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Pope to young Catholics: Use technology to share faith
By Cindy Wooden
Source: Catholic News Service
Published: Sunday, May 24, 2009
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VATICAN CITY (CNS)—Pope Benedict XVI asked young Catholics to use their computers, Facebook accounts, blogs and Internet video posts to share with their peers the joy of faith in Christ.
 
"Be sure to announce the gospel to your contemporaries with enthusiasm," the pope told young people in his message for the 2009 celebration of World Communications Day.
 
"Human hearts are yearning for a world where love endures, where gifts are shared, where unity is built, where freedom finds meaning in truth and where identity is found in respectful communion," said Pope Benedict's message, which was released at the Vatican Jan. 23.
 
The theme for the 2009 World Communications Day, which will be celebrated May 24 in most dioceses, is "New Technologies, New Relationships: Promoting a Culture of Respect, Dialogue and Friendship."
 
Releasing the message—which included e-mailing it directly to 100,000 young Catholics around the world and asking them to forward it or post it on their Web sites—the Vatican also announced that it would take a further step into the digital age by making video of the pope available on YouTube, a video-sharing Web site.
 
In his message, Pope Benedict said that if used creatively and correctly new computer technologies can help people meet the human longing to connect with others and share the search for goodness, beauty and truth.
 
Of course, he said, people must "avoid the sharing of words and images that are degrading of human beings, that promote hatred and intolerance, that debase the goodness and intimacy of human sexuality or that exploit the weak and vulnerable."
 
And praising the way young people use the Internet to form and maintain friendships, he also cautioned against trivializing friendship by not forming real, face-to-face relationships.
 
"It would be sad if our desire to sustain and develop online friendships were to be at the cost of our availability to engage with our families, our neighbors and those we meet in the daily reality of our places of work, education and recreation," Pope Benedict said.
 
"If the desire for virtual connectedness becomes obsessive, it may in fact function to isolate individuals from real social interaction while also disrupting the patterns of rest, silence and reflection that are necessary for healthy human development," the pope said.
 
Still, Pope Benedict said, new technologies have an "extraordinary potential" to bring people together, to help them share information, to rally them to work for good causes and to educate.
 
"They respond to a fundamental desire of people to communicate and to relate to each other," he said.
 
"When we find ourselves drawn toward other people, when we want to know more about them and make ourselves known to them, we are responding to God's call—a call that is imprinted in our nature as beings created in the image and likeness of God, the God of communication and communion," Pope Benedict said.
 
Much of the pope's message was addressed to the "digital generation," to young people who have grown up using computers and cellular phones, e-mail and text messaging.
 
He asked them "to bring the witness of their faith to the digital world" and to write openly about the joys of faith when they write their profiles on social-networking sites or blogs.
 
The first step in evangelization is to understand the culture in which the gospel will be proclaimed, he said, and young Catholics are the ones who have that understanding of their peers and of the Internet culture they use to communicate.
 
"You know their fears and their hopes, their aspirations and their disappointments," the pope told young Catholics. "The greatest gift you can give to them is to share with them the good news of a God who became man, who suffered, died and rose again to save all people."
 
Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, told reporters Jan. 23 that the message was distinctive for the sense of trust and openness it showed toward new technologies and for the fact that it was addressed primarily to young Catholics. 
 
Msgr. Paul Tighe, secretary of the council, said people who have grown up with computer technology "and integrated it naturally into their lifestyles" communicate, learn, get information and engage in political and social activities differently than people over 40 years old, the so-called "digital immigrants."
 
But, he said, young people and anyone else using the new technologies need to be careful about the content they are generating, sharing or drawing to the attention of others.
 
"We are all aware of the risks of news forms of cyberbullying and abusive postings that have emerged in recent years," he said.
 
* * *
 
The following is the message of Pope Benedict XVI for the 43rd World Day of  Communications, entitled "New Technologies, New Relationships. Promoting a Culture of Respect, Dialogue and Friendship,” dated May 24, 2009, and issued from the Vatican on January 24, 2009, the feast of St. Francis de Sales, the patron saint of journalists.

Dear brothers and sisters!
 
In anticipation of the forthcoming World Communications Day, I would like to address to you some reflections on the theme chosen for this yea, “New Technologies, New Relationships: Promoting a culture of Respect, Dialogue and Friendship.”
 
The new digital technologies are, indeed, bringing about fundamental shifts in patterns of communication and human relationships. These changes are particularly evident among those young people who have grown up with the new technologies and are at home in a digital world that often seems quite foreign to those of us who, as adults, have had to learn to understand and appreciate the opportunities it has to offer for communications. In this year’s message, I am conscious of those who constitute the so-called digital generation and I would like to share with them, in particular, some ideas concerning the extraordinary potential of the new technologies, if they are used to promote human understanding and solidarity. These technologies are truly a gift to humanity and we must endeavor to ensure that the benefits they offer are put at the service of all human individuals and communities, especially those who are most disadvantaged and vulnerable.
 
The accessibility of mobile telephones and computers, combined with the global reach and penetration of the Internet, has opened up a range of means of communication that permit the almost instantaneous communication of words and images across enormous distances and to some of the most isolated corners of the world; something that would have been unthinkable for previous generations.
 
Young people, in particular, have grasped the enormous capacity of the new media to foster connectedness, communication and understanding between individuals and communities, and they are turning to them as means of communicating with existing friends, of meeting new friends, of forming communities and networks, of seeking information and news, and of sharing their ideas and opinions. Many benefits flow from this new culture of communication: families are able to maintain contact across great distances; students and researchers have more immediate and easier access to documents, sources and scientific discoveries, hence they can work collaboratively from different locations; moreover, the interactive nature of many of the new media facilitates more dynamic forms of learning and communication, thereby contributing to social progress.
 
