In this age, no other powerful tool can be compared to media. It is the most important means of getting across the message to the people around the globe. This means of communication can be in any forms like television, radio, tabloid, internet and cellular phones. No person in this world is free from the influence of media. Even the most secluded and private of a person cannot escape from its reality.
The Church in her mission of fulfilling the mandate of the Lord by going out to the whole world and preach about Him is exhausting all the means available on media. It is of great help to the Church in fulfilling the mandate given to her by Jesus. Thus the Church benefits from the means of media. On the other hand, media also benefits from her by making her its guide to what is right and what is wrong. It becomes the vanguard of truth.
People, since they are the subjects of the Church’s mission, expect that kind of standard, i.e. to be examples of what all should be. Though all are equals in the eyes of God, but prime importance are anticipated from these leaders who preach every now and then the real message of Christian life. Much as people who look toward them as their guide, they are now misguiding the people.
As an avid reader of the Catholic Herald, a weekly local newspaper of the city, bias in relaying simple information happen. Since I have come from one of the theological seminaries in this group of islands of Mindanao, I cannot help but express my dismay that the newspaper, supposed to be an example of equality, does not show fairness by introducing the names of these institutions, where young men of certain dioceses get ordained are graduated. The writers only focus on the seminary of DADITAMA where majority of the shepherds of Mindanao studied there.
It is not wrong to patronize one’s own seminary. But the driving point of this article is, why not treat all these religious institutions on the same footing. When God calls young men to be his future servants, he establishes the seminary as the seed bed of their vocation. All the seminaries throughout the world are God’s own design to nurture the scattered seeds in the hearts of these aspirants. In fact, it is the apple of the eye of the local Church. But by using the media as means of communicating the Word of God should transcend the focus of being locale. Mentioning these other institutions does not harm one’s own seminary. Competing against other religious institutions is totally out of the picture and never in God’s sight, lest the newspaper appears to be the source of division in the Church.
