I dunno.
What is the role of the MSM in these mass shootings?
The networks descend on every mass shooting like vultures and create 24/7 coverage.
I wonder if mentally disturbed people don’t fix on these horrors and then copy them…because of the MSM and their 24/7 coverage.
MSM… Mass Shooting Media?
Say you are someone who wants to create maximum pain and be remembered for it. Time and again you see running children, interviews of tear streaked survivors, lines of officials in uniforms at microphones, politicians pushing each other out of the way to convey their “thoughts and prayers”. An endless stream of attention and – in a twisted way – affirmation that, “HEY! Yeah… I could do THAT!”
More and more I am of the mind that the naming of and displaying of photos of these perps should be voluntarily banned by the MSM. I suspect it can’t be banned because of the 2nd Amendment. However, if enough people were to make these networks the hiss of the world, maybe they would back off.
Also, fully aware of the over-the-top nature of what I am about to suggest, perhaps the only public media coverage the perps should get is when they are publicly drawn and quartered.
Yeah yeah… I know. We shouldn’t ever want that for anyone. Priests should never think that way, especially in light of the English martyrs and Evangelium vitae. Some will rush to say censoriously that that wouldn’t cure the problem. (Neither would changes to gun laws. A nut will find a way.) Let the virtue signalling begin! Please, libs, fall all over yourselves.
Dammit, I’m mad!
I am mad, because I have the strongest sense that the MSM is helping to create these hideous, heartbreaking events. Maybe the only MSM coverage there should be is of really bad things that happen to those who are proven to be guilty. I’m not sure what that would be like, since we don’t torture people or show executions.
But… dammit! I’m mad!
I can’t hear the network execs: “But CNN is down there with about 20 producers and cameras! If WE don’t go, we’ll lose market share tonight!”
Perhaps the prurient interests and itching ears of the public also create the market for the coverage, which in turn creates the coverage, which in turn creates the shooters, which creates the coverage, which creates the interest in the coverage, which creates the shooters, which…..
If it bleeds, it leads.
The upside is that we get to hear stories of heroic people We get to see how wonderful our LEOs and other responders are. We get to hear about amazing doctors.
But… dammit, I’d rather not have to have these events at all.
Meanwhile, dear readers, you might consider contacting schools and workplaces to find out about “active shooter” training.
Are your schools on alert?
Are your workplaces even slightly hardened and informed?
Would you know what you can and should do?
How about what you should NOT do? (For example, when law enforcement arrives don’t run at them.)
Where I am, just last week we had people come from the Sheriff’s Department in to give a presentation. I’ve thought about this stuff a lot, I’ve read a lot, I’ve seen a lot. I nevertheless learned a couple new and helpful things that day. It was time well spent.
This goes hand in glove with situational awareness.
Remember: It’s always some one else… until it’s you.
Meanwhile, dammit, I’m pretty worried about the influence of the MSM on these mass shootings.
I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be any coverage ever. I’m wondering if the perp should simply never be talked about. Never.
Damnatio memoriae?
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I think justice should be expedient (6 months max) for these mass murderers. I do think they should be condemned to death, have access to a Catholic priest confessor who could counsel them for a month before death, hoping to get them to be contrite. If need be they should receive the sacraments of baptism, penance and first holy communion before execution. Would heaven not rejoice to have one more soul, rather than have the wretch languish in this earthly vale of tears (prison!) for decades?
I think they should be put to death by firing squad or hanging. It should not be broadcast, but the news media should report it.
Father, I think you are correct about the influence of media coverage. A very pro-gun-control publication, Mother Jones, did some digging and found something very disturbing: “A Mother Jones investigation shows that the nation’s deadliest high school shooting has inspired at least 74 plots or attacks across 30 states.” The inspiration was the Columbine massacre, which of course received extensive coverage.
I do not want to tamper with the First Amendment, anymore than I want to tamper with the Second, or the Fifth (due process), as so many are eager to do. Restraint would be refreshing.
I suspect you meant “1st Amendment” there, not “2nd”…
My answer to the current tragedy is to reinstate the draft. During my time in the army I never heard anyone say, As soon as I get back to civilian life, I’m getting my own M-16.
Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Mental Health recommend that the media avoid sensationalizing suicides – especially among teenagers. They seldom make the news unless the person is a public figure. Suicide methods are rarely mentioned and suicide pacts not reported.
This is for good reason: Suicide, especially among teens, is contagious. It’s a morbidly attractive idea that offers an established path of action for a troubled youngster. We know from research that a complete plan of action allowing a person to visualize each steps and their effects is important in enabling follow-through.
