On World Internet Day, which also commemorates World Telecommunications Day and Information Society Day, we have selected for you some keys offered by the last three popes of the Catholic Church in this regard.
1.- Saint John Paul II: The Internet is a means, not an end
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In his message for the 36th World Communications Day, the Pilgrim Pope explained in 2002when the Internet was still in its early years, that “the Church faces this new medium with realism and confidence. Like other means of communication, it is a means, not an end in itself.”
“The Internet can offer magnificent opportunities for evangelization if it is used competently and with a clear awareness of its strengths and weaknesses,” he highlighted.
“Above all, by providing information and arousing interest, it makes possible an initial encounter with the Christian message, especially among young people, who increasingly turn to the world of cyberspace as a window open to the world,” stressed Saint John Paul II.
For this reason, “it is important that Christian communities think about very practical means of helping those who come into contact for the first time through the Internet, to move from the virtual world of cyberspace to the real world of the Christian community.”
2. Benedict XVI: Social networks and young people
Benedict XVI also left good advice about the Internet. Those collected on May 12, 2013, by the 47th World Day of Social Communicationsare some of them.
“Social networks must face the challenge of being truly inclusive (…) believers are warning more and more clearly that if the Good News is not also made known in the digital environment it could remain outside the scope of the experience of many people for whom this existential space is important,” Benedicto warned.
“The digital environment is not a parallel or purely virtual world, but is part of the daily reality of many, especially the youngest,” he highlighted.
The Holy Father then indicated that “for those who have welcomed with an open heart the gift of faith, the radical answer to man’s questions about love, truth and the meaning of life – which are present on social networks – is found in the person of Jesus Christ”.
In that sense, he continued, “it is natural that those who have faith want to share it, with respect and sensitivity, with the people they meet in the digital environment. But ultimately the good fruits that sharing the Gospel can bear are due more to the ability of the Word of God to touch hearts, than any of our efforts.
Benedict XVI then encouraged us to remember that “also in the digital environment, in which voices with tones that are too strong and conflicting are easily raised, and where there is sometimes the risk of sensationalism prevailing, we are called to careful discernment.” .
Pope Francis: From “like” to “amen”
In his message for the 53rd World Communications Day in 2019Pope Francis highlights that “the use of social networks is complementary to the encounter in the flesh, which occurs through the body, the heart, the eyes, the gaze, the breathing of the other.”
“If the network is used as an extension or as an expectation of that encounter, then it does not betray itself and continues to be a resource for communion. If a family uses the Internet to be more connected and then meets at the table and looks into each other’s eyes, then it is a resource. “If an ecclesial community coordinates its activities through the network, and then celebrates the Eucharist together, then it is a resource.”
“If the Internet provides me with the opportunity to approach stories and experiences of beauty or suffering that are physically distant from me, to pray together and seek together the good in the rediscovery of what unites us, then it is a resource,” the Pope continued. Francisco.
In this way, “we can move from diagnosis to treatment: opening the way to dialogue, to encounter, to smile, to caress… This is the network we want. A net made not to trap, but to liberate, to guard a communion of free people.”
Pope Francis then refers that “the Church itself is a network woven by Eucharistic communion, in which the union is not founded on the like but about the truth, about the ‘amen’ with which each one adheres to the Body of Christ, welcoming others.”
This article was originally published in 2022. It has been updated for republication.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.