Past remarks of new Pope Leo XIV indicate clear support for Church teaching on issues of life, marriage and family while also skewering mass media portrayals as distorting the reality of those same ideals.

In a 2012 address to a synod of bishops in Rome on evangelisation, the then head of the Augustinian Order said “Western mass media is extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel – for example abortion, homosexual lifestyle, euthanasia”.

He also narrated his remarks for a video produced by the Catholic News Service, that featured accompanying footage from movies and TV including ‘Cider House Rules,’ ‘Million Dollar Baby’, and ‘Modern Family’, each of which positively portray those moral choices.

The now-Pope said mass media fostered so much “sympathy for anti-Christian lifestyles choices” that “when people hear the Christian message it often inevitably seems ideological and emotionally cruel”.

“Catholic pastors who preach against the legalization of abortion or the redefinition of marriage are portrayed as being ideologically driven, severe and uncaring,” Prevost added.

He called for a “new evangelization to counter these mass media-produced distortions of religious and ethical reality”.