The Maronite Church in Today’s World
The Maronite Church and the Media
FOREWORD
1. The Maronite Church, Media and Communication
The Maronite Church is a mission and a testimony. It is blessed with a special ecumenical dimension among the Eastern and Western Churches owing to the role that God bestowed upon it. A role it fulfilled throughout its long spiritual and social history, especially in its modern revival and national process and in the relation that bonds its name to that of Lebanon, on which it endeavored to establish a pluralist and democratic country that serves as meeting point for Christianity and Islam and for East and West. Hence, media and communications seem to be the appropriate tool through which it can keep up with this pioneering role by giving it a wider and more effective dimension. In view of the current historical circumstances, the need seems dire to disseminate a humanistic culture based on the values of freedom, openness and human rights. This way justice and peace will be promoted and religious plurality, which forms the essence of Lebanon, will be guaranteed – Lebanon, which was described by Pope John Paul II as the lair of cultural values and the paradigm of coexistence, freedom and democracy.
It is worth noting that the Maronite Church is distinguished by being a church of testimony and emigration. This urges it to lay stress on the medium of media and communication since only through the latter will it be able to keep up with its spiritual and cultural strife and gather its children, who are scattered throughout the world.
2. Mass Media: Importance and Missions
Mass media has established itself today in the core of the structure of our everyday life; and, with its different forms and advanced technologies, it became more than mere means of communication, dialogue and exchange. It is a gift from the self and its apostolate is similar to that of the prophets; it is a common language between humans, a culture that engulfs all the aspects of intellectual and social life, a prelude to a global meeting between cultures of different nations and peoples in the framework of one and diverse world culture that confirm the facts of the burgeoning movement of globalization.
The importance of media could be felt through the numerous tasks it undertakes and through being the third activity in the life of the contemporary Man, after working and sleeping, and the first means for knowledge and entertainment. Accordingly, it is endowed with a unique power to stereotype patterns of individual and common behavior, to directly influence the progress of the people and to condition the development and the formation of public opinion. The basis of a democratic political practice is public opinion by which these means will transcend to the level of a fourth authority via their basic mission in monitoring and evaluating the performance of the three other authorities. In addition to the fact that these means are bound by social duties that compete with family, school, religious institutions in raising the young, building an “external” truth through the choice, procession and presentation of media material, to the extent that some consider that “what is not promulgated by the media seems to be insignificant” or non-existent.
The Church has realized the importance of the modern technologies offered by media and communication and perceived in them a large forum of Christian testimony. Thus, it encouraged the appropriation of such means and their responsible usage, especially in the fields of education and the spread of the Good News; and it recommended its inclusion in all pastoral programs.
Furthermore, the pivotal role played by the media cannot cancel out personal contact or “interpersonal” contact, which remains an indispensable factor in human interaction. Preaching, spiritual guidance and the practice of rites and rituals, acts of piety and popular traditions form the basis of ecclesiastical media, which in itself is a valuable opportunity for direct social and spiritual communication that cannot be provided by the modern media channels. Since the Church is both a “community of communication” with Christ as “Word” and “Mediator”, media and communication had always been part and parcel of its apostolic mission and its work mechanism. The mission of the Church, since the time of the apostles, was based on direct and personal communication through the spread of the Word and through live testimony of knowledge, freedom and justice. This kind of communication based on the live word and on direct contact, such as the traditional announcement through the bell, the calling and the fire on mountain tops, extends to modern media, for direct and personal communication media remains subject to limited spatiotemporal confines unless it is proliferated by mass media, which is characterized by its capacity to spread and to surpass all impediments of space and time.
That is why, in view of all of these responsibilities, the Church pastors and leaders of the society and of public opinion lay great importance on the means of mass media and communication and consider them as constants in their activities and projects. However, in order for these channels to undertake their proper responsibilities, which entail the yearning of the contemporary Man to achieve himself, they need an atmosphere of freedom and liberality. This is why they do not fulfill their true mission except in the framework of systems whose laws guarantee private and public liberties and respect the conditions of responsible media practice.
In return, the systems that limit and imprison these liberties and that use these channels and manipulate them in order to hegemonize and typecast individuals and groups according to their set intellectual and political systems will be denying the society essential backbones for its progress and advancement.
Based on the above, how can the Maronite media rise up to the level and expectations of the noble mission of the Maronite Church? What are the goals and objectives of the Maronite media? How can this Church interact with the different religious and secular media channels? What are the ethical and moral qualities that a Maronite communicator should be endowed with? What is the mechanism that should be established in order to unify the strengths of the Maronite journalists in the world?
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