The Pope urged parents to supervise their children
Posted on 01/24/2004 10:38:47 PM PST by RWR8189
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The Pope urged parents to supervise their children
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The Pope has called on governments across the world to ensure that family life is not weakened by the growth of communications media.
He said in an age where many families had access to immense and varied media resources, parents needed to regulate how their children used it.
The Pope did not single out any particular section of the media.
But it is clear that he is concerned about the internet and the vast number of new television stations.
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 This would include strictly limiting the time children devote to media... putting some media entirely off limits and periodically excluding all of them for the sake of other family activities
Pope's advice to parents
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In his statement issued in advance of World Communications Day on 23 May, Pope John Paul II once again emphasised traditional Catholic teaching on the family and human relationships.
He criticised those in the communications industry who were promoting values detrimental to the common good of society.
Pro-active approach
The Pope urged parents to closely supervise what their children saw and heard, and to be more critical of messages which could undermine the family.
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All communication has a moral dimension... People grow or diminish in moral stature by the words which they speak and the messages which they choose to hear
Pope John Paul II
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More significantly perhaps, he urged parents to be outspoken when it came to telling producers and governments what they liked and disliked.
And as for governments, he said they needed to involve what he described as family representatives in the regulation of the media, so they did not act against the good of the family.
Although the Pope made clear he was not supporting censorship, he is advocating a more pro-active approach by those who hold his conservative values.
It will almost certainly be seen as a challenge by opponents of the Catholic Church's teaching on such issues as divorce, contraception or homosexuality.
Some of the kids and I actually watched an episode of The Simpsons recently because it came on right after the football game, and I have a soft spot for that program because it is usually the wittiest and best-written program on TV. Unfortunately, I was shocked by the vulgarity. I used to like the Simpsons, and they were always a little bit cutting edge. But I thought their standards had dropped even lower, unless it was my standards that had changed.
Two years ago we watched "Malcolm in the Middle" because it came on right after the Super Bowl, and it was the funniest thing I ever saw in my life. We all laughed so hard we almost got sick. I can't say it's always that funny, but this episode was brilliant. And very family-friendly, although in a dysfunctional kind of way.
I see TV as a double whammy. All the bad stuff we know about(absorbtion of all the propaganda about what is "normal" and "reasonable" and "right" plus all the p.c. garbage and news meant to deceive and/or call for a certain reaction--Judge Borke and Lorena Bobbitt and Monicagate and and WMD come to mind here) plus the mindset to become a passive spectator and waste time.
Someone wrote a book about it calling it the "plug-in drug," and that's just what it is.
There's a war on for you mind (infowars.com)!
I say the same thing about the New Mass and the New Theology, so why should I have a different standard for TV? The traditional Catholic approach to theology is that even the tiniest bit of poison will destroy an entire large meal. Of course with TV, it's the other way around: the tiniest bit of acceptable programming floating in a sea of "near occassions of sin."
That's a good question. But one could make the argument that by having no broadcast reception, and just using it to watch pre-approved kids videos, that the answer would be "No," there is nothing sinful on the beast, in our particular home. You could reply:
1. Is that realistic? Doesn't it actually get used sometimes to watch other things that are occassions of sin?
2. What about the symbolism of the TV? Having it in your home means that you are symbolically supporting the media culture. Would an atheist have a painting of the Sacred Heart in his home but only look at it occassionally? Or would he not have it in his home at all because of what it represents, even if he never looks at it.
While I was staying at a hotel on a business trip I was able to watch Cartoon Network which has a lot of Japanese anime. I was amazed by the sophisticated level of the children's programming. All the cartoons dealt with serious issues of life and death, immortality, the supernatural, even history and culture. The quality of thought represented was far beyond any US programming.
That said, they would still be a pernicious influence on children, because while "sophisticated," they were also pagan and/or New Age. They demonstrated an obvious hunger for answers about the supernatural, but they clearly had no answers themselves. At least, however, they did not practice the infantalizing tendencies of Western media.
LOL!
The media is a gift from God. It is up to Christians to do their part and be the leaven so it remains a gift used rightly.
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