Live two-way video communications have also helped keep family and friends connected when social isolation has taken a severe toll on individuals and communities. Certainly, during the pandemic, the televising of Mass and other communal forms of prayer has aided prayer and helped maintain a connection with the Church for those who have not had access to the sacraments. Used in moderation and especially when used for the good of communion with one another, modern media can be a great benefit. (We appreciate that our readers rely on the Register to inform them with daily news and analysis as told through the lens of the Catholic faith.) Likewise, there isn’t anything wrong with watching quality movies and sports via the entertainment media and connecting with friends, family and other people via social media. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with trying to remain up to date with current events via the news media. Similarly, Pope Francis discussed the perils of media overreliance in his recent encyclical, Fratelli Tutti. “A type of ‘fast’ also in this area could be healthy.” “In many families the television seems to substitute, rather than facilitate, dialogue among people,” he noted. John Paul II advised Catholics to turn off their TVs and talk with each other instead during that year’s Lent. Detaching from our electronics has been recommended by many spiritual guides over the course of the last century, ever since modern media began to assume their dominant role. Such a fast is not a novel idea, of course.
So here’s a proposal: Why not fast this year from this epic flood of information, by turning off our computers, cellphones, televisions and other electronic devices except when their use is truly necessary? Socially distanced from each other and sometimes locked down almost entirely, we have taken refuge in our homes only to be barraged there by the unremitting flow of disturbing information about the pandemic and about the political and social divisions that came into view before and after the fraught 2020 election - all delivered to us 24/7 via the wonders of modern electronic media. The last 12 months have seemed, for many, like an interminable “Long Lent.”įor the entire period, we have been enduring the collective hardships imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. Catholics can surely be forgiven if the prospect of taking on voluntary sacrifices during this year’s Lenten season seems considerably more daunting than usual.
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