Pope2You: Social Networking with Old Time Religion

Pope Benedict XVI is no stranger to social media. Last year, the 265th Pope of the Catholic Church launched a YouTube channel, and last summer, he released Facebook and iPhone apps to spread the Church’s message.

In a message released by the Vatican on Saturday, the Pope encouraged priests to use cutting-edge technologies to express themselves, lead their communities, and engage in dialogue with people of other religions and cultures.

“The spread of multimedia communications and its rich ‘menu of options’ might make us think it sufficient simply to be present on the Web,” but priests are “challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis,” the Pope said.

He stressed that the use of new technologies must reflect theological and spiritual principles and not necessarily technological savviness: “Priests present in the world of digital communications should be less notable for their media savvy than for their priestly heart, their closeness to Christ.”

Even though I’m not Catholic, I do agree that we have to give The Pope credit where it’s due, thanks to his Pope2You initiative and his new social media commandment for priests struggling to get their old time religion message across: Go forth and blog. Amen!

[Source: yellow peril media]

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