Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra yesterday called on all media practitioners to promote what is noble and honorable and to encourage the public to take interest, and get involved in social issues especially where morality, good governance and accountability are concerned.

In his homily as the church marked the 42nd World Communication Day yesterday with a mass attended by members of the press, who joined a pilgrimage in relation to the Diamond Jubilee of the diocese, Navarra said those in the media should advance the cause of truth, decency and other wholesome social values by introducing models, whether rich or poor, regardless of social status whose life or achievement can inspire and attract people, especially the young.

At the mass that also marked Ascension Sunday yesterday, Navarra appealed to media practitioners to be instruments in the production, dissemination, preservation, defense and protection of publications, programs and quality-fiction that are geared towards truth, beauty and greatness of the person, including the religious dimension of the person.

Also in the congregation were 156 seminarians from the dioceses of Dumaguete, Kabankalan, Bacolod and San Carlos who are in the city to celebrate the 2nd Negros Diocesan Seminarians’ Festival.

Addressing the young levites, Navarra said they should not let the turmoils and setbacks of the church today overwhelm them and, instead, take everything as lessons and learn to “accept the reality of the church, the reality of the priests and their own reality”.

“Let the weaknesses and sinfulness of the church challenge you to put on Christ, his virtues, idealism and dreams for his church and his people so that each day of your formation will be a score of victory against your own weaknesses and sinfulness,” the bishop told them.

Quoting Pope Benedict XVI in his message for the celebration of the World Communication Day, Navarra said economic materialism and ethical relativism have engulfed society where everything, including people and human life, are treated like commodities for sale and for profit, and the standard of human behavior is no longer the laws of God but rather what caters to the senses because it is popular, more pleasurable and advantageous.

The bishop also called on the lay people, and all families, to be communicators of truth and the worth of Christian living, and to patronize clean, wholesome, and edifying media.

He also encouraged them to be vocation promoters by pledging prayers and acts of penance for the perseverance of the Seminarians and for more vocations to flood the seminaries.*NAB

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