The Vatican’s Secretary of State told employees and colla-borators of EWTN this week that the truth must be “fearlessly upheld” with a merciful and list-ening style.
Speaking at a dinner in Fra-scati, Italy, Oct. 19, Cardinal Pietro Parolin recalled the words of Mother Angelica, the founder of EWTN, who said, “You can-not 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 co-mmunication.”
“The truth, and the values deriving from it, must be fear-lessly upheld,” he continued. “This proclamation, however, should be formulated in a merci-ful 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 glo-bal Catholic television network’s seventh European affiliates meet-ing. Parolin underlined that “tru-th, 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 per-son can either assume or not assu-me 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.”