By Carmen Elena Villa
ROME, NOV. 25, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Are consciences formed or deformed by the press and media? Do the means of social communication foster or harm the community life of consecrated persons?
These and questions like them were analyzed and debated in the conference «Uses and Abuses of the Means of Communication in Consecrated Life,» which was held last weekend at Rome’s Regina Apostolorum university.
Religious and consecrated women, ranging in age from 24 to 77 and representing dozens of women’s communities from four continents, posed questions on how best to use the media.
In a conference on community life «at the mercy of the media,» Adorer of the Blood of Christ Sister Nicla Spezzati pointed out how the media increasingly seeks to awaken sentiments, rather than form consciences or generate opinions.
«Before the advent of television, messages passed through thought. They touched logic,» she observed. But now that the situation is different, the nun recommended cultivating «a discerning attitude in reading what surrounds us,» without demonizing or exalting the media, but rather giving it its correct value.
Sister Spezzati explained that the media cannot fill emotional voids that might be experienced in religious life. She also warned against the dangers of some communications forums detracting from community life.
She emphasized the importance of a well established community where fraternal agape is lived clearly.
Evangelical counsels
Marcela Lombard, a consecrated woman in the Regnum Christi movement, cautioned that social communications can pose a threat to poverty, chastity and obedience.
«People might think that at a certain age, a person is mature enough to watch anything on TV, but we cannot fall into this trap,» she said. Lombard contended that individuals become desensitized and begin to accept behaviors and images.
It is essential for a consecrated person «not to flee from reality by surfing the Internet,» she affirmed, and «to accept that in the first place, my personal relationships are with the sisters of my community.»
Regarding poverty, Lombard pointed to the danger of the media «creating needs.»
She said in this regard that consecrated persons must continually examine their consciences: «The latest things I’ve bought or asked from my superior, with what criteria have I done so? Are they real needs or whims?»
Finally, regarding obedience, Lombard noted how authority is generally presented as an office with power, and not as a post at the service of the community.
«Authority is seen as something that oppresses me,» she observed, contrasting this with the Church’s understanding of obedience, wherein «the consecrated person has placed her liberty in God’s hands so that he can decide what is best. He does so through human instruments.»
Another of the speakers, however, Ángeles Conde, also of the Regnum Christi movement, characterized means of communication as the «new areopagi.»
«Just as the first generation of Christians made an effort to meet the pagan and Roman environment,» she said, «we must make the effort to meet the culture.»
