I SYMPATHISE with newspaper editors. They have a challenging and precarious task to keep their audiences informed and their advertisers happy. If they fail in either, their employment may be jeopardised.

I also sympathise with bishops who get caught in the whirlwind of a news story, especially one affecting the Catholic Church institutionally.

The mass media business in Ireland and across the globe is increasingly competitive. Each news story becomes a contest in which the competitors are driven by a ruthless need to be first. Their zeal is complicated by the fact that the audiences for news - in print, audio or video - have less time for exposure to the news media.

Some media outlets have responded to this social change by formatting news as entertainment. At least, it may keep the finger off the remote control for a while longer - and the advertising agency off the telephone.

The Catholic Church in its universal teaching recognises that different cultures present different challenges to the preaching of the Gospel. The documents of the Second Vatican Council, and of various Vatican bodies, also acknowledge the challenge associated with presenting the Gospel in a mass media age.

But the church does not have a formula that is universally applicable each community is encouraged to understand and respond to the variables at work in its own culture. This is a process that involves reflection, conversation, listening, prayer, and an openness that is dialogic in nature. But this cannot be achieved in an instant, nor can it be achieved once and for all. It has to be, by nature, ongoing.

A secular project may call this market research, but there is a distinction. The dialogue between faith and culture is part of the very nature and mission of the church it is not undertaken in preparation for the development of a product to be delivered later.

News media outlets frequently observe and measure audience reaction and often change the product in response to social trends. These outlets are discovering that Ireland is moving through phenomenal social change, with significant implications for the media business.

Among these changes are lower levels of literacy among the younger generation whose language is magic and oral. People are no longer particularly concerned about issues that do not directly impact on their daily lives, save occasional emotive forays into the Third World.

The traditional sense of belonging in a community is irrelevant to urban dwellers and is quickly disappearing from the rural consciousness. People have less time for most things. The length of time the average media consumer spends on a single issue is shortening dramatically.

The practical implications for editors in all the media are serious. People read less. We get bored more easily and will "surf" the TV channels or the Internet. The average length of a newspaper article is shortened many people do not read to the last paragraph. The audience, whose ransom the advertiser has paid, is very elusive.

If the institutions of the Catholic Church put their ears to the ground in Ireland they will hear that people are absorbed in existential questions. While the church is mandated to seek the universal truth, individuals often seek only an answer to their immediate problems.

The magisterium of the church pronounces on the value of human life Joan wishes only tub know if she can have an abortion. The church teaches the "inalienable rights" of all people John only wants the travellers moved out of his estate. The philosophical, theological and sometimes didactic language of the church resonates poorly in contemporary culture.

The problem for the Catholic Church in Ireland is exacerbated by the fact that, as an institution, it is moving gradually from being a monolithic social force with predictable cultural influence to being one ingredient among many in a nation whose culture is no longer uniform but, ironically, is increasingly catholic.

I see hopeful signs that the church is learning, albeit painfully, to have dialogue with this complexity of culture. However, its greatest blessing is also its greatest burden the church, unlike the mass media or other corporate institutions, cannot alter its essential message in response to "market forces".

In common with other institutions, the church needs to reassess its language and communications style in order to present the "Good News" in our culture. However, it will never completely satisfy the demands of a consumer culture which loses interest in an issue at the end of a 24 hour news cycle.

We sometimes believe the church and the news media are waging a war against each other. At times, of course, they converse in tones that seem to resonate from battlefield trenches.

The church, institutionally and at grassroots level, accuses the media of belittling its message or of ignoring it.

Media institutions say the church lacks "accountability and transparency" in its dealings with many issues, and report religion in the same mind set as they do politics. Each accuses the other of corrupting the culture and of being responsible for many of our social ills.

But this argument goes nowhere. It is, in my opinion, closer to the truth to say that both the church and the mass media are affected by the dramatic socio cultural changes of our time. Each finds it increasingly difficult to fulfil their missions. Each is slowly being stripped of the respect which their predecessors took for granted. They are both challenged by the rapidly changing lifestyles of the people.

Media and church need to acknowledge that they separately must discover new forms of dialogue with our culture, and not seek to control or to manipulate, but to serve.

Might not a reasoned and courteous conversation between the two be a good starting point?