The first he describes as the Gutenberg crisis. By this he means the reaction of the 1950's against a notional and intellectual faith that lacked spiritual roots and personal force. The second he describes as the rapid penetration of the media and human studies into all areas of life which has led to the rapid de-structuring of faith's intellectual foundations. This has resulted in the rejection of dogmatic and cultic formulas which are no longer in tune with society linked to a search for religion that is fundamentally searching for meaning and for the absolute. Babin says that the faith of young people today is nourished not by dogma but by fundamental forms and impulses of the imagination (:30). He goes on to explain that for many young people faith has taken on a Dionysiac4 foundation. People today rely on powerful visual and auditory sensations and search for 'everything at the same time'. Claude Santelli, a television producer, says 'Speaking the language of television is making people accept ideas through their emotions' (:32). From the linear and cerebral means introduced by the Gutenberg revolution we now seem, in our multi- media environment, to see once again the imaginative and emotional approach (unsystematic and non-dogmatic) being re-introduced. Electronic media has changed our communication system. Everything is affected by it - places, times, those addressed by it, those who are broadcasting, the methods, outcomes and the entire functioning of authority.
same winds of change which favoured evangelism and vernacular sermons also threatened prerogatives long held and cherished by conservative prelates.
The printing press was also used within the Church itself. Liturgical texts could be written and published which insisted on uniformity in liturgy. Theologians of past centuries such as Thomas Aquinas, had their works printed and were dispersed and used in colleges throughout Europe. Practices like prayer and meditation were written about and were now widely available and no longer just the property of convents and monasteries. The catechism was printed and travelled through the world and was the single most influential tool in the hand of the Church in the task of religious education.
It is interesting to note that the Vatican only established a Pontifical Commission which would be responsible for examining issues relating to media in 1948. Encyclical letters had been written on issues pertaining to media before this.5 The Commission was set up by Pope Pius XII to examine films on religious or moral subjects and this small Commission was to begin a new phase in the history of the Church's pastoral and cultural activity. The Commission was to examine the education and pastoral problems of the audiovisual era which was just coming into being. The Church realised that action was necessary and they were to study the problems and issues raised by motion pictures as a whole and engage bishops and all believers in a response to the changed conditions of society.
The original council evolved into the Pontifical Commission for Cinema in 1952 and experts were recruited from various nations to look at and study pastoral problems related to the development of modern techniques in the entertainment world. In 1954 the name of the Commission was once again changed to the Pontifical Commission for the Cinema, Radio and Television. The Commission was enlarged and divided into three sections:
films, radio, and television. Working groups were set up to prepare material required by
5 Divini lllius Magistri, Pope Pius XI, 21 December, 1929 & Vigilanti Cura, Pope Pius XI, 29 June 1936.
Pope Pius XII for his address on The Ideal Film and his encyclical letter Miranda Prorsus on the motion picture, radio and television, published on the 8th September 1957.
On the 5th June 1960 a preparatory secretariat for the press and the entertainment world was set up within the Pontifical Commission's twelve preparatory organs for the Second Vatican Council. It was the task of this secretariat to identify the problems raised by the press and the audiovisual media. While recognizing the individual character of each sector, it was to assemble all this material into a single study which would leave room for future developments in which the different instruments of social communication, as they were called from then on, would find their proper place and receive due consideration within the Church's renewed ministry. On the 4th December 1963 the Council degree Inter Mirifica was promulgated. It was significant that Vatican II dedicated special and far-seeing attention to this sector. Without waiting for the end of the Council, Pope Paul VI, on the 2nd of April 1964, transformed the existing Commission into the Pontifical Commission for Social Communications, responsible for dealing with the all the problems raised by the cinema, radio, television, and the daily and periodical press in relation to the interests of the Catholic Church. It was only on the 1st March 1989 that the Pontifical Commission for Social Communications became the Pontifical Council for Social Communications and therefore, an office of the Roman Curia in its own right. This was promulgated by Pope John Paul II in an apostolic constitution Pastor Bonus6; Pope John Paul II says in Pastor Bonus:
The Pontifical Council for Social Communications is involved in questions regarding the means of social communication, so that, also by these means, human progress and the message of salvation may benefit secular culture and mores (169).
The Pontifical Council for Social Communications has, since this time, been the body through which all documents and commentary on the Church and media have been released.
6 Promulgated by John Paul II at the consistory on the 28th June 1988.