Go Forth and Tweet! Pope Sees Web Networks as 'Portals of Truth'

Jakarta Globe, January 24, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI, center, posting his first tweet using an iPad tablet after his
 Wednesday general audience in Paul VI's Hall at the Vatican on Dec. 12, 2012.
(Reuters Photo/Osservatore Romano) 

   

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Vatican City. Pope Benedict urged Catholics on Thursday to use social networks like Twitter and Facebook to win converts, as he launched his own smartphone app streaming live footage of his speeches.

The websites — often associated with endless postings of idle gossip and baby photos — could be used as "portals of truth and faith" in an increasingly secular age, the pontiff said in his 2013 World Communications Day message.

"Unless the Good News is made known also in the digital world, it may be absent in the experience of many people," the 85-year old Pope said in the a letter published on the Vatican's website.

The Holy See has become an increasingly prolific user of social media since it launched its "new evangelization" of the developed world, where some congregations have fallen in the wake of growing secularization and damage to the Church's reputation from a series of sex abuse scandals.

The Pope himself reaches around 2.5 million followers through eight Twitter accounts, including one in Latin.

Belying his traditionalist reputation, the Pope praised connections made online which he said could blossom into true friendships.

Online life was not a purely virtual world but "increasingly becoming part of the very fabric of society," he said.

Social networks were also a practical tool that Catholics could use to organize prayer events, the pope suggested. But he called for reasoned debate and respectful dialogue with those with different beliefs, and cautioned against a tendency towards "heated and divisive voices" and "sensationalism."

The websites were creating a new "agora," he added, referring to the gathering spaces that were the centers of public life in ancient Greek cities.

The speech coincided with the launch of "The Pope App," a downloadable program that streams live footage of the pontiff's speaking events and Vatican news onto smartphones.

Pope Benedict's embrace of new media responds to the Church's concern that it is invisible on the Internet.

The Vatican commissioned a study of Internet use and religion prior to the pope's Twitter debut, which found the majority of US Catholics surveyed were unaware of any significant Church presence online.

Reuters

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The Internet - The first Worldwide Tool of Unification ("The End of History")

" ... Now I give you something that few think about: What do you think the Internet is all about, historically? Citizens of all the countries on Earth can talk to one another without electronic borders. The young people of those nations can all see each other, talk to each other, and express opinions. No matter what the country does to suppress it, they're doing it anyway. They are putting together a network of consciousness, of oneness, a multicultural consciousness. It's here to stay. It's part of the new energy. The young people know it and are leading the way.... "

" ... I gave you a prophecy more than 10 years ago. I told you there would come a day when everyone could talk to everyone and, therefore, there could be no conspiracy. For conspiracy depends on separation and secrecy - something hiding in the dark that only a few know about. Seen the news lately? What is happening? Could it be that there is a new paradigm happening that seems to go against history?... " Read More …. "The End of History"- Nov 20,2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)