There was an article in Politico about a message to the media from Pope Francis, and I thought it might be a good place to start a discussion.

I was born in New York to an Irish Catholic mother and German Catholic father. I attended parochial schools from kindergarten through college. My brother Joe left home at 14 to become a priest, and I remember too many Saturday afternoons at our dining room table pretending piety while Joe practice-officiated a Mass when home for a visit.

As an adult, I have steered clear of the Catholic Church and, throughout my career as a journalist, maintained a deep belief in and commitment to the separation of church and state that was clearly the intent of our Founding Fathers.

Now comes Pope Francis blowing long-needed winds of change and channeling the Founding Fathers in ways that the world needs to really hear. I am not quite ready to become a regular at Mass, but it is heartening to hear the leading spiritual figure of the Catholic Church espousing a position of civility and reasonableness.

As communications director for the National Institute of Civil Discourse, I was proud to be part of a conference we convened in December in Washington, D.C. that brought together journalists from a wide range of media outlets from around the country. The focal point of the conference was civility in the media, and we explored for three days the question of the media’s role in guiding and inspiring more civil discourse in our nation.

Pope Francis was channeling much of what was discussed in December in his annual message for the Church’s World Day of Communications. As the pope urged journalists everywhere,

“We need, for example, to recover a certain sense of deliberateness and calm. This calls for time and the ability to be silent and to listen. We need also to be patient if we want to understand those who are different from us. People only express themselves fully when they are not merely tolerated, but know that they are truly accepted.”

He also urged media consumers not to “barricade” themselves behind single points of view and information that merely reinforces narrowly drawn opinions of how the world should be. And, the pope even called for all to pull back on “bombarding” with religious messages.

In my nearly 40 years as a journalist, this is the first time that I recall a pope offering a view on the media’s roles and responsibilities in the world. Think. Be silent. Be calm. Listen. This is papal instruction from which we can all benefit — those of us who write the words and stories, and those of us who read, view, and listen to them.

I may be a lapsed Catholic but it is heartening to hear a pope so in tune with the world and in sync with my own work and mission to inject civility into a world in sore need.