Issue 71 - The Pilgrim - May 2018 - The newspaper of the Archdiocese of Southwark

Editorial
The Pilgrim May 2018
Gary Oldman plays
Winston Churchill in
the ‘Darkest Hour’.
Challenging
fake news
May 13th is World Communications
Day. Here is an edited extract from
Pope Francis’s message.
By Greg Watts
Moral dilemmas – no easy answers
By Bishop Paul Hendricks
Most of us have had times in our life, when
we’ve had to face a very difficult decision.
For some people there have even been
situations where the alternatives are so
horrific to contemplate that it hardly
seems possible to choose any one of them.
The recent film, Darkest Hour, centres
around a number of choices faced by
Winston Churchill, as a newly-appointed
Prime Minister shortly after the start of the
Second World War.
Some of these were simply the sort of
tactical dilemmas faced by any political
leader, but others were much more grim —
particularly looking across the Channel.
Hitler’s armies were sweeping across
Europe, cutting off the British forces that
had been sent to support the defence of
France. Britain was facing the loss of
roughly 400,000 men. As Churchill himself
said, “The whole root and core and brain
of the British Army” had been stranded at
Dunkirk, facing death or capture.
To allow this to happen was unthinkable,
but so were the alternatives. There was
nothing like enough naval vessels available
to evacuate the troops — and the losses
involved would probably be huge. Churchill
called for owners of small craft to join the
evacuation fleet. And nearly 400 responded
— but even so, the evacuation would take
several days, with some German troops
already within range of the coast.
The only hope appeared to be to for the
garrison in Calais to give active resistance,
so as to distract attention from Dunkirk
and buy a few more crucial days for the
evacuation.
Would it be right to give this order,
amounting to virtual suicide for about
4,000 men, given that the fate of a
hundred times that number was at stake?
Churchill took that decision and, against
all expectation, a large majority of the
British troops (and about 100,000 French
and Belgians) were successfully brought to
England. This proved to be vital for morale
at crucial stage of the war — and yet his
decision led to considerable losses of
ships, planes and men. What if the
evacuation had failed and it had all been
for nothing?
The other momentous decision we see in
the film is where Churchill decides not to
enter into peace talks with Hitler. With the
perspective of history, it seems to me that
very few people today would challenge
this decision — while recognising that
these were very exceptional
circumstances.
At the same time, we can understand
the motivation of those who opposed
Churchill on this. The First World War had
caused so much suffering and death, it had
convinced people that war is indeed an
evil to be avoided if at all possible — a
lesson which many political leaders have
still not learned, even up to our own time.
Something that comes across very nicely
in the film, in fact, is Churchill’s own selfdoubt
— at least, in private. As a former
soldier and naval leader, he knows as well
as anyone the human cost of war. And,
despite his confident appearance in public,
he knows that even great national efforts
and sacrifices may still not be enough to
avoid defeat.
Looking for one thing to take away from
the film, I’d say it shows that you can’t
always “go by the book”. There are some
situations were there can be no good
outcome — and it’s far from easy, even to
decide what is the lesser of two evils,
because the outcome is so uncertain.
It is essential to be clear about our
principles, but it isn’t always as easy as
one would like, to see how they apply in
particular cases.
In today’s fast-changing world of communications
and digital systems, we are witnessing the spread of
what has come to be known as “fake news”.
The term “fake news” has been the object of
great discussion and debate. In general, it refers to
the spreading of disinformation on line or in the
traditional media.
It has to do with false information based on nonexistent
or distorted data meant to deceive and
manipulate the reader. Spreading fake news can
serve to advance specific goals, influence political
decisions, and serve economic interests.
The effectiveness of fake news is primarily due to
its ability to mimic real news, to seem plausible.
Secondly, this false but believable news is
“captious”, inasmuch as it grasps people’s attention
by appealing to stereotypes and common social
prejudices, and exploiting instantaneous emotions
like anxiety, contempt, anger and frustration.
The ability to spread such fake news often relies
on a manipulative use of the social networks and the
way they function. Untrue stories can spread so
quickly that even authoritative denials fail to
contain the damage.
None of us can feel exempted from the duty of
countering these falsehoods. This is no easy task,
since disinformation is often based on deliberately
evasive and subtly misleading rhetoric and at times
the use of sophisticated psychological mechanisms.
What is at stake is our greed. Fake news often
goes viral, spreading so fast that it is hard to stop,
not because of the sense of sharing that inspires the
social media, but because it appeals to the
insatiable greed so easily aroused in human beings.
The best antidotes to falsehoods are not
strategies, but people: people who are not greedy
but ready to listen, people who make the effort to
engage in sincere dialogue so that the truth can
emerge; people who are attracted by goodness and
take responsibility for how they use language.
If responsibility is the answer to the spread of
fake news, then a weighty responsibility rests on the
shoulders of those whose job is to provide
information, namely, journalists, the protectors of
news.
In today’s world, theirs is, in every sense, not just
a job; it is a mission. Amid feeding frenzies and the
mad rush for a scoop, they must remember that the
heart of information is not the speed with which it
is reported or its audience impact, but persons.
The Pilgrim is now online, making it possible to read all the editions since it was launched in 2011.
To view it, visit the diocesan website and click on a lick on the left hand side of the page.
The Archdiocese of Southwark
Archbishop Peter Smith
020 7928-2495
archbishop@rcsouthwark.co.uk
www.rcsouthwark.co.uk
Area bishops
Episcopal vicar for Kent
Bishop Paul Mason
01732 845486
bishoppaulmason@gmail.com
bishop.hendricks@gmail.com
South-East London
Bishop Patrick Lynch
020 8297 6540
bishoplynch7@btinternet.com
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