VISIT TO
H.E. RENATO RAFFAELE CARDINAL
MARTINO
Remarks for the Press Conference
THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION AND THE RIGHT TO INFORM
I am pleased to meet with
journalists to reflect on a theme of great importance that is very much present
in the texts of the Church’s social magisterium: the theme of the right to information in the
context of modern democracies. Giving
rise to many misunderstandings with regard to information in modern
democracies, in fact, is perhaps the idea that the “right to information” means
only the “right to inform”. This is in
fact the case in free societies, the right to report news, the freedom of
journalistic expression and pluralism in the printed media are all defended
insofar as they are expressions of the right to inform. Nonetheless, the primary meaning of the
expression “the right to information” is, in my opinion, the right to be
informed. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, says that “Society has a right to information
based on truth, freedom, justice and solidarity” (No. 415). Of course, both rights —the right to inform
and the right to be informed — are complementary and mutually inclusive,
insofar as they are both expressions of one sole right, the right to seek the
truth. If, however, we were to ask which
of these rights is truly the original right and which instead is a means for
achieving the other, we would have to recognize that the original right is in
fact the right to be informed, and that the right to inform is derived from
this previous right and is to be understood as a “service”. It is a service to be carried out in freedom
and responsibility, but it remains always a service.
This is why the right to inform is
limited by the duty to inform, insofar as there exists an antecedent right to
be informed. In Western democracies,
emphasis is often — sometimes rightly and sometimes in an exaggerated fashion —
placed on the right of journalists and of the media to inform. At the same time, an important fact is
overlooked, the fact that this is not an absolute right, but a relative right
in service to the duty to inform citizens so that their right to be informed
may be respected. In other words, there
is no independent right to inform as one sees fit.
It follows from this that if information seeks
to offend and does not respect the dignity of the parties involved, it cannot
be held to be correct. Information of
this type is not “truthful”, insofar as it loses sight of the fact that, as
information, it always touches the deepest part of the person, who deserves
respect. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church in fact reminds us
that the purpose of informational systems is to make the human person truly
better, that is, “more
aware of the dignity of their humanity” No. 415). When information does not respect the person,
it shows that it does not understand itself as a service, and it does not
fulfil its duty to inform in the context of people’s right to be informed.
Satire too will oftentimes go beyond
these bounds. I am referring here to the
famous cartoon satires on Islam, but also to caricatures, to publicity and to
printed articles that denigrate Christianity and Christian symbols. In many cases, we are dealing here with
“information” that is extremely reprehensible because of its vulgarity and, I
would also say, because of the ideological stances that are hidden behind the
satire, behind the right to report news and behind the right to
information. His Holiness Pope Benedict
XVI, in his message for the 2006 World Day of Social Communications, had
criticism for information that “undervalues the specificity of cultural practices and the
particularity of religious belief” (No. 3).
Needless to say, fundamentalistic,
violent and murderous reactions to such “journalism” are to be condemned
unconditionally. When such reactions are
present, societies that enjoy freedom of expression and freedom of the press do
well to defend these values, insofar as they are held to be values that are
proper to man and, as such, natural rights of a universal character. These same societies, however, should also
seize the opportunity to reflect deeply on the fact that the freedom of the
press is not be understood as the right to inform in whatever manner one may
wish.
In Western democracies there is a
tendency to place greater emphasis on the right to inform rather than on the
right to be informed, as I noted initially, insofar as the starting point is
the idea of the freedom of the individual to express his or her own ideas and opinions. This is correct, but with the provision that
this freedom of expression must never place itself ahead of the truth and does
not therefore become the unrestrained freedom to do or say whatever one
pleases. In Western societies, the right
to report news is founded on pluralism, which in turn is based on
relativism. Pluralism in the news media is
correct, but pluralism based on relativism is a contradiction. For in this way, freedom of information is
seen as something absolute, but an absolute that is founded on something relative. This is one of the many aspects of the
“dictatorship of relativism” about which Pope Benedict XVI has spoken. This absolute freedom to do and say as one
wishes can unfortunately give rise to reprehensible responses that are equally
absolute on the part of those who are offended in their deepest convictions by
information that places no limits on itself.
It is then that we have a clash between an absolute relativism and an
absolute fundamentalism.
Faced with violence of a fundamentalistic
character, Western societies are called to make a correct reaffirmation of
freedom of thought, of speech and of opinion, together of course with the right
to inform. Laying claim to these values
linked to the dignity of the human person, Western societies should also
encourage a new awareness of the ethical limits to be placed on the freedom of
information, which is based not so much on individual rights as on the values
connected to human dignity. The right to
information is not a purely individualistic right to be exercised without
rules, and if free societies opt for this reductive understanding they will be
unable to react to new fundamentalisms, having as their only means of
opposition a right to inform that is based on the weakness of nothing.
Cardinal
Renato Raffaele Martino
President
of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace