“You must know that, even before becoming bishop of Rome, I used to decline the offer of awards. I never received any, I did not want to. And I have continued to do so even as pope. There is, however, one reason that prompted me to accept yours, and that is the urgency of constructive communication, which fosters the culture of encounter and not of confrontation; the culture of peace and not of war; the culture of openness to the other and not of prejudice,” he said.
“Disinformation is one of the sins of journalism,” he added while enumerating other “journalistic sins,” including slander, defamation, and a “love of scandal.”
“We need to spread a culture of encounter, a culture of dialogue, a culture of listening to the other and his or her reasons,” he said. “Digital culture has brought us so many new possibilities for exchange, but it also risks turning communication into slogans.”
Pope Francis also met with a delegation of Catholic legislators on Saturday who are taking part in a meeting on the topic of “Great Power Struggle, Corporate Capture, and Technocracy: A Christian Answer to Dehumanizing Trends.”
The International Catholic Legislators Network is a group of Catholic parliamentarians from around the world that holds an annual private meeting in Rome.
The group, founded in 2010 by the Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schönborn and David Alton, a member of Britain’s House of Lords, is dedicated to religious liberty, Church-state relations, the protection of life, and communicating Catholic thought in secular politics.
Pope Francis spoke to the lawmakers about how “today’s dominant technocratic paradigm raises profound questions about the place of human beings and of human action in the world.”
“Surely one of the most concerning aspects of this paradigm, with its negative impact upon both human and natural ecology alike, is its subtle seduction of the human spirit, lulling people — and especially the young — into misusing their freedom,” the pope said.
He encouraged the lawmakers to continue to promote Catholic social teaching, “especially the centrality of the God-given value and dignity of every human person.”
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“I pray that the Holy Spirit will inspire and guide your efforts to form a new generation of well-educated and faithful Catholic leaders committed to promoting the Church’s social and ethical teachings in the public sphere. In this way, you will surely contribute to the building up of God’s kingdom,” he said.
Courtney Mares is a Rome Correspondent for Catholic News Agency. A graduate of Harvard University, she has reported from news bureaus on three continents and was awarded the Gardner Fellowship for her work with North Korean refugees.
