Carlo Maria Martini
,
Ferruccio De Bortoli
Get out of the crowd Martini’s Pastoral Letters
Le lettere pastorali di Martini per un incontro tra Chiesa e mass media
1st edition June 2022
Series
ATTUALITÀ E STORIA
Size 14 x 21 cm
Also available in eBook format
Number of pages 240
CDU
95A 243
ISBN/EAN
9788892229082
GET OUT OF THE CROWD
Martini’s Pastoral Letters for a Meeting Between the Church and the Mass Media
Introduction by Ferruccio de Bortoli
In 1990 and 1991 Card. Carlo Maria Martini published two pastoral letters about the relationship between the Church and the mass media: Effatà and The Tassel on His Cloak. In these documents he recalls that “news” is not a commodity, it is a community, it must make us brothers and sisters, not enemies. In Effatà, the Cardinal proposes a sort of theology of communication taking its cue from the self-communication of God to human beings. In The Tassel on His Cloak, starting from a guessed and lively dialogue with the television, Martini traces the criteria for a communication that is respectful of the human reality and that, precisely for this reason, is able to become a tassel on a cloak, like in the Gospel tale of the bleeding woman. Or rather an instrument of education and growth. Reading again these texts today, ten years after Martini’s death and more than thirty after their publication, allows us to grasp their relevance and foresight, depth, and desire to understand the world around us, to ask ourselves what it means to communicate and make information and what position the Catholic Church wants to take in this context.
Jesus makes us attentive to the unique and unrepeatable value of each person and we, fascinated by the media, must never forget this fundamental evangelical value: the relationship between people. Even today, shaken by pandemic, war, climate crisis, threat of hunger worldwide, we must look at the world as a possibility of relationships.
Card. CARLO MARIA MARTINI (1927-2012), Jesuit and biblical scholar, has been archbishop of Milan from 1979 to 2002. In 1980, in his diocese, he started the practice of the School of the Word, inspired by the classic method of Lectio divina. A man of dialogue between religions, author of books appreciated all over the world, his culture and his studies have allowed him to speak to believers and non-believers and to attract many young people. For Edizioni San Paolo he has published many books. We can remember Elia; Samuele; Pietro; Giacobbe; Atti degli apostoli (all 2019); Stefano; Gli Apostoli; Timoteo; Gesù (all 2017); Abramo; Geremia; Il Padre Nostro; Paolo; I racconti della Passione (all 2016); Chiamò quelli che Egli volle (2015); Essere nelle cose del Padre (2014).
FERRUCCIO DE BORTOLI (Milan 1953) is one of the most authoritative voices in Italian journalism. Former director of the prestigious daily newspaper Corriere della Sera, since 2015 he has been president of the Longanesi publishing house. For Edizioni San Paolo he has published Consapevoli. Beati quelli che (in)formeranno persone (2014).
Selling points
• August 31, 2022 marks the 10th anniversary of Card. Martini’s death.
• A prophetic voice in the Church.
• Reflection on the use and abuse of the mass media.
A prophetic invitation to a conscious use of communication by Card. Martini.