There is evidence that mass shootings are socially contagious for up to 14 days. (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0117259). For example, the June 2015 Charleston church shooter was cited by the August 2015 Roanoke television shooter, who was in turn cited by the October 2015 Umpqua Community College shooter
The press should not publish a photo or name the perpetrator. Fame-seeking spree-killers should know ahead of time that they won’t become famous. It also reduces the “competition” among killers to maximize the death toll.
These ideas were presented in an article in the American Behavioral Scientist. The authors concluded:
Media Coverage of Mass Shooters Gives Them What They Want
Media Coverage of Mass Shooters Increases Their Competition to Maximize Victim Fatalities
Media Coverage of Mass Shooters Leads to Contagion and Copycat Effects
They recommended the following:
1. Don’t name the perpetrator
2. Don’t use photos or likenesses of the perpetrator
3. Stop using the names, photos, or likenesses of past perpetrators
4. Report everything else about these crimes in as much detail as desired
149 researchers and law enforcement professionals have endorsed this policy: https://schoolshooters.info/sites/default/files/dont_name_them_1.0.pdf
Greg Gutfeld on Fox News “The Five” made exactly the same point today – MSM glamorizes these killers to such a degree that it motivates others. Agreed that keeping killer info out of the main stream must be voluntary, but that supposes the MSM has principles. And we know they usually don’t; unless it’s criticism of MSM.
The price of freedom is often lack of safety. Ever was it thus.
That said, we need to seriously protect our children. If that means taking them out of the line of fire (public schools, gun free zones) then so be it. My preference, since obviously not everyone can do that and all children should be educated, is mandatory firearms training for teachers and administrators, and then concealed carry in the classrooms. Not all of them–that really isn’t necessary–but enough so that these murdering freaks know they will be dead on arrival.
The protection of the innocent is a moral and ethical imperative.
If we are pro-life, and I would hope we all are, then the protection of the innocent surely extends to our born children as well.
I know it was irrational, but I heaved a sigh of relief when my son came home from school yesterday. I’m 4,500 miles from the tragedy, but still.
I think you have a point Father Z.
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2018/02/15/grandmother-stops-school-shooting/
“One day before 17 people were killed in a Florida school shooting, a grandmother helped to stop another massacre in Washington state.”
“As officers reviewed copies of the journal, they were alarmed at the statements and detailed plans to shoot students and use homemade explosive devices at ACES High School,” a statement from Everett police read.
“I need to make this count,” O’Connor reportedly wrote, according to the Daily Herald. “I’ve been reviewing many mass shootings/bombings (and attempted bombings) I’m learning from past shooters/bombers mistakes”
Another gun free zone I would guess.
If we really want to get to the root cause of this societal degradation and the commonplace death of innocents, we must, as Catholics, corporately, return to Tradition. That means not two parallel (in practice) Churches. One Mass, adherence to to sacramental rubrics, excellent catechesis, excommunication of Catholics in the public square who advance the abortion/anti-life agenda in ANY manner, identification and condemnation of the heresy of Universalism, end to useless, go-nowhere ecumenism. These would be the first steps to restoring the Faith, which will, in turn and in time, renew society. I don’t think it is too late. Pray, people.
Concerning “gun free zones” at school, here in Maine not too long ago it was common for High School kids during hunting season to bring their rifles to school and keep them in their lockers so that they could head out into the woods after school. There were no school shootings in those days in spite of the ready availability of rifles. Sadly those days are long gone, although we still have both a lack of gun laws (no license needed to carry) and the lowest violent crime rate in the US.
The 2nd amendment should be either changed or scrapped…it’s a bad law on so many levels.
I think the idea of not naming, showing or following the shooters 24/7 is a wonderful idea. All this coverage glamorizes evil and makes these people into celebrities.
I recently read a suggestion that schools allow some of the teachers or staff who have the training to carry concealed weapons. Don’t make it public information which staffers are the shooters, but let it be known that they are there and armed. If it’s known that in every school there are defenders, then maybe people like the Florida shooter wouldn’t be so quick to act.
I’m old enough to remember when a lot of the boys (and teachers) would bring guns to school when it was hunting season. They would even put them in their lockers and then at the end of the day, get their guns and go hunt. No one thought it was odd at all.
