Without falling into the "net"” “

“Internet and the Catholic Church in Europe”, “Internet and minors” and “The Church in the digital society” were the questions discussed in Rome from 6 to 12 June, in the course of the three events organized jointly by the association of Italian Catholic webmasters (WeCa), the Italian Bishops’ Conference and the Council of the European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE) with the aim of promoting interest in and dialogue with religion on the web. Over 40 internet experts and webmasters from various European churches, Finland, England, Iceland, Denmark, Transylvania, Germany, Greece and Romania, were present. The meeting was also an occasion to celebrate the 10th anniversary of ECIC, the European Christian Internet Conference, whose next meeting will be held in London in 2006. WISH TO COMMUNICATE. “Internet is a test-bed for professionals in the sector to understand people’s wish to communicate” and, like every means of communication, “it can also become a gift for the Church called to preach the Gospel”, said Bishop Amédée Grab, president of the Council of the European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE), in welcoming the participants at the Roman meeting. Nonetheless, remarked Grab, “a large part of the world population does not yet possess the privilege of plugging into the web. Even in Europe, especially in some countries of Eastern Europe, internet is not yet accessible to many people, especially the young. That’s why the Church must help to make this medium accessible to everyone”. The need for the Church to dialogue with the media was stressed in turn by Archbishop John Patrick Foley, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, who said: “The Church recognises the great contribution that the media have given to the progress of humanity”: hence the “duty”, for the ecclesial community, to “find a new impetus” in this field, thanks to “proper training of media professionals, so that the enormous capabilities of the media be matched by the maturation of persons capable of harmonising their own faith with the languages of modern communication, in order to reach out to the whole of humanity, unified in a global village”. A POWERFUL INSTRUMENT. “The world wide web is an environment, a proposal for life, a new mental system that is creating a new consciousness by forming a wholly new collective awareness”, said Josè M. Pérez Tornero of the University of Barcelona, expert and professor of communication, in his address to the ECIC Conference. “The value of the Web derives – he said – from three sources: technology, globalization of communication, and economic rationalization and the market. Internet is not only a new medium. When it enters our life, we not only gain an instrument that can perform certain tasks, but also accept a change in sensibility and values. Internet is a powerful means of social and mental change”. On the level of communication, internet also proposes a “different style”, i.e. “a more open and participative communication, less centralized and without hierarchies, more democratic and dialogic”. However, said Tornero, “we have lost the symbolic capacity of our language, and multimedia systems create new virtual contexts that are beginning to dominate our personal and social life”. A consequence of this is a ‘privacy’ at risk, with “the person vulnerable and subject to manipulation”, especially the youngest: “internet succeeds in capturing young children and adolescents and leading them to an existential void, encouraging them to engage in meaningless chat and participate in aggressive games”. In this sense, he concluded, “the role of the family and parents is fundamental”. BEING SIGNIFICANT. “Proclaiming the Gospel also means seeing the positive side of things and the opportunities offered by this new age. Let us try to grasp the ‘positive side’ of the contemporary world and of the new technologies”, urged Father Pierre Babin, the director and one of the founders of AVEX Alliance, a centre for audiovisual research and expression of the faith. According to Father Babin, “the most wonderful thing about the web is its speed, its simultaneity, almost as if it were a sensorial extension of the body. It can be simultaneously present and involved in physically distant places and pass from one to the other in seconds. This enables us to be present and involved in the world and it is in this way that we can be truly significant”. Everything becomes ‘sign’, communication, “liturgy, chant, contemplation, the listening to the Word”. SOME EXPERIENCES. www.kirche-entdecken.de is the website promoted by a Lutheran church in Hanover. It is a real electronic church created to attract children. Various windows that open on rooms such as the sacristy, offices and chapels, show the interior of the church. “It’s a way of involving children and introducing them to the world of faith through sounds and images that become sensorial experience”, says Johannes Neukirch, the Lutheran webmaster who runs the project. Rather different is the project on which Radu Capan, webmaster of the Romanian Catholic Church is working: that of realizing a network on the web to develop ever closer links between the dioceses. An off-beat experience was described by Marja Pesonen, educational expert of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Finland, who has been inspired by the language of icons (www.elearningeuropa.info), and intends to use e-learning as a process of change of global life rather than a means of learning. ———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1396 N.ro relativo : 45 Data pubblicazione : 15/06/05