The “Vice Pope” had a few things to say to a gathering of Catholic journalists yesterday — including a call for them to remain independent of any particular political agenda:

The richness of a Catholic journalist is the Gospel he communicates; his support is God, says Benedict XVI’s secretary of state.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone affirmed this today during his homily at a Mass he celebrated for some 230 Catholic journalists and communications directors gathered in a meeting organized by the Pontifical Council for Social Communication. The Pope will conclude the meeting Thursday with an address to the group.

Catholic journalists, like their peers, are “called to form and inform,” Cardinal Bertone said, but they have the further mission of contributing to the “proclamation of Christ and the opening of society to God.”

The cardinal invited the journalists to show “the relationship between faith and reason in a respectful and clear relationship with the various positions present in public debate.”

He urged them not to “fall into the temptation of giving space to particular, political, economic or even religious interests,” so as to “serve only the truth.”

There’s more at this link.