Media News - Monday, January 25, 2010

For God’s sake, blog!, pope tells priests

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, websites - which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis," he said. Priests, he said, had to respond to the challenge of "today's cultural shifts" if they wanted to reach young people. But Benedict warned priests not to strive to become stars of new media. After decades of being wary of new media, the Vatican has decided to dive in head first. Last year, a new Vatican website, www.pope2you.net, went live, offering one application called "The pope meets you on Facebook," and another allowing the faithful to see the pope's speeches and messages on their iPhones or iPods. (Reuters)

• Home |
• Seminars  |
• Events |
• Media Landscape |
• Newsroom|
• Media News|
• Resources

Terms of service and Privacy policy.

Copyright © 1992- 2011 European Journalism Centre. All rights reserved.

Valid XHTML and CSS.

European Journalism Centre

Sonneville-lunet 10
6221KT Maastricht
The Netherlands

Tel. : +31 43 325 40 30
Fax : +32 2 400 42 20

E-mail: info[at]ejc.net