on the part of the church precisely because of the thick parish communities in which people lived. As the century progressed, ecclesial perspectives on media and communications would continue to point out both the positives and negatives of media. They would also more explicitly draw upon an incarnational perspective for their understanding of communications itself. With regard to church, they would continue to make suggestions for the diocesan and parish levels, but would extend the ecclesial vision of Miranda Prorsus by emphasizing the role of the media in the themes of the common good and solidarity.
Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Ecclesial Perspectives
A mere six years after Miranda Prorsus, the Second Vatican Council produced Inter Mirifica, the Decree on the Means of Social Communication. This document is important for several reasons. First, it introduces the phrase “social communications,” which is an acknowledgment of the relative insufficiency of “media” or “mass media.” This is immensely helpful for applying its ideas to current technologies like the internet.27 Secondly, it establishes a World Day of Communications,28 which becomes an annual occasion for the current pope to give some commentary, however brief, on the issue of communications technology. Thirdly, it ensures that social communications will remain a focus for the church by proposing a “special office of the Holy See” on the topic. This will later become the Pontifical Commission for Social Communications, responsible for some of the most important (and theologically rich) ecclesial commentary on media and communications to date.
Despite these developments, Inter Mirifica remains, in the words of John O’Malley, “virtually forgotten.”29 Discussion of the decree was remarkably short and “many felt that the council was wasting its time discussing mass communications.”30 Even by those who did not share this view, the final document was not entirely well received. Three American journalists—John Cogley (Commonweal), Robert Kaiser (Time and Life), and Michael Novak (The New Republic)—released a statement calling the document “hopelessly abstract” and one “that may be cited as a classic example of how the Second Vatican Council failed to come to grips with the world around it.”31 One way to interpret the place of the decree in the context of the council as a whole is that it is an early product of the council and as such, does not reflect the characteristic “voice” of later documents.32 Specifically, while the title of the document reflects an “openness and wonder,” the document itself “seems at times more like a laying down of rules.”33
Admitting obvious differences in tone from later conciliar documents, it is important to note that Inter Mirifica begins with an optimistic statement not unlike those found in the other documents produced by the Second Vatican Council: “Man’s genius has, with God’s help, produced marvelous technical inventions from creation, especially in our times.”34 What follows is a sort of “updated” version of the cautious tone of Miranda Prorsus and Vigilanti Cura. The church is aware of the possibilities of social communications, “but the Church also knows that man can use them in ways that are contrary to the Creator’s design and damaging to himself.”35 Unlike Miranda Prorsus, which is organized by type of media, Inter Mirifica focuses on what the drafters have deemed to be the most relevant aspects of these media for social communications: information, art and the moral law, public opinion, and the role of civil authorities. The document continues the focus of its predecessors on morality to the media that are its subject, but does more to outline the creative possibilities of the media in question. The document expresses great confidence in the role of information in the modern world: “If news or facts and happenings is communicated publicly and without delay, every individual will have permanent access to sufficient information and thus will be enabled to contribute effectively to the common good.”36
The document goes on to establish the absolute primacy of the objective moral order, which is “superior to and is capable of harmonizing all forms of human activity, not excepting art, no matter how noble in themselves.”37 Once again, we might be tempted to move quickly past such pronouncements as woefully nostalgic of a time and place when and where the church had social capital to exercise such authority; pluralism, among other cultural dynamisms, has long precluded such influence. However, there is an interesting assumption at work in this section of the document. Instead of sequestering media to a realm of neutrality from which the church can then pull for its own uses, it is quite clear here that the church sees all of human activity within the purview of its moral care. The language that Inter Mirifica uses here is notably stronger than earlier ecclesial statements. The council fathers write, “It is the Church’s birthright to use and own any of these media which are necessary or useful for the formation of Christians and for pastoral activity.”38 Thus even in a tone that reflected previous approaches to the pastoral uses of media, Inter Mirifica moved toward a more integrated view of the relationship between the church and media.39
Once again, the implication is that media are neither neutral tools nor essentially evil spaces into which the church must interject itself. Instead, Inter Mirifica and the earlier papal encyclicals present a view of these media as constitutive of both creation and of human activity. This is an immensely important assumption for any theologically informed commentary on modern media and technology. Theologians and pastors would do well to remember the church’s position here, developing steadily in these documents from Vigilanti Cura onward.
While Inter Mirifica is important for establishing the terms for the ecclesial discussion of social communications, the discussion is taken up more fully by the Pontifical Commission for Social Communications’ Pastoral Instruction, Communio et Progressio in 1971. This document details the various topics introduced by Inter Mirifica, specifically public opinion, freedom of information, and the relationship between and roles of “communicators” and “recipients.” In some ways, public opinion foregrounds the entire discussion of social communications in Communio et Progressio. The document understands “the means of social communications” as “a public forum where every man may exchange ideas.”40 Public opinion is a reflection of the exercise of various freedoms, including freedom of speech and freedom of information. One cannot form an opinion without access to accurate and timely information: “Freedom of opinion and the right to be informed go hand in hand.”41 This right carries the duty of being well-informed. According to the text, a person “can freely choose whatever means best suit his needs both personal and social.”42 Such freedoms, however, are not “limitless” and must be seen in the context of other rights, namely “the right of truth,” “the right of privacy,” and “the right of secrecy which obtains if necessity or professional duty or the common good itself requires it.”43 Consequently, the various actors within the means of social communications have particular freedoms and duties associated with their roles, be they “communicators” or “recipients.”
If any aspect of these two documents is problematic for the application of ecclesial sources to the contemporary technological moment, it is these categories of “communicators” and “recipients.” They are particularly illustrative of a view of media that understands them as the conduits of products (news pieces, programs, texts, etc.) by one group of people (communicators) to be consumed or received by the other (recipients). Such is the standard understanding of “mass media”: media that is intended for and distributed to large masses of people. The concept of “social communications” provided by Inter Mirifica and expanded by Communio et Progressio is somewhat able to capture the dynamism of communications technologies beyond mass media. The communicator/recipient binary, however, is less helpful given the fluidity of such roles in the internet age. User behavior online does not fall neatly into either of these categories. At one moment, I am a communicator, and the next, I am a recipient. Even more complicated is the fact that in one act, I can be both. Commenting on an online article is difficult to classify along the communicator/recipient binary. I am a communicator because I am producing text to be read by others, yet by commenting, I am displaying an interaction with the original article, performing my role as recipient. The inherent interactivity of online life, especially with the advent and growth of “social media,” betrays a problem with these categories
