Dialogue Worth Having

Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., who has been president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops since November, issued an invitation of sorts to the Catholic media—and it’s one Catholic New York will gladly accept.

What he suggested, in a well-received speech at last week’s Catholic Media Conference, is that Catholic media join the bishops in carving out a place for dialogue as we move into the digital frontier.

He called it a movement from “diatribe to dialogue,” and envisioned Catholic media as evangelizers who will be called on to influence this movement as it moves ahead in the coming years.

Like Archbishop Kurtz, we’re dismayed that the digital discourse is so full of diatribe, and agree that a major reason is that people can offer their opinions anonymously.

Too often, he said, opportunities for interactive dialogue in digital communication become “the scene of bitter, ugly comments that only tear down the faith rather than build it up.”

“This kind of communication does not further the new evangelization,” the archbishop said.

We agree completely. And, while we don’t see this turning completely around, we do think there’s plenty of room to chart some new paths if we recognize the challenge and take it up.

In his keynote address at the June 18 gathering in Charlotte, N.C., Archbishop Kurtz had some suggestions. One of them, and one that can apply to our daily lives even outside the framework of evangelizing, is that we must recover the listening skills we seem to have lost.

It’s ironic, he said, that people seem further apart from one another at a time when they have never before had such interconnectivity. But too often their attention is divided, like when they’re texting and checking email on their smart phones while having an in-person conversation.

In his own ministry in Louisville, the archbishop said, he has had positive outcomes with listening groups and focus groups that convene to brainstorm specific issues, including a feedback session about the very speech that he was delivering.

He suggested that such a brainstorming session of bishops and Catholic media might help develop ideas about how Catholic communicators can begin to transform the digital frontier—a suggestion we wholeheartedly endorse.

We understand, as the archbishop noted, that “moving from diatribe to dialogue and spanning the growing impersonal distance among users will take the best minds and hearts. It will take creativity and, surely, serene confidence…courage and calm.”

But that’s what Pope Francis calls all of us to do in his “culture of encounter,” and we join the pope and Archbishop Kurtz in encouraging Catholics to heed that call.

And as a Catholic media organization, we are ready to do our part to promote dialogue that will build up the faith, not tear it down.