"Building the Civilisation of Love in a media-driven world" a talk given by Fr Richard Aladics, 23rd April 2008, at St Patrick's, Soho.

Trying to respond to the Gospel in a media-driven world needs grace, discernment and courage. The influence of the media only began to dawn on me when I was at seminary in Spain. I saw in Spain something that I had never witnessed before – going into a Spaniard’s house and seeing a family at home, with the television on, very loudly, in the corner of living room, but with no one paying any attention to it. At home, if you spoke while the telly was on you were shushed into silence. In the Spanish home, there may have been drama happening on the television, but there was a greater drama happening among the family – greater because it was a real life, not virtual living.

Here lies the heart of the issue for a media-based culture: which is the greater – the value of our own lives or the value of the media’s interpretation of them? Yes, it’s society which sets the agenda, but the media is society’s mirror – it looks at us and we look at it, and in our part of the world, we give it great attention – more attention, I would suggest, than it deserves.

I grew up passing each week, on our way home from shopping, the BBC Radio Leeds building near the University. On its façade was a huge concrete “coat of arms” with the proud motto “Nation shall speak peace unto Nation”. I saw these words each week and, as a little boy, wondered what they meant. Older now, I am aware of how secular Britain has always wanted to be first. First in the world as the leader of the Industrial Revolution; our bridges, our locomotives, our ships were the best in the world. We weren’t bothered about the conditions of the miners and workers and their children upon whose lives and deaths so much was achieved. We have wanted to be the leader in the world in reproductive technologies and in embryo research, unconcerned about the value of the human lives that will be destroyed in order to achieve our goals, or the effect that this will have upon persons and upon society. And today we want to be at the forefront of the media empire in reproducing reality in a way which is more alluring, and in which the new secular orthodoxy of technology and pragmatism is embedded. And the secular British media is applauded throughout the world for its competence. Our secular media is at the cutting edge in terms of creating culture and images which are models for living. Its images are constructed on the basis of simulation such that no origin of meaning can be found within in them. The secular imagination has today replaced the need for God. The secular media today is at the forefront of banishing God from society. Living alongside this kind of media is a real issue for everyone, follower of Christ or otherwise. In what way do I measure my life according to the secular media? Where is its foothold in my life? All of these are open questions and very hard to answer.