The Media in Service of the Common Good in the Documents of the Catholic Church

Abstract

In the past century, especially since the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church increasingly questioned the social importance, the nature and the purpose of our means of social communication (the public media). This article examines what (post)conciliar documents, particularly Intermirifica, Communio et progressio and Aetatis novae, have stated concerning public communication and its role in promoting the common good. Aside from the fact that both highlight its irreplaceability in promoting moral values and achieving the goals of the common good, whereby the good of the individual must not be subordinated to social goals, there is an evident increasing insistence upon the moral responsibility of all participants in public communication. Moral responsibility is demanded in view of the goals and ultimate purpose of human communication which presupposes media literacy of the participants in the communication process. The author stresses the need for continual examination of the ethical use of the media, but is of the opinion that the media does not need a new ethics, rather it needs to apply perennial ethical principles in new circumstances.