The marketing departments of MSNBC, CNN and FN are all much bigger than their productions units. In all cases, ratings and demographics run the show, and this goes from one end of the spectrum to the other. EWTN is no better; the “news” and variety show on Thursday evening always panders to red blood issues with their “Posse” and deportation hawks.
[EWTN is no better? You lose all credibility with such a statement.]
Thus, confirming the choice of your username here?
Ridiculous rabbit hole CLOSED.
In this and earlier posts, Father Z. has stressed the need for situation awareness. Those of us in the military and especially aviation have learned that situation awareness is created and maintained based on the ‘mental models’ that we have regarding various situations. This mental model is actually a set of expectations that, when confirmed, reinforce our situation awareness. That is why Father Z.’s repeated calls for being prepared are so critical. If one practices good risk management and prepares for such circumstances before they take place, then expectations associated with such threats help us to possibly mitigate the threats and, if necessary, respond to said tragic situations in a more timely and effective manner.
[Every time you walk into a space, you should look around. Take note of people. See anything strange? Where are your exits, etc. Also, get a mental picture in your head of this situation or that and what you would do. Visualizing and thinking about different possibilities ahead of time is important.]
You are absolutely right. But the media will not change anytime soon.
We need to secure our schools. We know they are a target and have been for the last twenty years. Enough is enough. Enforce the gun-free zone. Metal detectors, staggered start times, IDs for students and staff…sign in and escorts for everyone else. Most adults work in places more secure than our schools.
Yes, it will cost money. Yes, it kills the illusion of a light and fluffy childhood. But have you seen what it takes to drop off and pick up a child in daycare? It is completely possible.
With the shooting deaths in Florida and the shooting of a police commander in Chicago; the media is subtly sending a message that guns are dangerous and should be taken away from everyone. They give so many details as to how the Fla shooter had one, ect… I see where this is going. And the fact that people were joking that this kid would be the most likely to shoot up the school; that should have been a red alert to school officials and parents to do something.
I have wondered the same thing about the media, Father. So much sensationalism that can encourage those most troubled souls to do something terrible.
The most recent attack in Florida troubles me because much of the media coverage is focused on the fact that the attacker was adopted. As if adopted automatically equals psycho? As someone who has siblings who were adopted, and an adoptive parent, I reject that false equivalence. But I also know that adoption = trauma, and this young man had many traumas (quite possibly prenatal exposure to substances, then loss of his birth family, then loss of his adoptive father due to a heart attack when he was 6, then loss of his adoptive mother in November, loss of his school “family” due to expulsion). Reading those stories breaks my heart because it seems like our society failed this young man long before he bought a gun and made that terrible choice.
To be sure, societal failures don’t excuse his terrible actions. But as a society we need to get much better at providing effective help to those who have suffered trauma, to try to prevent tragedy before it happens. I know so many parents who are struggling to get help for their troubled children — only to find they can’t get appointments, or they are placed on months or years-long waitlists, or insurance won’t authorize the level of care needed, or the level of care they need simply doesn’t exist in their area, or there is no trauma-competent professional in their area, etc. It’s shameful. And the media will trumpet “this was an adopted child who was clearly troubled!” without ever really engaging in a discussion about what truly trauma-focused mental health care would look like or what we as a nation could do. Then in a few weeks, they’ll be on to breathlessly sensational coverage of some other tragedy, and mental health care will fade into the background, leaving behind the families who are desperately trying to get effective help to prevent tragedy.
The DLEMM – Dominant Liberal Establishment Mass Media – is anything but mainstream. They are extremists not unlike Call To Action, the National Schismatic Reporter – aka Fishwrap – Nuts on the Bus, the Saint Gallen Mafia, the lavender mafia, New Ways Ministry, the 47 and counting attendees to Cardinal Cupich’s seminar, James Martin, Thomas Faucher, Joan Chittister, Cardinal Kasper, Cardinal Marx, those apologists defending illegal aliens and their crimes, ad infinitum.
I agree completely regarding situational awareness and the time has long been past for people to be proactive instead of reactive. The media will not change. They would never take any responsibility for their role in these shootings and I do believe they have a role, too, with their wall to wall coverage.
It has been difficult to ascertain how the shooter gained access to the school. Did he shoot his way in? I understand that the attack began as the 2pm dismissal bell rang. Do they not have procedures for releasing students that are in place to prevent open doors/ free for all access to the school at that time? Our school releases students out one door with teachers posted at the door, to each bus, then to parents, then as “walkers/drivers”. It may take a few minutes longer, but access is only available through that one door, with multiple parents outside waiting, some surely concealed carrying. I do not currently conceal carry because I am training on a new firearm and haven’t received my permit yet to conceal carry.
