Pope Warns of Emphasis on Sex, Violence

Pope John Paul II warned filmmakers, broadcasters and editors Friday against what he called mind-bending mass media messages that “give the impression that the life of man is regulated only by the laws of sex and violence.”

The pontiff particularly singled out the influences of television, which he said have led to “videodependence” among the young.

In an open letter that highlighted the Roman Catholic Church’s “19th World Communications Day,” he said that the imagination . . . dries up in the glut of images absorbed so effortlessly and a habit of indolence is formed.”

He admonished Roman Catholics to “denounce shows and programs which assault the moral good of the young,” and urged the mass media to develop and use their “immense potential for good.”

But he emphasized “the grave threats which the mass media can hold over society--if bent to the purposes of power or self-interest, or if used with the intention of distortion against the truth, against the dignity of man.”

‘Aggressive Advertising’

Writing of what he called videodependence, the Pope warned against media messages that are “slipped in undercover of ever more explicit and aggressive advertising, or introduced in shows which give the impression that the life of man is regulated only by the laws of sex and violence.”

Such uses of the media cultivate “a culture of the temporary which favors the rejection of long-term commitments,” he wrote.

“Information cannot remain indifferent to values which touched human existence down to the roots, such as the primacy of life from the moment of its conception,” he proclaimed in an evident reference to the media’s role concerning abortion.

The Pope added that “information cannot be neutral in the face of problems and situations which on the national and international levels damage the connective fabric of society, such as war, violation of human rights, poverty, violence, drugs.”

The Polish-born pontiff, who lived most of his life under Nazi and Soviet totalitarianism, lamented the lack of information experienced by many people “because they are subjugated by authoritarian regimes, suffocated by ideological systems, manipulated by a totalitarian science and technique.”