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The tyranny of the immediacy of news

October 17, 2016

Coupled with the reflection that Maria Inez, Superior General of the Daughters of Jesus, gave us on YouTube last August, around the feast of St. Candida on “communication” – on what we should really communicate, the aim of communication –, the reflection of Father José María Rodríguez Olaizola SJ these days on “how easy it is to enter into the tyranny of the immediacy of news” made me think a lot. So much more if we are dedicated to communication in any of the services provided in this field. One has to react quickly. Indeed, one has to prepare everything so that as soon as there is a story we can provide a wealth of data, opinions, and assessments. We must try to raise expectations, create trends, seize the moment … But then it is very easy to abuse words, to try to report what does not yet exist, to diagnose and pass immediate verdicts for issues that necessarily require the filter of time …”
And these days, we have been able to feel it clearly with a story that touched us closely and which we were expecting “regarding the appointment of the new Father General of the Society of Jesus. There were conjectures of all kinds. Some people were already talking about the person itself of Father Arturo Abascal Sosa SJ, and well in advance as a Jesuit with a track record in the Society of Jesus. It must be a General from Latin America, no, it must be from the East, in the end …
Just 24 hours had passed and biographical sketches had already appeared everywhere. It struck me very much, listening in a trufi [a kind of shared taxi in Bolivia] in Cochabamba; a few hours after the news broke, on my way to the city center. All at once a radio station was telling passengers (it was just me at the time) who this Jesuit was, what studies he had, why he was called the Black Pope, where he was from and what was expected from him. When I asked the driver which station he was listening to, he could not say. Rather he was surprised at my interest, for he had no idea of anything. And his answer in the form of a question was, are they talking about a very important person in Bolivia? He had never heard of the name! …
“And already, almost from the day of his election, reports are being read on how his generalate will be. Based on his previous career path, the little or the much they know of him, the expectations, and perhaps the enthusiasm of the writer as well”. Because this is another point to analyze …
It is very reasonable to admit, not only in this but in many other news we receive, that we do not know how things will turn out. Returning to the Society of Jesus concerning “this generalate”, probably not even those who have participated in the vote to elect him know the future. Jose María notes. “They know what they have seen in him, what has been most valued in their deliberations, and even which expectations he seems to fulfill best. But the reality is that, from there, what we all have to do (especially those of the Ignatian spirituality) is wait.” Why insist on making an agenda, for him and his team, based on our desires? Why doubt the Spirit’s action and the new paths along which it can lead people? When we do not even know anything about anything! … We also delight in feeling like costars of these same news, people who know it right, who have intuition, a critical eye, and we take pride in saying, “See, I already said”, anyway …
These anxious depths from which we continue to live almost unconsciously our being nervous people because of what is taking place so rapidly in the present society, as our good and dear friend Benjamin Gonzalez Buelta S.J. says it well, we have to calm them, to learn to wait, to internalize more, not to chart any path for people, irrespective of how little or how well we believe we know them… Indeed our great ecclesial commitment is to pray much – as they themselves, including Fr. Sosa SJ himself, have asked us – for him, for the Pope, and for the different leaders in the world, in different fields, and on whom important decisions rest.
I thank Rodríguez Olaizola S.J. very much for being so free in expressing what he feels and thinks and for helping us all to reflect, to calm down a little more, to know how to take a truly Christian attitude towards the action of the Spirit, which is certainly unexpected.

Teresa Ramírez fi

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