Pope

The Pope delivered his message on the 45th World Day of Communications. Very apropos:

It is an ever more commonly held opinion that, just as the Industrial Revolution in its day brought about a profound transformation in society by the modifications it introduced into the cycles of production and the lives of workers, so today the radical changes taking place in communications are guiding significant cultural and social developments. The new technologies are not only changing the way we communicate, but communication itself, so much so that it could be said that we are living through a period of vast cultural transformation. This means of spreading information and knowledge is giving birth to a new way of learning and thinking, with unprecedented opportunities for establishing relationships and building fellowship.

The Pope has dealt with the Internet, social networking, and mass communications many times in the past. He is always quick to highlight the transformational power new technologies offer—in this case, he compares our communications revolution to the Industrial Revolution.

He is, as always, quick to warn of the dangers involved in this technology's misuse, and reminds us that, as with every tool humanity uses, this tool must, too, be placed at the service of good, rather than evil... and it is up to you and I to do this!

As with every other fruit of human ingenuity, the new communications technologies must be placed at the service of the integral good of the individual and of the whole of humanity. If used wisely, they can contribute to the satisfaction of the desire for meaning, truth and unity which remain the most profound aspirations of each human being.

The Pope warns that online communication, particularly, I think, in the form of status-posting and blogging, "can become a form of self-indulgence." He also warns of the dangers of a digital lifestyle, including "enclosing oneself in a sort of parallel existence," "excessive exposure to the virtual world," and "constructing an artificial public profile for oneself."

The pope continues to remind us that "virtual contact cannot and must not take the place of direct human contact with people at every level of our lives."

The whole message is incredibly succinct and important for anyone working online to read. Please read it in full—and post your thoughts here!

Further Reading for Thought/Discussion:

• I'm Obsessed with the Obsession
• New Book on "The Church and New Media" 
• Social networking sites are a 'modern form of madness'
• Getting Intimate on Facebook
• Pope Benedict's 43rd World Communications Day Message (2009)
• The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
• How the Internet Gets Inside Us
• Children are happier with their virtual lives and not the real world
• Chris Bowler: "I struggle greatly to focus on one task for any length."

I will be posting more about the themes the Pope highlights in this message in the coming months. I think these issues have been on many people's minds (mine included), with much more frequency, now that social media has begun to truly pervade people's entire lives.

From the CNS:

Pope Benedict XVI unveiled a new Vatican agency to promote "new evangelization" and assigned it the task of combating the "de-Christianization" of countries that were first evangelized centuries ago.

...and of special interest to Open Source Catholic readers, it looks like this agency will work especially through the means of modern communications media, such as social networking:

The archbishop said the council would work closely with modern communications media -- an explicit request of the pope -- and that the council's staff would operate in several languages.

The Pope's apostolic letter went on to speak of the importance of religious values and family in society, and mourns the loss of community and the fact that many live in an "interior desert" as a result of relativism and modernism.

Very poignant; we'll see what comes of this!

From Reuters:

VATICAN CITY - For God's sake, blog! Pope Benedict told priests on Saturday, saying they must learn to use new forms of communication to spread the gospel message.

In his message for the Roman Catholic Church's World Day of Communications, the pope, who is 82 and known not to love computers or the Internet, acknowledged priests must make the most of the "rich menu of options" offered by new technology

"Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources — images, videos, animated features, blogs, Web sites — which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis."

Hat tip: The Forum

More sources for the story:

"Pope Benedict XVI urged priests over the weekend to use as many tools as possible to communicate with people, which includes the Internet and—yes—blogging. The Pope, who has been a bit of an Internet cudmudgeon, acknowledged that "the larger digital world represents a great resource for humanity" and said priests should take advantage of the tool before they become outdated."

Ars Technica: Pope: priests should blog, tweet the gospel too

CNET News: Pope asks priests to become more web savvy

The Next Web: Pope tells Priests: Start blogging

Mashable: Pope's Message to Priests: We Must Blog

ABC News: Pope to Priests: Go Forth and Blog

Read the Pope's entire speech for the World Day of Communications.

Seen on the Catholic News Service wire, and mentioned on Whispers:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Communications technology keeps changing, but the need to deliver a message with truth and charity is never obsolete, said Italian Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli.

As president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Archbishop Celli presided over a four-day meeting of cardinals, bishops and Catholic media professionals to discuss -- mainly in small groups -- new pastoral guidelines for church communications.

A recurring theme during the meeting Oct. 26-29 was what constitutes Catholic communications and what, if anything, can be done about those who use the word Catholic to describe themselves while using all sorts of nasty adjectives to describe anyone who doesn't agree with them.

Archbishop Celli said he didn't think a Catholic bloggers' "code of conduct" would accomplish much, especially when what is really needed is a reflection on what it means to communicate.

Upright, ethical communication is a natural result of a sincere desire to share the truth about God, about faith and about the dignity of the human person, he said.

The archbishop said that what Pope Benedict XVI has said about solidarity and development aid goes for communications as well: "Charity needs truth and truth needs charity."

"Anyone speaking publicly as a Catholic has to have those ethical values that are part of a serious, honest form of communication," Archbishop Celli said.

"In the past, the church's educational efforts included helping people decide what they should or should not watch. Now it must also help them decide what they should or should not produce" and put on the Internet, he said.

What I think they're trying to say is that we should not use false or inflammatory... or uncharitable kinds of rhetoric and language in what we produce online. I know of many Catholic bloggers and online personality who have struggled with the task of not only tempering their own uncharitable thoughts and words, but also often having to deal with the uncharitable (and often scathing) words of commenters and social media friends/followers.

How are we spreading the Gospel through our work? And are we doing it for Christ, or for our own good/needs/desires/wants?

From the Catholic News Agency:

Vatican City, Oct 29, 2009 / 11:30 am (CNA) — Addressing the full Pontifical Council for Social Communications today, Benedict XVI urged its members to help communicate the teachings of the Church on the “digital continent” of the ever-changing technological landscape.

Reflecting on the role of social networking and increasingly real-time electronic communication, Pope Benedict XVI said on Thursday that "modern culture is established, even before its content, in the very fact of the existence of new forms of communication that use new languages; they use new technologies and create new psychological attitudes.”

"Effectively," he continued, the advent of new technology “supposes a challenge for the Church, which is called to announce the Gospel to persons in the third millennium, maintaining its content unaltered but making it understandable.”

Quoting John Paul II's encyclical "Redemptoris Missio" that affirms: "Involvement in the mass media, however, is not meant merely to strengthen the preaching of the Gospel. There is a deeper reality involved here: since the very evangelization of modern culture depends to a great extent on the influence of the media.”

“It is not enough to use the media simply to spread the Christian message and the Church's authentic teaching. It is also necessary to integrate that message into the 'new culture' created by modern communications," the Holy Father asserted. Continue reading [CNA] »

So, what are we doing to "spread the Christian message and the Church's authentic teaching? And, beyond that, how are we, as the Holy Father suggests, integrating our faith and the love of Christ into our (and others') online lives?

There truly is a 'digital continent,' and it is the 'new world' of our century. Can we venture out with the other explorers and evangelize to the inhabitants of this new world in an effective, loving way, as did the missionaries of years past, who risked their very lives to spread the faith?

I have seen many great examples of this happening - personalities such as Matthew Warner, Patrick Madrid, and Jeff Miller come to mind (along with a plethora of others), but what more can we do? How can we bring more people outside the Catholic blogosphere (and podcast-osphere) into the faith?