As Catholics We Have A Duty to Inform Ourselves Correctly About Current Events

Many today -- even within the Church -- are completely opposed to one another on topics such as the environment, the complentarity of men and women, sexual morality, and caring for the needy. While holding different views is normal and healthy, today's level of confrontation has reached a ferrocity that is unhealthy and dangerous. We see people committing acts of extreme violence over these conflicts, even to the point of assassination attempts, some of which have unfortunately succeeded. There is nothing in our American principles or in the writings of the Founding Fathers that even begins to condone such actions. I would like to discuss how this extremism came into our society, and our Christian responsibility as Catholics in the matter.

"What is it?"
The root of the problem, without a doubt, is spiritual. I am always amazed at how the letters of St. Paul written 2,000 years ago describe exactly the same attitudes and actions that we witness today -- that they are essentially the result of people's willful rejection of God. So, while Scripture and the Church consistently teach that killing the innocent is absolutely contrary to God's will and that acts of sexual immorality are gravely wrong, a contrary stream of thought has entered our media, our schools and our churches saying, for example, that abortion and homosexual relationships are to be condoned. It's a stream of thinking in open rebellion against Scripture and the traditional teaching of the Church.
We were actually warned about this, over 100 years ago, when Our Blessed Mother told the children of Fatima that Satan's deceptions in Christian Russia (1917) would begin to spread throughout the world unless Russia were consecrated to Her Immaculate Heart for its spiritual protection. Sadly, the requested consecration was not done in time, and Communism's atheism and murderous violence have been pushed into virtually every country in the world with varying degrees of acceptance. In our own nation, a 1953 Congressional hearing revealed that Russia had been pouring Communist agents into our media, schools, government and seminaries since the 1930s. Their revolutionary thinking was quickly adopted by many of America's elite over the intervening decades and are now thriving here. An internet search on the phrase "45 Goals of Communism" demonstrates how extremely effective their indoctrination has been: concepts hostile to God, family and nation that were absolutely unthinkable when I was growing up in the 1950s are now in the mainstream.
The common euphemism for this revolutionary stream of thought is "progressivism;" but what has been pushed into our society and culture is not progress but a deliberately destructive force. In the 1960s, the popular saying was, "Get with it!" -- in other words, join in and go along with the new flow. But Blessed Fulton Sheen's response to that was, emphatically, "What is IT?" He knew the Communists' doctrine and their tricks. Yet it is precisely this false doctrine, this atheistic and anti-American belief system that has captured much of the news media today.

Our Duty as Christians
Consider this: choosing to be informed by a media source that has evidence of being strongly and wrongly biased against another person is a form of slander against that person. Am I really permitted to feed on media sources that suggest that violence be done against any person? Certainly not. A number of years ago I was in a situation where I felt such anger against the policies and actions of a former president that I was beginning to entertain a degree of hatred towards him and members of his administration. Then one day in prayer God gently reminded me that I must not hate the person, but rather his unjust policies and speech. It was a lesson that I have continued to heed and obey. If in today's hostile climate we find ourselves feeding on news media or social media that encourages hatred for anyone, we are not only participating in slander, but potentially something far worse. As American citizens, we are allowed several means of voicing our strong objections. But as Christians, hateful thoughts, words or deeds must be excluded. We all need to avoid media personalities on the left or on the right who are extremely biased or who refer to public figures in derogatory and hateful terms.
Similarly we should avoid news sources which have a track record of being totally incorrect in their analysis of current events. For decades, big media has been telling us that aborting babies in the womb is a 'right' for women. They've said that in its earliest stages an abortion is merely the removal of a "blob of cells" -- a clearly incorrect statement as both Scripture and authentic medical books and websites demonstrate. Big media has likewise been proven wrong in its blaring headlines that global warming was about to flood our coastlines by the year 2012; that there is a specific gene that causes homosexuality; that we do not know the underlying causes of poverty; that all of America is inherently 'racist.' Each of these narratives is demonstrably false, yet many people feed on them because of their own personal biases and ill-formed consciences. Many of these people need to be healed of emotional and spiritual root causes of this, and to be properly informed.
A survey commissioned in the 1980s by an evangelistic organization asked the managers of the major news broadcast companies back then about their religious faith: 95% of them said they were atheists or agnostics! Would you go to a group of atheists for advice on how to live your life or make life's most important decisions? Yet many of our fellow Catholics are doing just that! We need to take stock of whom we choose to listen to. We have a Christian duty to check out who we are allowing to shape our opinions and our thinking -- especially given today's hostile political climate.
Fortunately today there are a number of alternative media outlets to choose from. Many of them reflect faith and family, and most of their news analysis turns out to be on target when tested over time. I frequently go to these outlets* for their proven accuracy and civility. And the people who operate and appear on these networks are generally men & women of devout Christian faith, many of them Catholic. Unfortunately, even these good conservative networks can sometimes feature a personality who voices hateful speech, but for the most part they strive to avoid this.

Conclusion
The Letter of James in the New Testament instructs us about how to pray effectively: "You do not have, because you do not ask; you do not receive what you ask for because you ask wrongly." Let us ensure that our minds and our prayers are centered on what is right and what is true. Let us not be misinformed but well-informed; this is our duty as Christians and as good Americans.
Dave Valone
September 29, 2026
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* [NOTE: I watch & read Just The News, Epoch Times, Real America's Voice and One America News.  - DJV]