Spiritually Toxic News
SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 2025
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7 min
Is it a sin to follow the news? Or to read commentators upon the news? Or to listen to podcasts that comment upon the commentators? Or to watch the YouTube videos of those picking apart the podcasts?
It’s Lent, the season for more than the usual number of Confessions. And this Lent, as has increasingly been the case over the last half-dozen years or so, more and more penitents are confessing that they are following the news.
They don’t put it exactly that way. They say that the news is making them angry, more apt to harbor resentments, to making rash judgments, to indulging prejudices, to cultivating ill will, to rejoicing in the misfortune of others – even to wishing harm upon those who disagree. All this is directed at people they have never personally met – this political leader, that famous personage.
For those penitents who know the language, they speak of the news as an occasion of sin, about which they’ve been careless.
I don’t recall hearing that in the confessional ten years ago; if I did, it was rare. Now, I hear it frequently. The volume and ethos of the news is evidently disturbing the peace of those very few Catholics who go to Confession. The pious, one might think, ought to be less troubled than others by the passing scene. Perhaps they are. In which case, imagine the state of the rest.
Our TCT friend Francis X. Maier, confessed here a few days ago that, “Once upon a time, I was a news junkie.”
No longer? At least much less so, because “so often these days I find myself locked in my head, in the Land of the Unreal, battling enemies and ideas that blind me to the beauty of the world and the people I love.”
Fran notes that marvellous things are available digitally – The Catholic Thing! – but “these information formats also host a generous share of nutcases, liars, and haters. . . .The result is fatigue, tribalism, and (too often) grievance. Grievance culture is venomous. It’s also self-sustaining, like a colony of ticks in the secret places of the heart, because there’s always another oppressor to expose and indict.”
His complaint is by now “tediously familiar,” Fran concedes, but the familiarity is breeding so much contempt that a warning is in order.
“Resentment is addictive,” writes the former news junkie. “It presumes the wickedness or ignorance of those who disagree. It precludes reasoned discourse because it’s a waste of precious time listening to others if, by definition, they’re stupid or evil since their views conflict with our own.”
The toxins are coursing through public life as entire cable networks, podcasts, and social media platforms are reliant upon a business model that requires the cultivation of outrage to monetize the anger. It’s commercially successful, politically powerful, and culturally influential.
“That explains why so much of our nation’s current public life is toxic,” Fran concludes.
It’s much worse than that.
The Prodigal Son Wasting His Inheritance by Johann Wolfgang Baumgartner, c. 1750 [National Gallery of
Denmark, Copenhagen]
The spiritual life of millions of souls has become toxic too. We can see the degradation of our public life. The interior life is harder to see, but a similar degradation is quite advanced and threatens the sanctity of souls seeking to live close to God.
A few recognize this and seek forgiveness in Confession – and the grace of the sacrament to resist this particularly powerful vice. Good for them. For many more, the interior is life continuously corrupted without awareness or apparent remedy. Their minds, hearts, and souls are daily drenched in the toxins of “our poisoned shared culture.”
Years ago, when a searching soul would approach me with inquiries about becoming Catholic, I would generally start with a few words about God’s love, our need for salvation and the person of Jesus. Then an introduction to what prayer is and how to do it. After that, more formal study of the truths of the faith.
Now, when a young person approaches me – usually a man (there has been a noticeable uptick among young men) – I begin by discussing his digital habits. I speak of the “3 Ps.”
I warn him against pornography, pious conflicts online, and politics. All of them are aware of the first danger, and the overwhelming majority were or are addicted to it. But some are surprised that immersing themselves in liturgical and doctrinal disputes online is harmful to their relationship with Jesus. As to politics, nearly all of them began their path toward deeper questions by following popular political voices, most of whom are combative and lacking in charity. While a good proportion offer juvenile ridicule of rivals, there are a few who lead the impressionable toward the spiritual dangers of racism and hatred of Jews.
Fran, after a lifetime of discipleship, recognizes the danger, turns off the news, and goes to Eucharistic Adoration. The young men have neither the experience nor the wisdom to recognize that on their own. But I don’t have a hard time convincing them of the value of getting the “3 Ps” out of their life. I am pointing out something that they already intuit. They readily accept that it is essential to make room for God’s grace to enter.
Lots of parishes – sometimes entire dioceses – make Confession a priority during Lent, offering extra times “when the light is on.” Pope Francis has made “24 Hours for the Lord” a priority during Lent, sitting in the Confessional personally, usually after going to Confession himself.
Yesterday, the Diocese of Arlington Virginia held a Diocesan Day of Unplugging – a day to put away the phones, shut off the screens. It’s aimed at more than just the 3 Ps, but it is a response to the same spiritual danger. I expect that in Arlington, many more will “unplug” than will get to Confession. Sacramental grace is more powerful than a brief screen sabbatical, but it may be that the latter is more urgent, a sort of plowing of the field before sowing the seed.
Is following the news sinful? Not in se. But it is a near occasion of sin for a great many. About such occasions, there’s relevant advice much older than my 3 Ps.
If your screen causes you to sin, cut it off.
