Freedom for journalists is freedom for all, pope tells media workers

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Communication is something divine with the power "to build -- build communities, build up the church," Pope Francis told thousands of journalists and people working in media and communication.

"To know how to communicate displays great wisdom," he said in brief remarks during an audience in the Paul VI Audience Hall Jan. 25.

He encouraged participants in the Jan. 24-26 Jubilee of the World of Communications to remember that it is not enough to communicate the truth, they also must be true and authentic people in their hearts and in the way they live their lives.

The midday encounter came after thousands of the pilgrims walked through the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica and made the profession of faith at the tomb of St. Peter, and after the pope had had a full morning of meetings.

The pope held up his written speech and said, "I have in my hands a nine-page speech" and "at this time of day when the stomach starts rumbling, to read nine pages would be torture."

He gave the prepared text to Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, to be distributed and published.

In his text, the pope made an urgent appeal for the release of unjustly imprisoned journalists, which, according to Reporters without Borders in 2024, numbered more than 500 people.

"The freedom of journalists increases the freedom of us all," he wrote, asking those with the power to do so to release during the Jubilee Year those who were detained merely "for wanting to see with their own eyes and for trying to report what they have seen."

Freedom of the press and freedom of thought must be "defended and safeguarded along with the fundamental right to be informed," the pope wrote.

Without "free, responsible and correct information," he wrote, "we risk no longer distinguishing truth from lies; without this, we expose ourselves to growing prejudices and polarizations that destroy the bonds of civil coexistence and prevent fraternity from being rebuilt."

"We need media literacy," his text said, "to educate ourselves and to educate others in critical thought, the patience of discernment necessary for knowledge, and to promote the personal growth and active participation of every one of us in the future of our own communities."

"We need courageous entrepreneurs, courageous information engineers, so that the beauty of communication is not corrupted," he wrote. "Great change cannot be the result of a multitude of sleeping minds but rather begins with the communion of enlightened hearts."

"Not all stories are good, and yet these too must be told," he wrote. "Evil must be seen in order to be redeemed, but it is necessary to be told well so as not to wear out the fragile threads of cohabitation."

The pope's text also reflected on the talks given before his arrival by Maria Ressa, a Filipino-American journalist who was awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with a Russian journalist for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, and Colum McCann, an Irish writer and co-founder and president of Narrative 4, an international educational NGO. The two speakers had both been given loud, long applause and a standing ovation for their talks.

"This Jubilee comes at a time when the world is upside down: when what's right is wrong; and what's wrong is right," Ressa said in her speech.

An MIT study showed in 2018 that "lies spread six times faster on social media," and if a lie is told enough times, "it becomes a fact. If you make people believe lies are facts, then you can control them," she said.

"Without facts, you can't have truth. Without truth, you can't have trust. Without these three, we don't have a shared reality" and "we can't have journalism; we can't have democracy," much less "solve existential problems like climate change," she added.

"Information warfare," Ressa said, is a "geopolitical power play (that) is exploiting these platforms' design. Remember, the goal is not to make you believe one thing; it's to make you doubt everything, so you're paralyzed."

Religion and faith are more important than ever for fighting back because of what they hold in common with the golden rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," she said.

There are four things people in the world of media and communication can do, she said: collaborate; speak truth with moral clarity; protect the most vulnerable and prevent the normalization of hate; and "recognize your power" driven by love.

"Hope is not passive; it's active, relentless and strategic. Our faith traditions carry centuries of resilience; we need to share those stories of transformation," she said.

McCann said in his speech that "stories matter. They can change the course of history. They can rescue us. Stories are the glue that hold us together: we are nothing if we can't communicate."

When people share who they are and then listen generously in turn, it reminds everyone of their shared humanity, he said.

"The crux of our contemporary dilemma is not so much silence, as it is the act of silencing," which happens "when we refuse to listen to the stories of others, or more poignantly, when we refuse to let others tell their stories at all" or "annihilate" their stories, he said.

A refusal to hear the stories of "those who don't look like us, or sound like us, or vote like us, is at the core of our possible doom," he said.

McCann encouraged teachers and journalists to use storytelling, "not something designed to win an argument, but something that stirs the soul," as a path to repair what is broken in the world.

"Young people soon realize -- through personal storytelling -- that we are so much more alike than we are different" and "we recognize one another's common humanity."

Just being interested in one another is a triumph, he said. "Imagine how many triumphs come about when we learn to understand, or even like, or maybe even love, one another."

Storytelling and story listening may or may not save the world, he said, but it will let in "a ray of light and understanding" to pierce the darkness.