I am a big fan of the Franciscan Archbishiop of Denver. Here’s a review of his most recent book (review also posted on amazon). Tom Faranda’s Folly: Latest Read: Render Unto Caesar
He was in NY a couple of days ago, receiving an award from the Becket Society, and gave a talk at the American Bible Society.
“The more sensory, immediate and emotional our culture becomes, the farther it gets from the habits of serious thought that sustain its ideals.”
Archbishop Chaput: Media culture and compromise undermining Christian life
“There has never been, and there never will be, a greater missionary for Jesus than St. Paul. Through Paul, the Gospel reached the world. And our job as believers today is to be Paul once again to the world around us.”
“If we’re serious when we claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, then we need to understand our own times as well as Paul did his,” he counseled the Bible Society members.
The archbishop said this can be a problem because “the tools we rely on to inform us are the same tools we use to delude ourselves about the real world.”
“The American news and entertainment media, which now so often overlap, are the largest catechetical syndicate in history,” he continued.
Saying the media has helped create a culture based on “immediacy, brevity, visual stimulation, celebrity and self-absorption,” he warned this has great implications for the Christian’s place in American society.
And here’s a suggestion he made that makes oh so much sense –
As a remedy, he advised Catholics to give up computers, televisions, cell phones, and iPods for “just one night” a week.
“One night a week spent reading, talking with each other, listening to each other and praying over Scripture. We can at least do that much. And if we do, we’ll discover that eventually we’re sober again and not drunk on technology and our own overheated appetites.”
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