While the speed with which the new technologies have evolved in terms of their efficiency and reliability is rightly a source of wonder, their popularity with users should not surprise us, as they respond to a fundamental desire of people to communicate and to relate to each other. This desire for communication and friendship is rooted in our very nature as human beings and cannot be adequately understood as a response to technical innovations. In the light of the biblical message, it should be seen primarily as a reflection of our participation in the communicative and unifying love of God, who desires to make of all humanity one family. When we find ourselves drawn towards other people, when we want to know more about them and make ourselves known to them, we are responding to God’s call - a call that is imprinted in our nature as beings created in the image and likeness of God, the God of communication and communion.
 
The desire for connectedness and the instinct for communication that are so obvious in contemporary culture are best understood as modern manifestations of the basic and enduring propensity of humans to reach beyond themselves and to seek communion with others. In reality, when we open ourselves to others, we are fulfilling our deepest need and becoming more fully human. Loving is, in fact, what we are designed for by our creator. Naturally, I am not talking about fleeting, shallow relationships, I am talking about the real love that is at the very heart of Jesus’ moral teaching: "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength" and "You must love your neighbor as yourself" (cf. Mk 12:30-31).
 
In this light, reflecting on the significance of the new technologies, it is important to focus not just on their undoubted capacity to foster contact between people, but on the quality of the content that is put into circulation using these means. I would encourage all people of good will who are active in the emerging environment of digital communication to commit themselves to promoting a culture of “respect, dialogue and friendship.”
 
Those who are active in the production and dissemination of new media content, therefore, should strive to “respect” the dignity and worth of the human person. If the new technologies are to serve the good of individuals and of society, all users will avoid the sharing of words and images that are degrading of human beings, that promote hatred and intolerance, that debase the goodness and intimacy of human sexuality or that exploit the weak and vulnerable.
 
The new technologies have also opened the way for “dialogue” between people from different countries, cultures and religions. The new digital arena, the so-called cyberspace, allows them to encounter and to know each other’s traditions and values. Such encounters, if they are to be fruitful, require honest and appropriate forms of expression together with attentive and respectful listening. The dialogue must be rooted in a genuine and mutual searching for truth if it is to realize its potential to promote growth in understanding and tolerance. Life is not just a succession of events or experiences: it is a search for the true, the good and the beautiful. It is to this end that we make our choices; it is for this that we exercise our freedom; it is in this—in truth, in goodness, and in beauty—that we find happiness and joy. We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by those who see us merely as consumers in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth.
 
The concept of “friendship” has enjoyed a renewed prominence in the vocabulary of the new digital social networks that have emerged in the last few years. The concept is one of the noblest achievements of human culture. It is in and through our friendships that we grow and develop as humans. For this reason, true friendship has always been seen as one of the greatest goods any human person can experience. We should be careful, therefore, never to trivialize the concept or the experience of friendship. It would be sad if our desire to sustain and develop online friendships were to be at the cost of our availability to engage with our families, our neighbors and those we meet in the daily reality of our places of work, education and recreation. If the desire for virtual connectedness becomes obsessive, it may in fact function to isolate individuals from real social interaction while also disrupting the patterns of rest, silence and reflection that are necessary for healthy human development.
 
Friendship is a great human good, but it would be emptied of its ultimate value if it were to be understood as an end in itself. Friends should support and encourage each other in developing their gifts and talents and in putting them at the service of the human community. In this context, it is gratifying to note the emergence of new digital networks that seek to promote human solidarity, peace and justice, human rights and respect for human life and the good of creation. These networks can facilitate forms of cooperation between people from different geographical and cultural contexts that enable them to deepen their common humanity and their sense of shared responsibility for the good of all.
 
We must, therefore, strive to ensure that the digital world, where such networks can be established, is a world that is truly open to all. It would be a tragedy for the future of humanity if the new instruments of communication, which permit the sharing of knowledge and information in a more rapid and effective manner, were not made accessible to those who are already economically and socially marginalized, or if it should contribute only to increasing the gap separating the poor from the new networks that are developing at the service of human socialization and information.
 
I would like to conclude this message by addressing myself, in particular, to young Catholic believers: to encourage them to bring the witness of their faith to the digital world. Dear brothers and sisters, I ask you to introduce into the culture of this new environment of communications and information technology the values on which you have built your lives. In the early life of the Church, the great Apostles and their disciples brought the Good News of Jesus to the Greek and Roman world.
 
Just as, at that time, a fruitful evangelization required that careful attention be given to understanding the culture and customs of those pagan peoples so that the truth of the gospel would touch their hearts and minds, so also today, the proclamation of Christ in the world of new technologies requires a profound knowledge of this world if the technologies are to serve our mission adequately. It falls, in particular, to young people, who have an almost spontaneous affinity for the new means of communication, to take on the responsibility for the evangelization of this "digital continent."
 
Be sure to announce the gospel to your contemporaries with enthusiasm. You know their fears and their hopes, their aspirations and their disappointments: the greatest gift you can give to them is to share with them the "good news" of a God who became man, who suffered, died and rose again to save all people. Human hearts are yearning for a world where love endures, where gifts are shared, where unity is built, where freedom finds meaning in truth, and where identity is found in respectful communion. Our faith can respond to these expectations: may you become its heralds! The pope accompanies you with his prayers and his blessing.
 
© Copyright 2009—Libreria Editrice Vaticana

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