Digital Witnesses - an Address by Pope Benedict XVI

Last Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI spoke at a national conference in Italy on "Digital Witnesses: Faces and Languages in the Cross-Media Age". The Italian bishops' conference is the group that promoted this conference.

From his talk, he says about the distance that occurs when only interacting via digital media,

One witnesses, then, a "polluting of the spirit, which makes us smile less, makes our faces gloomier, less likely to greet each other or look each other in the eye..." ("Speech in the Piazza di Spagna, December 8, 2009"). But this meeting points to recognizing faces and so to overcoming those collective dynamics that can make us lose the perception of the depth of persons and remain at the surface: When that happens, they are bodies without souls, objects of trade and consumption.

But the Holy Father sees a great power and hope with digital media as well,

The media can become a factor in humanization "not only when, thanks to technological development, they increase the possibilities of communicating information, but above all when they are geared towards a vision of the person and the common good that reflects truly universal values" (no. 73). This demands that they "focus on promoting the dignity of persons and peoples, they need to be clearly inspired by charity and placed at the service of truth, of the good, and of natural and supernatural fraternity" (ibid.).

Zenit has just posted an English translation of his talk.

For the full text of a very powerful speech, click here: http://www.zenit.org/article-29033?l=english