatural sense, that really feeds the scandal.

I read, in the account of Twitter of a well-known communicator, how the reaction of certain media considered to be of religious information to this case had led him to think of the evangelical passage of the adulterous woman. I agree with him. With the circumstantial difference that, nowadays, we have exchanged stones for keyboards and cameras. As this same journalist maintained, especially in religious media, information on issues that directly affect people must be based on an exquisite respect for the person with charity.

The history of the Church is written with the ink of sinners and saints, or rather, with the ink of saints who know they are sinners and sinners who can become saints.

In the face of the miseries of one or the other, the strongest and most effective word we can say or write is prayer, which, because of the communion of saints, is not lost even in the most extreme cases... even if the liver wants to throw the keyboard at the other person.

The authorMaria José Atienza

Director of Omnes. Degree in Communication, with more than 15 years of experience in Church communication. She has collaborated in media such as COPE or RNE.

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