One reader told me that she finds it incomprehensible how I could quote in the "Catholic" twice the sentence: "Not reading the newspapers can be more harmful in times of democracy than not praying the rosary." It supposedly leads to contempt for the rosary, that is, prayer. That reader thinks that "if a person truly prays the rosary, God always has enough ways to inform him about the things he needs to know, even if he doesn't read the newspapers in times of democracy."
Certainly, God has many ways of conveying knowledge to someone. There is also so-called infused knowledge. But that is a miracle. And if someone relies on miracles without a very serious reason, it is said that he is tempting God. Normally, knowledge is gained by learning and studying, by walking through the world with open eyes, by asking and informing, and when it comes to public life, by following it, mainly through newspapers and magazines. It also holds true: Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.
No one says that we should read newspapers for the sake of newspapers, no one says that careless reading of newspapers, which someone does to kill time, is better than praying the rosary. However, all prayer should lead us to a firm resolve to seek God in everything and serve Him faithfully in all things. If we are filled with this resolve, even reading newspapers can become a beautiful act.
The newspapers reflect the soul of the modern person, his desires and needs, his delusions and disappointments. The more truly faith-filled a person recognizes all this, the more he will be driven to active apostolate, learning to proclaim the eternal message about God, the only true Source and the only true Goal of all life, to today's person in today's language.
(Adolf Kajpr SJ /1902–1959/;
excerpt from the article "Rosary or Newspapers", published in the "Catholic", November 17, 1946;
quoted from the book The Present is God's Own Time. Refugium 2021)
