By accepting the world’s mass-media language, the Church was compelled to submit to its rules.
The aim of the Church is the proclamation of the Truth, whatever it costs, while in the universe of the mass-media, the aim of the message is not the transmission of the truth, but only the diffusion of the message itself.
But the message, at times, is spread more widely when it hides or deforms a truth, and the success of the communication prevails over the truth of the message communicated.
Since the means is the message, in the final analysis, the scene is dominated by the means of communication, which communicate only themselves.
In philosophical terms, they are not interested in what Kant would have called the thing in itself, the “noumenon”, but the phenomenon. What is “true” is only that which is communicated and to what extent the message is diffused.
What are the fruits of this pastoral change? The most evident and sensational is in the crisis of the priesthood. To give an example, in France on the eve of the Council, almost a thousand priests were ordained each year. In 2010 there were 88 priests ordained, less than 10 percent of what took place way back then.
But going beyond the numbers, what is evident and palpable is the crisis in spirituality, which is expressed in the substitution of contemplation with that of the primacy of action. The majority of priests today are affected by the disease of “doing” , in other words, of a frenetic activism which makes them forget prayer and adoration.
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