A Christian Way of Being Present in the Digital World

A Christian Way of Being Present in the Digital World | Michael J. Miller | Catholic World Report

A new (and free) e-book compiles messages by Pope Benedict XVI about social communications

When
Pope Benedict XVI opened a Twitter account in December 2012, it was
not a publicity stunt but rather the logical development of Vatican
involvement in the communications media that began with the founding
of L’Osservatore
Romano
in the nineteenth and Vatican Radio in the twentieth century. The
Second Vatican Council issued a brief Decree on the Means of Social
Communication (Inter
mirifica)
at the conclusion of its second session in 1963, declaring that “it
is the Church’s birthright to use and own any of these media which
are necessary or useful for the formation of Christians and for
pastoral activity” (IM 3).

The
intense multi-media coverage of the Council itself seemed to herald a
new era of Catholic presence in the public forum. Televised papal
Masses—whether at midnight on Christmas, on pastoral journeys or at
World Youth Days—became a regular feature in the life of the Church
and in her outreach to the modern world. The Vatican’s website
www.vatican.va
and its recently consolidated news portal www.news.va
are invaluable online resources.

In
September 2013 the Pontifical Council for Social Communications
expanded this development in yet another direction by publishing in
e-book format a collection of the World Communications Day messages
by Pope Benedict XVI. These annual messages are all dated January
24, the feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists,
but were promulgated later in the year during the Easter season.
Pope Benedict composed eight of them for the years 2006-2013
inclusive to offer his “reflection on some aspect of communication
with a view to both promoting public discussion and providing some
guidelines for the Church’s own engagement in this constitutive
dimension of its mission” (from the Introduction by Abp. Claudio
Maria Celli, President of the Pontifical Council for Social
Communications). The e-book is free and can
be downloaded from the Vatican website.

Some
of the messages have themes geared to other Church events, such as
the Year of the Priest (2010) or World Youth Days.

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