Indian Church needs some urgent media skills
Three different media incursions have undermined the good will the Church enjoys among the public.
Augustine J. Veliath
The Catholic Church in India is badly in need of lessons in media management.
In the recent past, three different media incursions have undermined the good will the Church enjoys among the public. The Church’s response to the media continues to be inadequate.
The First one is Sr. Abhaya, a young nun who was brutally murdered in her convent premises in 1992. She keeps popping up in the media every other week for all the wrong reasons.
The Church’s reaction has been knee jerk, unplanned, unconvincing and almost always counter productive. This is also a case where the hierarchy has taken a back seat and pushes a lay person forward to respond to the media. No one knows where the hierarchy stands on this case.
You cannot fight media with passion. You cannot get away with attributing motives to every writer and every media house more so when the source of information is the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or the High Court.
You need to fight misinformation with facts. There is no point in threatening people with legal action or defamation. Where legation action is appropriate, the people affected go ahead and issue the legal notices and file the cases and then let media know. We cannot go too far with playing on the word Lousy or Lucy.
The CBI is not infallible. In fact CBI had blundered and contradicted itself many times over in this case. The best place to face CBI is the courts and not the media. Sr Abhaya’ case can only be fought in the judiciary and no where else.
The world has forgotten it is the sisters themselves who asked for CBI enquiry in the first place.
It is time the hierarchy in Kerala and India took charge and made policy direction on this case and saw this case through, defending those who deserved legal defense and ensuring justice prevailed.
The second case is .......................
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