Cathal BarryThe Internet is a “gift from God” that facilitates communication, Pope Francis said recently in his message for WorldDay of Social Communications.
Pope Francis said the Internet offers “immense possibilities” to encounter people from different cultural and traditional backgrounds and show solidarity with them.
“This is something truly good, a gift from God,” he wrote.
However, he also warned that people’s obsessive desire to stay connected can actually isolate people from their friends and family.
“The desire for digital connectivity can have the effect of isolating us from our neighbours, from those closest to us,” he cautioned.
Despite noting these drawbacks, however, the Pope insisted “they do not justify rejecting social media”. Rather, “they remind us that communication is ultimately a human rather than technological achievement,” he said.
He suggests that people need to see communication in terms of trying to be neighbourly.
“It is not enough to be passers-by on the digital highways, simply “connected”; connections need to grow into true encounters. We cannot live apart, closed in on ourselves. We need to love and to be loved.
“The world of media also has to be concerned with humanity, it too is called to show tenderness. The digital world can be an environment rich in humanity; a network not of wires but of people,” he said.
Elsewhere in his message, Pope Francis also spoke of his preference for the “bruised Church which goes out to the streets”.
He said: “The digital highway is one of them, a street teeming with people who are often hurting, men and women looking for salvation or hope. By means of the internet, the Christian message can reach ‘to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1:8). Keeping the doors of our churches open also means keeping them open in the digital environment so that people, whatever their situation in life, can enter, and so that the Gospel can go out to reach everyone,” he said.
Finally, Pope Francis noted that that effective Christian witness is not about “bombarding people with religious messages”. Rather “we have to be able to dialogue with the men and women of today, to understand their expectations, doubts and hopes, and to bring them the Gospel,” he said.
Welcoming Pope Francis’ message, Archbishop Eamon Martin, chairman of the Irish Bishops’ Council for Communications said: “Pope Francis is inviting us to reflect on what it means for us, despite our limitations, to encounter others in the light of the Gospel.
“I very much echo the Pope’s sentiments when he says that it is not enough to be a passer-by on the digital highways. I encourage people of faith to be present as neighbours in the digital media, and to bring the message and compassion of Christ to all those they meet online,” the archbishop said.