Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “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...In this year’s message, I am conscious of those who constitute the so-called digital generation...” This is how the Holy Father Benedict XVI opens his Message for the 43rd World Communications Day which, in many countries, will be celebrated on May 24, feast of the Ascension, with the theme: “New Technologies, New Relationships: Promoting a culture of Respect, Dialogue and Friendship.”
The Pope mentioned that “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 many different new means of sending words and images, including to those who are farthest away from us, through cellular phones and computers, has been taken up in use by the youth who use these instruments “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.” There are many benefits that flow from this new culture of communications, the Holy Father says in his Message, for families and for students and researchers, as well as for social progress.
The popularity and rapid spread of the new technologies “respond to a fundamental desire of people to communicate and to relate to each other,” the Pope said, recalling that “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...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.”
The Holy Father thus places emphasis on the quality of the contents that are offered by the new technologies, encouraging all people of good will working in the world of digital communications “to commit themselves to promoting a culture of respect, dialogue and friendship.”
In reference to these three themes, the Pope affirms: “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 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...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.”
“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 on-line 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.”
In his Message, the Pope says he is glad to see “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,” and mentions the need for the digital world to become truly accessible to all people. “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.”
In concluding his Message, Benedict XVI specifically addressed young Catholics, “to encourage them to bring the witness of their faith to the digital world”; “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'.” (SL) (Agenzia Fides 27/1/2009, righe 62, parole 860)
