Words that heal

Fr. Livio Tonello, director

Every day we can see that verbal aggressiveness is widely used. This aggressiveness is expressed through verbal attacks which are rude, criticizing and insulting. Over time vulgar expressions are more and more commonly used and very often many people use swear words not only when they are angry but in every day language. Even on television or on the radio it is more and more accepted to use crude language; years ago this would have been unthinkable. Bleeping was used for many years as a means of censoring TV programs to remove unsuitable content. Now swearing can be heard in every transmission and talk show. They use them to try to make people laugh by playing on crude double meanings and making insinuations. This happens in the field of public information and in all social classes. Thanks to the protection of anonymity profanity easily enters into social Media where it is possible to attack people verbally. In the past foul language was considered to be an expression of intellectual poverty, now insults are a symbol of modernity and they are deployed also for a specific political purpose. Even in politics the verbal abuse used goes far beyond ideological confrontation as…