Episode Transcript  

One

A Revealing Conversation 

Recently, I was sitting with a small group of Catholic couples, educated, prayerful, and serious about their faith. As I listened to the conversation, something struck me, not about what they were saying, but about how they sounded. They were discussing a number of stories that dominated the news over the recent past. The tone of the room was heavy, tinged with anger, frustration, some fear, and a lot of weariness. There was no joy, no lightness, no confidence. Just a sense that everything was unraveling.

What surprised me was this: when I later asked them about their actual lives, their families, their work, their communities, they spoke of blessings, stability, goodness, even gratitude. Yes, there were real struggles. But their lives, taken as a whole, were good. And I found myself asking a question that wouldn’t leave me: How can people living objectively good, grace-filled lives feel so anxious, angry, and hopeless? How can lived reality be good while perceived reality feels catastrophic?

Two

Worldview

The Christian worldview is this: a good God created a good world. He created you to be very good. And in His Providence, He is actively guiding all things, even sin, suffering, and apparent chaos, toward the greatest possible conclusion. That is reality, and when your mind grasps reality accurately, you have truth. That worldview supplies: meaning, balance and proportion, hope grounded in Providence, and confidence that evil is real but not ultimately in power. 

The worldview subtly communicated by the news is that the world is fundamentally broken, people are mostly bad, institutions are beyond repair, and the future rests entirely on fragile human control. There is no God or Providence to trust, only vigilance, outrage, and fear. It’s a functional secular-apocalyptic worldview.

When we live inside that story long enough, our vision of reality becomes distorted, and our soul, mind, and body suffer the negative consequences.

Three

Misreading Reality Deforms the Soul

When we live inside a distorted story of reality long enough, it does not merely inform us; it deforms us. 

The news focuses almost entirely on what is broken rather than on what quietly works. We may intellectually know that headlines are selective, but our emotions do not live in abstractions. They respond to what they repeatedly see and hear. Over time, the nervous system stops asking, “Is this an accurate picture of reality?” It simply concludes, “The world is unsafe.”

From that conclusion flow predictable fruits: chronic vigilance, low-grade anxiety, anger that feels justified, cynicism disguised as wisdom, doubt in God’s providential care, and a slow erosion of gratitude. We become tired, reactive, and pessimistic, not because our lives are collapsing, but because the story shaping our inner world is darker than reality itself.

People often say we need to be well-informed. But to be well informed is to have a balanced and proportional grasp of reality. This is precisely what the news does not give, so it cannot make you well-informed but malformed. Worse, it is slow and constant training that evil governs the world rather than a Good God governing the world by His Providence. 

Four

The Lie that Sows Doubt

St. John Paul II taught that there was one truth that was the key to understanding the drama of human history: the devil seeks to spread a lie that sows doubt about who God really is. In many and varied ways, Satan whispers, “God is not a loving Father; He is a master trying to control you. You cannot trust Him. Just look at the world, look at all the suffering, the injustice, the innocent who are harmed. If God were truly good, He would stop this. If He were truly present, He would intervene. Therefore, either God does not exist, or He does not care. And if He does not care, then we are on our own. Everything depends on us. Yet in the face of the evil and suffering of the world, that burden is overwhelming, crushing.”

This is not a new argument. It is the oldest one. The constant presentation of reality as chaotic, corrupt, and beyond redemption slowly trains the soul to doubt Providence. Evil begins to feel ultimate. Fear begins to feel reasonable. Trust begins to feel naïve. And without ever saying so explicitly, the imagination absorbs the conclusion: we are on our own.

But this is a lie. Evil is real, but it does not govern the world. God does. Remember the truth: a good God created a good world. He made you very good. And in His Providence, He is guiding all things, even suffering and apparent chaos, toward the greatest possible conclusion. When we remember this truth, trust is restored, and hope becomes reasonable again.

Five

A Conviction and Resolution 

I’ll admit I like knowing what is going on in the world. But I’m struggling to find a good reason for regularly reading the news.

Now, if we define a good reason as something like this, “This will help me know reality better, love others better, and act more faithfully in the concrete duties God has given me,” then for most people, most of the time, modern news simply fails that test.

Why? First, the news no longer helps us see a shared reality. Instead of pointing to what we can agree is happening, it often gives us noise, anger, and opinions that divide rather than clarify. Second, caring about situations for which you have no responsibility, no authority, and no concrete ability to act, and therefore carrying a burden God has not entrusted to you, is not prudence. It is imprudence. Third, it competes directly with your real vocation. Every minute spent consumed by the drama of something over which you have no control is time, attention, and love not given to the people and the responsibilities God has actually entrusted to you.

There are some legitimate exceptions where reading the news is justified, for example, when it directly affects your responsibilities. For example, I lead pilgrimages to the Holy Land, so I need to know what is happening in the Middle East. That information fits with my responsibilities. My honest conclusion isn’t, “I should read better news.” It’s this: I should give my time and attention to God, to the people and responsibilities He has entrusted to me, and to the formation of myself, body, mind, and soul, and trust God with what exceeds my responsibility.

My resolution is to step away from regular news consumption and rely on direct, trustworthy sources when information is truly required by my responsibilities. So, I’ll just call my friends on the ground in Israel and ask them what is going on!

As a resolution, let’s give our curiosity and our attention to the people in our lives rather than those around the country or the world. 

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