"The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message"
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John Paul II frames evangelization less as a problem of belief and more as a problem of bandwidth. The sly pivot is in what he refuses to debate: not whether "the man in the street" is capable of faith, but whether the Church is capable of modern delivery. It is a subtly flattering move toward the laity (they can grasp it) and a bracing indictment of institutional lag (the Church may not be reaching them). In that reversal sits the quote's intent: to shift anxiety away from secularized audiences and toward the Church's own communicative competence.
The phrase "communications media" does heavy lifting. It signals a Church learning to treat television, radio, and mass culture not merely as threats or distractions but as contested territory where meaning is made. John Paul II's pontificate was defined by images as much as encyclicals: the charismatic pilgrim pope, the carefully staged crowds, the ability to turn a visit into an event. This line reads like the theological rationale for that instinct.
"Full impact of the Gospel message" is the subtextual tell. It's not neutral information transfer; it's persuasion, encounter, a desired affective force. The aim isn't to simplify doctrine to fit the medium, but to harness the medium so doctrine can hit with undiluted intensity. There's tension embedded here: the Gospel as countercultural truth, and the Church borrowing the tools of mass culture to broadcast it. John Paul II is betting that technique need not corrupt content, even as he acknowledges that, in modern life, the medium increasingly determines what feels real.
The phrase "communications media" does heavy lifting. It signals a Church learning to treat television, radio, and mass culture not merely as threats or distractions but as contested territory where meaning is made. John Paul II's pontificate was defined by images as much as encyclicals: the charismatic pilgrim pope, the carefully staged crowds, the ability to turn a visit into an event. This line reads like the theological rationale for that instinct.
"Full impact of the Gospel message" is the subtextual tell. It's not neutral information transfer; it's persuasion, encounter, a desired affective force. The aim isn't to simplify doctrine to fit the medium, but to harness the medium so doctrine can hit with undiluted intensity. There's tension embedded here: the Gospel as countercultural truth, and the Church borrowing the tools of mass culture to broadcast it. John Paul II is betting that technique need not corrupt content, even as he acknowledges that, in modern life, the medium increasingly determines what feels real.
Quote Details
| Topic | Faith |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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