Opinion: <i>Sales</i> Pitch: Be kind to the MSM today
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Have you kissed a journalist today? Take a breather from savaging the big media elites; lay off the grotesque biases of the lamestream media; listen with new ears to the gargantuan lies perpetrated by the lapdog press doing the bidding of its corporate masters. Why? Because today is the feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists.
As author of Introduction to the Devout Life, Treatise on the Love of God and countless letters, the doctor of the church had one quality recognized by media types everywhere: He was poor. Here’s how the Catholic Encyclopedia puts it:
He had an intense love for the poor, especially those who were of respectable family. His food was plain, his dress and his household simple. He completely dispensed with superfluities and lived with the greatest economy, in order to be able to provide more abundantly for the wants of the needy. He heard confessions, gave advice, and preached incessantly. He wrote innumerable letters (mainly letters of direction) and found time to publish the numerous works mentioned below.
Canonized in 1665, Francis de Sales didn’t get picked as the spiritual light of the fourth estate until 1923, when Pope Pius XI assigned him this new task, apparently because nobody else wanted the job. So as you’re griping about your local birdcage liner today, or blogging some new offense against decency, or, like reader Donna Turner, writing to let me know that you are ‘furious,’ ‘thoroughly disgusted,’ and canceling your subscription because our left wing rag didn’t put the wounded police officer story on page A1, or even, like reader Thomas Rittenburg, writing to let me know that you’re being harrassed by our circulation department (I’m working on it, Thomas, I really am!), say a Glory Be and remember that somebody’s watching out for us.