00 20/05/2009 18:12




THE POPE CALLS ON THE YOUTH
TO UTILIZE NEW COMMUNICATIONS
TECHNOLOGIES POSITIVELY


After delivering his plurilingual greetings to the faithful at the General Audience today, Pope Benedict XVI made this special appeal in English:

This coming Sunday, the Church celebrates World Communications Day. In my message this year, I am inviting all those who make use of the new technologies of communication, especially the young, to utilize them in a positive way and to realize the great potential of these means to build up bonds of friendship and solidarity that can contribute to a better world.

The new technologies have brought about fundamental shifts in the ways in which news and information are disseminated and in how people communicate and relate to each other.

I wish to encourage all those who access cyberspace to be careful to maintain and promote a culture of respect, dialogue and authentic friendship where the values of truth, harmony and understanding can flourish.

Young people in particular, I appeal to you: bear witness to your faith through the digital world! Employ these new technologies to make the Gospel known, so that the Good News of God’s infinite love for all people, will resound in new ways across our increasingly technological world!



In this connection, SIR has this report:

A new papal site on the Web
will be online on May 21

Translated from






A new micro-portal that will allow the 'digital generation' to come in direct contact with the thought and teachings of Benedict XVI will come online on May 21, in anticipation of the World Day for Social Communications on May 24,

The portal, called POPE TO YOU' (www.pope2you.net), will allow the user to explore after one click the worlds of Facebook, iPhone, YouTube and Wikipedia, among others, to learn more about the Pope and the Church.

This is another project in social networking by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications which earlier this year launched a Vatican channel on YouTube (http://it.youtube.com/vatican).

The theme of this year's World Communications Day is "New technologies, new relations: To promote a culture of respect, dialog and friendship".

The portal will be available in five languages initially (English, Italian, Spanish, French and German).


AP report4d the Pope's message on cmmunications but not the news about the new Vatican portal.


Pope encourages young people
to use the Web productively




VATICAN CITY, May 20 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI has encouraged young Catholics to use the Internet to spread the church's message.

The pope promoted the use of the digital world as a means of making the Gospel known in remarks to 20,000 pilgrims at his weekly audience Wednesday.

He says that the Internet has brought about change in the way news is distributed and how people relate to each other. Benedict urges young people to use the potential of the Internet to build a better world through bonds of friendship and solidarity.

He also underlines the need for a what he calls a culture of respect when navigating.

The Vatican is constantly updating its own presence on the Internet. Earlier this year, the Pope got his own YouTube channel.


DPA, on the other hand, has more details on the Facebook aspect of the Vatican's new Web initiative.


Vatican to unveil
Pope's profile on Facebook




Vatican City, May 20 (dpa) - In the latest bid to broaden Pope Benedict XVI's appeal among computer savvy, younger generations, the Vatican is to post the Pontiff's profile on popular online social networking site, Facebook, officials said Monday.

"The Pope has a great interest in these things," Archbishop Claudio Celli said in an interview with television news channel Sky TG24.

Celli pointed to how the 82-year-old Pontiff similarly backed the creation earlier this year of a Vatican site on Youtube, the video sharing internet channel, where clips featuring Benedict's activities regularly appear.

"The Pope is inviting us to promote a culture of dialogue, of respect and friendship," especially among young people," said Celli, who heads the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

"We think this pontifical council itself has to use new technologies to promote new relationships around the world," he said, adding that "we must take advantage of what the new technologies are offering us at this very moment."

The Facebook initiative is sponsored by the Council headed by Celli, and is being developed as part of a new Vatican website, www.pope2you.net scheduled to go live on the Catholic Church's World Communications day on May 24.

Titled "The Pope Meets You on Facebook," the new application allows people to send and receive "virtual postcards" of Pope Benedict along with inspiring text culled from the Pope's various speeches and messages.

Celli said some 20 different postcards would be initially available, but that the choice may be expanded later so that people can "spread around the messages and insights from the Gospel."

The new site was designed by Italian priest, Paolo Padrini, who has spearheaded recent Vatican forays into cyberspace, including development of the iBreviary, an application that allows Catholics to access Church liturgy on iPhone mobile phones.

The site also allows viewers to receive news about the Vatican and the Pope through their iPhones or iPod touch portable music players, with video and audio reports in eight eight different languages, including Chinese.


[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 21/05/2009 00:50]