What presence on the web?

“What happened in the past with the printed press is now happening today with the Internet: the Church, too, is challenged by a technological revolution which is also a cultural revolution. Technology is profoundly changing people’s behaviour and even the life of the Church. We cannot ignore it; we are called to read with particular attention these signs of the time”, commented Monsignor Michel di Falco-Léandri, chairman of the Commission of European Bishops for the Media (EECM), in a briefing to SIR Europe at the end of the Commission’s recent meeting. The meeting, which focused on “The culture of the Internet and the communication of the Church”, ended in the Vatican on Sunday 15 November with the greetings and thanks of the Pope after the prayer of the Angelus. The meeting, which opened on 12 November, was attended by over 100 delegates, including the various bishops who chair the episcopal Commissions for the Media, press officers and spokespersons, Internet experts and directors of offices for social communications of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe. The EECM is a specialized commission of the Council of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe (CCEE) which monitors the development of the media and systems of communication within the Church, promotes the work of the Bishops’ Conferences in this field and formulates media policy guidelines on behalf of the CCEE. (See our previous report in SIR Europe nos.77-78/2009).A searching humanity. “We wished to listen to leading international experts to gain a better understanding of the various complex aspects of this phenomenon and to reflect on the risks and opportunities of Internet, having at heart the evangelizing mission of the Church”, explained Mgr. di Falco, Bishop of Gap in France. Also “in this extraordinary world wide web – he added – there’s a humanity that is searching and even if surfing the net is sometimes confusing and contradictory, the Church feels it is her responsibility to be present on the Internet with her message, her proposal, her witness. It’s a challenging and fascinating adventure that requires the know-how and skills to ensure that the Word may also be encountered on-line”. “Nonetheless – points out the chairman of the EECM – we must never forget that the Church is a real experience: it can never be virtual. Wherever people meet, wherever there’s a community that tries to live according to the Gospel, in private or public life, wherever Christ is encountered by people meeting together, there is the Church”. The new instruments of communication, and first and foremost the Internet, are “invaluable for the work of evangelization and everything we have tried to promote at this assembly can be summed up as a stronger awareness of the effects that the new technologies applied to the media are having on culture, mentalities, on the choices people make, and especially on the very young. This is a consciousness that is indispensable if we are to give the necessary cultural support to our pastoral mission and respond to the many challenges posed by our times, though without ever compromising our fidelity to the Word”. In this sense, concluded Bishop di Falco, the aim of the EECM assembly “was not to make recommendations or express judgements, but to gather as much invaluable information as possible for the Church’s educational and formative task, bearing in mind the various social, cultural and economic situations in which the Catholic Church too has to operate in Europe”.Final reflections. “Part of our discussion – says the final communiqué released at the end of the meeting – was dedicated to analyzing the ways in which the young use the Internet, and in particular the web generation that has always known the web and grown up on it”. Representatives of the social network sites Facebook, Youtube and Wikipedia spoke at the meeting, and through the testimony of the head of the Interpol office against cyber crime and of a young Swiss hacker, the participants were informed about the reality of internet security. During the discussion, the internet sites of Vatican Radio, of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales and the experience of the website for young children (www.nabby.be) launched by the Bishops’ Conference of Belgium were presented. “It’s not our present purpose to give responses or issue directives – underlined Father Duarte da Cunha, EECM general secretary -; what can be said is that the differences from one country to the next, the presence of richer and poorer Churches, and the need for greater cooperation between them, did clearly emerge from our meeting”. The various regional-linguistic groups proposed that more frequent regional meetings be held to share the experiences of the various countries. In particular the hope was expressed for greater collaboration between the countries of the Mediterranean, to raise awareness of local differences, especially in those nations in which Catholics form a minority. As far as youth are concerned, “a particular occasion consists of the annual meeting (so-called Agora) of Mediterranean youth at Loreto, to which should be added the internships at SIR Europe”. The next EECM meeting will be held in May 2010.