Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Interesting

The fact that the Pope isn't jumping on the Internet makes me very happy, not unhappy as some react (see Whispers for a somewhat disgruntled take on it)

This is not unrelated to my previous post. I would disagree that the Successor of Peter should be spending time in front of a computer screen or text messaging or whatever. Perhaps instead of seeing this as "yet another Vatican media blunder" we should see it as the Pope saying something. There's no argument from silence, of course, but he has said enough by way of caution that we could read a bit into it. From the World Day of Communications:

"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," he stated. "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 irony of my posting this on a blog is not lost on me. I'm heading out to the world again now :)

1 comment:

Paul said...

Which Whispers post are you referring to? I'd find a disgruntled post out of character for Rocco.

As your blog post clearly evidences, there's nothing wrong with online communication in se, and perhaps there's something good about it. I would love to see our Holy Father doing more with the web, though someone of his stature doesn't have time to write his own blog, of course.