MALAGA, Spain, JULY 5, 2010 (Zenit.org).- After a three-day meeting on the pastoral opportunities in communications technology, bishops from Spain and Portugal are calling for “creativity and apostolic audacity” in bringing Christ to the media.
The prelates’ meeting last week was attended by the president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Archbishop Claudio Celli.
In the conclusions of their meeting, the bishops noted how Benedict XVI’s recent visit to Portugal brought encouragement for a “more profound evangelization of our society, which has one of its most important challenges in the realm of culture and communication.” They expressed hope that his upcoming two trips to Spain would bring the same message.
The prelates affirmed an intention to join forces with media professionals and those who use this venue for social relationships.
They declared “their desire to carry out the evangelizing mission of the Church in the theater of the digital world, which they consider an opportunity where priests, religious and laypeople, educators and catechists must be more involved, in particular, the youngest and ‘natives’ on the Net, putting the new technologies of communication at the service of the proclamation of Jesus Christ with creativity and apostolic audacity.”
Not enough
The prelates observed that “praiseworthy theoretical considerations” are not enough to evangelize through information technology, and called instead for “projects and deeds, allocating to it the necessary material, technical and human resources.”
“The new technologies not only offer the Church great advantages for improved pastoral management, but are also privileged means to benefit from their goods and services, without neglecting to appreciate first of all personal, family and community meeting,” they contended. “Favored in this way is ecclesial communion and new ways of relations are promoted with all those who seek a transcendent meaning for their lives, yearning for truth and the realization of the good.”
The bishops recommended that future priests be prepared to evangelize through the media, and they urged parents and educators to guide even the very young in the “correct use of the new technologies […] so that they prove beneficial to the person and to society and foster the search for Truth, Goodness and Beauty.”
