Those who espouse Christian values seldom get and should not expect much support from the mainstream media, according to newspaper columnist Mary Kenny.
At a seminar on the media in Ballina, Co Mayo, yesterday, Ms Kenny said that in a way it was alien for a Christian to participate in the media, as newspapers were not essentially about "good news" - the true meaning of evangelism - but about bad news.
The seminar, at the Newman Institute, marked the opening of the Mayo Centre for Media and Communications, which aims to improve the relationship between the media and the Catholic Church.
"The newspaper industry is about the fallen nature of man, in which we all share," said Ms Kenny. "Malcolm Muggeridge was the ultimate tutor in this subject: he always said that a Christian in the media is like a vicar playing the piano in a brothel. He might occasionally get to play Abide with Me, but he's still in the bordello."
She said any Christian media forum should focus on moral and ethical debates which would confront us in the new millennium, such as the issues related to the biological revolution that was taking place. There was very little public debate about, for example, human cloning and other developments in reproductive technology.
The media response to Archbishop Desmond Connell's recent address was "deplorable, one-sided and small-minded. It almost wholly failed to take on board the fact that the question of `planned children' is not just about the single issue, contraception; it is about the technological management of the production of people, and the `quality control' of individuals by invasive methods.
"Fathering by sperm catalogues and motherhood by egg surrogacy and womb renting are already widely practised in the US, Britain, Australia and elsewhere. These developments touch profoundly on the values that we have inherited from the JudaeoChristian tradition, and they must be addressed in a much more informed way."
She said the triumph of globalised capitalism over communism was not without its problems. One of globalised capitalism's assumptions was that everything, including reproduction, could be bought and sold. The president of the Newman Institute, Mr William Stainsby, said it was appropriate for the new centre to work to deepen the relationship between the media and the church, a development which would benefit both institutions. At the moment, he said, "the confidence of the media in the church and the church in the media is at a low ebb".
Working together, the church and the media could serve the people in their search for meaning and fulfilment. "Together, like two conjoined wings, they can help the human spirit to rise to the contemplation of what it means to be authentically human."