Vatican, 21 October, 2022 / 7:55 pm (ACI Africa).
The Vatican’s Secretary of State told employees and collaborators of EWTN this week that the truth must be “fearlessly upheld” with a merciful and listening style.
Speaking at a dinner in Frascati, Italy, Oct. 19, Cardinal Pietro Parolin recalled the words of Mother Angelica, the founder of EWTN, who said, “You cannot go to heaven hating someone. Forgive now. Be compassionate now. Be patient and grateful now.”
Parolin said the Catholic media should not spread hate, but “promote a non-hostile communication.”
“The truth, and the values deriving from it, must be fearlessly upheld,” he continued. “This proclamation, however, should be formulated in a merciful style by those who patiently listen to the women and men of our time, who walk with them, even making themselves the interpreters of their suffering and their concerns.”
The secretary of state, who is the second most powerful person in the Vatican after the pope, addressed EWTN during the global Catholic television network’s seventh European affiliates meeting.
Parolin underlined that “truth, for us Christians, is a Person, the Person of Jesus Christ who, as St. Paul says, holds all things together.”
“It is this encounter that ensures that communication does not remain simply a profession which conveys information but that understands and sets this responsibility within a broader horizon than the albeit important dissemination of news,” he said.
The cardinal recalled Mother Angelica’s saying, “it is our duty to speak the truth, and each person can either assume or not assume this duty. But the truth must above all be within us.”
“We should always keep this statement in mind and have the same awareness: the truth does not belong to us — we serve the truth,” Parolin commented. “And we can serve it only in love and in unity.”