Our youngest child attends school right over the border in a neighboring state which does not recognize permits from my state. It takes almost an act of God to get a concealed carry permit for that state when one isn’t a resident, and if one gets caught concealed carrying on school grounds in that state, one will go to jail and probably lose one’s kids, probably even in response to an active shooter, in today’s upside down world.
The number one thing we have tried to drill into our older kids heads is to keep their heads out of their phones and pay attention to the world around them when they are not at home or a friend’s house. If someone looks off, they are more than likely off. We have taught our kids from infancy to talk to their guardian Angels daily and become very familiar with them, so that they can become better at discerning when their Angel is trying to warn them. They can’t do that when they are distracted by Snapchat or Instagram.
This is as much a spiritual battle as it is a worldly battle. We need better protective measures in place, but throwing prayer and God out of schools has also driven a lot of Angelic protection away from the schools, too. Banning cell phone use, the great distractor (and attention grabber) on school campuses would be a great start, but I doubt such a thing will ever be allowed. Sorry for the long post.
[HEADS OUT OF THEIR PHONES!]
At the daycare where my grandchildren were, you had to used a keypad to get in. There was a list of who could and couldn’t pick up the children and you had to have a ID and sign if you wanted to pick them up.
Without discounting anything you’ve said about the MSM, Father, there are several other factors that deserve a very close look, chief among them the imaginative formation of our youth. Look at the video games they are playing, the movies they are watching, and even their literature text books. Virtually nothing in them is upbeat, and a great deal is depressing. It is no wonder that so many young people commit suicide, and it is not astonishing that a suicide would want to take others with him.
We live near a secular high school and so frequently pass young people coming and going. It is very disturbing how many of them cannot look you in the eye and say hello, even among those without the ear buds (not many).
Are we driving our young people mad? Of course, those from good homes have many protective factors, but the children of divorce, of drug addicts, of felons, of sex addicts?
[Broken homes… isolation… life without God… video games. So many factors.]
The first thing I must say is that the families of the shooting victims in Florida have my sympathies.
Thankfully, I have never been at the scene of a mass shooting, but they have hit home. In the early 1990’s a person with a handgun walked into my high school (I was in graduate school, at the time) and killed three people. including one of my former high school classmates, who was a custodian at the school and died trying to save people. I live in a college town that has five universities/colleges (including a Catholic university) within a city bus ride (three, in fact, are within walking distance of each other), with enrollments ranging from 10,000 to 50,000. Last year, a man brandished a gun at the computer center where I work and we went into lock-down mode (I was on my way to a satellite branch, so I was not on main campus). Fortunately, no shots were fired and the guy was caught off-campus a short time, later. The year before, one of the other campuses had a man with firearms in a science building, but fortunately, a university police officer happened to be near the building and shot the man, dead, before he killed anyone.
If you don’t think things like this make students and faculty jittery, then you have no idea of the realities of modern education (and I do have some thoughts about behavior during an active shooter incident which I would love to discuss with someone more knowledgeable that I in these matters, such as military or law-enforcement types). Such college mass killings will, probably, disappear within 50 years, if current trends continue, because, by then, most education will be through remote access, i.e., online, with only occasional visits to a campus for labs, etc., but that doesn’t really give any solace to those who have to deal with these issues, today, nor does it really deal with the causes of mass shooting.
The Washington Post has an article breaking down the, “math,” of mass shooting, using data from Mother Jones, the FBI, and their own sources. I went to the Mother Jones database on mass shootings (it is freely available for download) and one statistic I did not see, interestingly, was the religion of the shooters, nor how often they attended religious services. I have a feeling that they might consider this inflammatory, because while they might find devout Moslems committing mass shooting, I wonder how many devout Catholics they would find?
The single biggest individual indicators for mass shooters is a sense of hopelessness (and anger) and a desire to be famous or remembered (i.e., immortalized). It seems to fly over the heads of most writers on mass shootings that the guns are a means to an end – immortality (or at least perpetual memorial) and that there are two subclasses: those who are suffering and see no future in an afterlife, so want their immortality in this one by becoming infamous, and those who are not suffering and see their future in an afterlife gained by killing others. The first case describes the true unbeliever and the second the true believer, the first, a neo-pagan (or almost any modern lover of only what the world has to offer), and the second a religious fanatic (be it Christian or Moslem), governed by pseudo-reason.
