Journalist Claims the Pope is Victim of Misrepresentation by the Media

The journalist points an accusing finger at the “post-truth” syndrome that is harming the Holy Father’s image. In post-truth, what counts is the image one wishes to create of a person. All that matters is what contributes to this preconceived image, even if it has nothing to do with reality.

Based on this postulate, Lucetta Scaraffia denounces “a process of conscious selection” by the media, broadcasting “only the phrases (of the pope) that seem in keeping with the media personality created around him.” So be it.

The fact remains that Pope Francis is the first to contribute to this incessant media flow: in-flight press conferences, tweets, book-interviews, and interviews of every sort abound, alongside the more classical exercises such as encyclicals, allocutions, audiences, and speeches. At the risk of diluting the Pope’s words?

Along the same lines, must we not consider that the recent controversy on Amoris Laetitia and the various interpretations of it publicly exposed on social networks that contrast with the pope’s silence on the question all contribute to weakening the authority of the papal word?

And what to say of the incoherent nature of some of Francis’s positions, supporting the family and condemning the attacks on it, for example, but all the while refusing to denounce false, illegitimate, or shameful unions? The principle of non-contradiction does not seem to be his guide.

If there is one thing we should hope for in the year 2018, it is that the successor of Peter may shed light on all the subjects that are dividing the Church and spreading confusion among the faithful, even those with the best dispositions.