c. 1998 Religion News Service

PITTSBURGH _ Tune in to what your kids are watching, turn on the v-chip, and drop out of a media culture saturated with sex and violence, the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops told the nation Friday (June 19).

In reciting a litany of sins on screens _ large, small and cyber _ leaders of the nation’s largest church voted 207 to 11 to adopt a report sharply critical of the media and calling on federal regulators to more aggressively enforce licensing rules to insure broadcasters serve the public interest. They also appealed to TV producers, filmmakers and other industry leaders to take responsibility for the moral content of their products.

The bishops’ advice to the average American: Shut down the tube, video games and talk radio for a day each week and take time as a family to pray and talk together about how their understanding of sex and violence is shaped by media images.”Can we use our common sense and say you are influenced by what you see?” Cleveland Bishop Anthony M. Pilla, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, said after the vote. “If it sells toothpaste, is there any doubt that it influences behavior?”

In other business during their annual June meeting, the bishops also took action to try to make sure their new statement on media sex and violence, as well as other teachings on areas from abortion to nuclear war, reach beyond the next day’s news and into parishes and schools.”The test for our church is not simply have we `kept the faith,’ but have we shared the faith,” the bishops said in overwhelmingly approving a policy statement asking Catholic schools, seminaries and catechetical programs to make church social teaching part of their curriculums.

In their reflections on the electronic media, the bishops said television, movies and the Internet can be sources of learning and pleasure, but “the media’s dark side continues to obscure the value of their contributions.”

The bishops took particular aim at video games that glamorize violence, telephone sex services, “hate” radio, home video stores with X-rated sections and the proliferation of sexually graphic and “hate-provoking” Web sites on the Internet.

“The media have such potential to bring truth and beauty into the lives of billions that we cannot permit them to be the arena of those who would pervert God’s gift of the body and sexuality,” the prelates said in the adopted document,”Renewing the Mind of the Media: a Statement on Overcoming the Exploitation of Sex and Violence in Communications.”

In their proposed solutions, the bishops said government censorship across a broad range of media is undesirable, but did ask federal regulators to stop the routine renewal of broadcasting licenses and again make the process “a real evaluation of whether an entity has truly been broadcasting in the public interest.”

Entertainment industry leaders also were asked to reappropriate a sense of acting in the public interest that transcends profits.”Basic morality, as well as common sense, good taste and discretion, can go a long way,” the bishops said.

In a section addressed to the general public, the bishops said Americans cannot complain about the abundance of sex and violence in the media and go back to their living rooms and watch it. The plelates noted, in some cases, television stations that cut back their coverage of sensational crimes lost audience share to stations that continued to revel in it.”If media business people make unacknowledged moral decisions by what they produce,” the bishops said, “consumers do so by what they choose to consume.”

In a brief discussion, some bishops questioned whether the statement will change hearts and minds.

“I think it’s going to be read by the choir, but I can’t imagine it’s going to have any serious impact,” said Bishop Anthony Bosco of Greensburg, Pa.

Other prelates said it was important for the bishops to take a stand at a time when explosions in technology have saturated society with depictions of sex and violence that are available to younger and younger audiences.”I think part of the choir is waiting to sing,” said Archbishop Oscar Lipscomb of Mobile, Ala. “This is a step that will put us on the record that we are serious about this.”

DEA END BRIGGS