Even though it is the sense of hopelessness that most psychologists will use to describe the shooter as being mentally ill, it is the desire for immortality that is the more interesting issue and points to a deeper metaphysical illness. As society becomes more and more materialistic, the sense that immortality is anything different than a continuation of the current form of life is being gradually lost. As such, those who find no material comforts (such as many poor people) in their day-to-day lives, often develop a sense of hopelessness and because they can only believe in the created world and see the afterlife as more of the same.
In many cases, as sad as it might seem, there is, for these types of people, a direct correlation between a sense of being rich, i.e., and a sense of hope. In fact, for this subclass of people, gun violence goes down with increasing material prosperity, or at least the sense of control such wealth brings. Even those rich who are being bullied could imagine themselves escaping the bully, if only by moving to another place. The poor who are so victimized have no such hope, nor, in some cases do the middle-class, who are often constrained from taking actions to correct their situations because of the brokenness of their family lives, which seem pleasant on the outside, but are disordered within, so that they can find no support from their parents and siblings. What does immortality look like for them? For them. hopelessness is their immortality, or so they think.
The other group, the true believers, are much harder to deal with because they are often not materialists. They derive their sense of afterlife from a faulty metaphysics or theology. This is much harder to overcome, because it often involves breaking down their sense of self, either through temptations or through reason (which often fails because of prior inoculation against it). For them, poverty is not their immortality, but pleasure (however worldly) for a job well done. My sense is that most religious fanatics will not be overcome except by force of arms.
For devout Catholics and some other Christian groups, hope is not in this life, but the next and suffering is never the last word as long as one is faithful to Christ and the Church. To those who struggle with poverty, for example St. Paul says {Phil 4 -12, 13]:
“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”
For those who struggle with suffering, Christ is always there for them on the Cross.
To the unbeliever, the Church says, “repent and believe the Good News.” For the true believer bent on killing others, the Church challenges them to study theology through the lens of reason, to learn why murder is unreasonable and not a path to the sort of immortality they seek.
It is often said that guns don’t kill people, people kill people, but this is not really true for the mass murderer. It is a distorted hope that kills people, whether that is no hope or a mistaken hope. According to St. Thomas Aquinas (ST II.I Q. 40), “hope is a movement of the appetitive power ensuing from the apprehension of a future good, difficult but possible to obtain; namely, a stretching forth of the appetite to such a good.” The unbeliever has no hope in any future good, so seeks his good (fame), now, while the true believer has a distorted hope in a wrong future good or at least a wrong means to that good.
Guns were easier to get in the 1960’s, but there was far less gun violence in the U. S., at least as far as mass shooting are concerned (yes, I know the overall murder rates have been dropping). Part of that is because of the Mass Media giving shooters the immortality or infamy they seek (and making that pathway known to the copycat), but, also, because of the sense of a loss of the theological graces we enjoyed in the past.
Wishy-washy homilies and sermons about how great we are, the substitution of psychological responses to tragedy instead of Christian ones, the horrors of contraception and abortion (if you want to destroy hope in a culture, kill the children), have all acted to create society after society in the West that lives in a perpetual state of near-mortal sin, but call their sins virtues because some priest of the Church-of-Materialism told them their sins were good.
How many people will rally for gun control after this when they should be rallying to control the world, the flesh and the devil? Behind every mass shooting is the urging of one of these. Guns merely satisfy the urge.
You can lock-down the schools all you want. You can post guards. In the end, the violence will only end when we lock-down our hearts, when we post guards over our senses. We need sin detectors instead of metal detectors, confessions instead of concussions. In other words, the life of virtue must becomes the most essential thing, again, because if we do not seek the virtues of Christ, the world will be all too eager to supply its own.
Until then, I guess we will have to be content with metal detectors and locked rooms.
The Chicken
Multi-faceted problems are not solved with single response solutions.
These shootings did not happen in the 1950’s. What was better then? Those of us here know.
People outside of education have no idea how rough life is for children today. Just two weeks ago a boy in middle school was overheard saying “well, I have no Mommy anymore!”. His mother had apparently gone to jail. Yes, he said that, in middle school. Still young enough to say “mommy”. Parents are often in jail, absent, or gone. Moms walk away now just as much as dads used to. (That’s progress!) The situations are just rough, and people would perhaps be surprised how many kids are in bad situations. I’m just saying, what do we expect from these kids when they are raised by jackals and endure so much abandonment and pain. Some of them crack, and there are no mental health supports for people anymore, including young people. Teachers know the weird kids, the ones that unnerve kids and adults. I know a few right now, but there’s no recourse to get them help. Just look at the photo of Adam Lanza, the Newtown shooter. The very picture of insane.
