Media Literacy

I like this term, "media literacy."  Most of us are media illiterate in some area.  We believe something because of its source.  We are pretty good about seeing through advertising when it says, "sales."  We know a good one from a come on.  Some of us tend to buy into government babel if it already agrees with our politics or our wants.   If we are big business or big union they each have their own babel.  Babel is to maintain the organization and its power.  In my church a lot of people believed the pope back in 1968 when he said no to contraception.  They believed they had to leave the church if they disagreed, so they left in droves.  Why did they not simply say the pope is babel, that is, wrong, and simply go on with receiving communion?  Then, we believed the pope spoke truth.  Encyclicals mattered.   Now, the new pope says that the environment is a mess, it really hurts the poor more than others,  and it is our fault and we need to fix it.  This is a new thing from popes.  He is thought to be babel by many, often the same ones who think the pope speaks for Jesus when it comes to sex.  Why do we listen to the pope on sex but not on environment?   I suggest that there are two things we hold dear: convenience and money.  We prefer to drive when there in a bus as an alternative.  We want convenience and the flexibility that goes with it.  Fixing our world will cost money which is really the center of worship for corporate America.  Recycling costs money in taxes and can be an inconvenience personally with all that separation of trash and different dins to put it in. and so on.  When I was a young bachelor I did not care much for the pope's statement on contraception.  It is not that I read it closely and pondered it.  I just wanted what I wanted when I wanted it.  I wonder if that is the same with those who reject Laudoto Si today.