Everybody today wants to be famous. But if you have no imagination, can’t imagine how on earth you can get noticed and make your mark, they’ll take you seriously when you shoot up the place.
I noticed that demon turned around and made sure the media got a good look at his face.
I’m with you Fr. Z., about the media, but the media stopped caring about what we think a long time ago. They’re driven by a different agenda for America. I’ve long maintained someone is paying them to cause division.
I’m also with Akita. Six months max, then hang them. No photos, no “inside the mind of a teenage shooter”, none of that stuff. I heard that threats to schools are being received across the nation. Copycats abound and it is now a bodycount competition. We should know the faces of the victims, not these vile perps.
There was an article that I just read, about a cop killer being escorted through the Cook County jail, where he was applauded by some of the inmates. We are being inundated by people who have no respect for the sanctity of human life, and I am not referring to immigrants alone.
There are people walking our streets who consider the gratuitous bashing of complete strangers, acceptable. And yet, our Supreme Court, thinks that ridding our public square of any vestige of Christian ethics, is a good thing. The stake, in the heart of our democracy, is being driven in by Liberal Democrats. If we empower half wits like Bernie Saunders, and keep electing so called progressives, we are committing suicide.
frjim, please see “Paris Isn’t Paris Anymore” and tell us why any nation should want to look like Paris these days. Liberals are so fascist. Raymond Arroyo dares to allow discussion of the burning issue of unchecked immigration and how it’s destroying Europe and really pressing church topics and liberals instantly want to shut it down. No no, free speech is a threat. They might tell the truth. People could be informed, and that would be bad.
[And our topic still awaits us.]
The MSM jumps to discussions of gun control immediately because that’s their agenda. But HOW did the shooter get into the school?? I have yet to hear anyone discuss this topic. Where was the physical security? Where was building access control?? No one but employees and badged students should be able to enter the building. ALL others – parents, vendors, et al – must enter through only ONE access controlled entrance. That is the way the schools are run where I live.
acardnal: Good point about access control.
Lee Gilbert: Good point about violent and twisted video games, movies, music, and books. A colleague remarked recently that even Scholastic Books has been providing some unhealthy titles to schoolchildren. The entertainment industry, not all of it of course, is profiting by pushing godless and anti-God products on children.
“I have the strongest sense that the MSM is helping to create these hideous, heartbreaking events.”
I completely agree. And I think it’s crucial that we keep in mind the fact that there are souls in jeopardy because of their collaboration in it all–and that we pray for them and in reparation for the evil they commit. Bl. James Alberione gave the religious under his care a particularly powerful prayer for that exact purpose. I’m sharing it here for those who might like to join me in offering it; its original title was “A prayer for those who thirst for souls as Jesus does.” It was composed in the 40s, so apply the word “press” here to all things media:
Lord, in union with all the priests who today celebrate the Holy Mass, I offer myself, a small victim, with Jesus the Divine Victim:
1. In atonement for the countless blasphemies, errors and obscenities that are printed in so many printing plants from which flows daily a putrid river of paper that floods the world.
2. To appeal to your mercy for the countless readers, perverse or innocent, that a scandalous press snatches from your fatherly Heart, so longing for souls.
3. For the conversion of those numerous writers and printers, blind ministers of Satan, false teachers, who have set their pulpits up against the Divine Master, poisoning all teaching, human thinking and the sources of human activity.
4. To honor, love and listen to him alone, whom you, heavenly Father, in the excess of your love, have given to the world, proclaiming: ‘This is my beloved Son, hear him.’
5. To grasp that Jesus alone is the consummate Teacher, for he is the Truth that enlightens, the Way and Model of all holiness, the soul’s true Life, source of sanctifying grace.
6. For an increase of priests and religious men and women who consecrate themselves to spread Christ’s teaching by means of the press.
7. That the writers and workers in this field of the press be holy, full of wisdom and zeal for the glory of God and for souls.
8. To ask you that the Catholic press may thrive, spread, be helped and increase by raising its voice in such a way as to swamp the intoxicating and persuasive clamor of the wicked press.
9. That we all become mindful of our ignorance and wretchedness, of the need that we have to present ourselves before your holy tabernacle, O Lord, with imploring gaze and bowed head, invoking light, compassion and mercy.
Understood Fr, I’ll keep it for another time.