Slashdot Mirror
Pope Urges Priests To Go Forth and Blog
Hugh Pickens writes "Pope Benedict XV, whose own presence on the Web has grown in recent years, is urging priests to use all multimedia tools at their disposal to preach the Gospel and to 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,' says the Pope. The message from the Pope, prepared for the World Day of Communications, suggests such possibilities as images, videos, animated features, blogs, and Web sites and adds that young priests should become familiar with new media while still in seminary, though the Pope stresses that the use of new technologies must reflect theological and spiritual principles. Many priests and top prelates already interact with the faithful online, and one of Benedict's advisers has his own Facebook profile. So does the archbishop of Los Angeles. The Pope adds, 'I renew the invitation to make astute use of the unique possibilities offered by modern communications. May the Lord make all of you enthusiastic heralds of the Gospel in the new "agorà" which the current media are opening up.'"
I hope he warns them about FBI posing as 13-year-old choirboys.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Well, could bring a new definition to "flame war" when the comments section of the blog turns ugly.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Evens the playing field, makes what they preach much more vulnerable if it's not restricted to small community or closed channel of information.
I love it.
That's the silliest thing I've read this week. There are hundreds of millions... if not more... copies of Bibles in the world. There are thousands of churches and parishes. There are televsion and radio networks. You make it sound like they've been trying to hide, to keep what they teach to a small circle. Are you kidding? It's their job to go forth and preach. It's their job to interact with the public. "Closed channel of information"? Do you honestly think some nasty comments at a priest's blog is somehow going to usher in a glorious new era of atheism? Seriously?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I don't know. I'm not Catholic, but I read Fr. Z's blog at wdtprs.com fairly frequently. It's not spam by any stretch. It's interesting to peep into another world.
Please, just please make it be one domain, like religiousblogs.com
What a wonderful time and space saving idea. Hey, while we're at it, lets limit and compact all thought on the Internet. We'll start by forcing all geeks into one domain... something like geekblogs.com, and why stop there? We'll put political people into one domain and... by the way, who do we put in charge of forcing all this to happen?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The Internet is a great place to let people know God is real.
True. Before the Internet, how many people had even heard of the one true supreme being?
You can get sexually abused by a girl on slashdot now? Why don't people *tell* me these things?
"you really haven't ever noticed that the thought of religious communities lives almost exclusivity in controlled (not in "Orwellian" meaning of control, ffs, in which you seem to interpret it) environments?"
Show me someone that's advocating a position... on anything... that isn't "controlling" the message. That's what makes it a message. It's a point of view. Doesn't matter if it's coming from a church or club or political party or business. Everyone from the GNU people to the Pope "control" their message.
"Heck, even such overboard things as infiltrating those communities become bearable and easily done."
Again, you're falsely assuming some kind of conspiritorial security system here. Infiltrate? The whole point is to bring people into the church. Why would you need to infiltrate it? Unlike something like Scientology, Catholics are pretty open about their beliefs, practices, and methods. You're seeing conspiracy activity where there is none. Go to any Catholic church, walk up to the priest and tell him "I'm an atheist, and I want to see how and why you do things here". As long as you're not there to be an ass and disrupt the service, he'll invite you right in. He sees it as both a duty and a spiritual opportunity to bring you to mass, not some kind of invasion. So again, why would you think that flaming a priest's blog is going to make much of a difference?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I thought that there had been an effort to keep sex offenders away from social networking technology...
That's a real problem. Catholic priests should be monitored to make sure they're not communicating with minors. The Catholic Church, after all, is the only organization to have a slush fund to pay off victims of their pedophiles.
If the Pope was serious about using new communication technology, he should make the entire Vatican Secret Archives searchable on the Internet.
That's not a bad idea, but people need to realize that "Secret" doesn't mean what they think it does in this case. From the same Wikipedia link:
"The word "secret" in the title "Vatican Secret Archives" does not have the modern meaning: it indicates instead that the archives are the Pope's own, not those of a department of the Roman Curia. The word "secret" was used in this sense also in phrases such as "secret servants", "secret cupbearer", "secret carver""
The article also notes that the archive has been open to scholars since 1881, and about a thousand a year access it for study. So let's nip any DaVinci Code-ish conspiracy theories about the archive in the bud here.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Roughly a BILLION dollars in pedo payoffs worldwide make that post a candidate for Funny, not Flamebait.
From rescuing Nazis (not to mention largely ignoring the Holocaust, if THAT wasn't worthy of excommunication what is?) in Operation Ratline after WWII to playing hide-the-pedo across international borders, the Vatican has forfeited any respect except by its own brainwashed flock.
Enjoy!
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/
Justice, courtesy of another inmate:
http://www.boston.com/news/specials/geoghan/
Some fangirl support:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/11/23/coakley_details_her_role_in_1995_probation_deal_for_geoghan/?page=3
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Wow - this Benedict XV must have been an amazing visionary to tell priests to blog, given that he died in 1922!
Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
Maybe the next time the Pope is online he could do a bit of reading on the effectiveness of condoms in stopping the spread of AIDS. He might learn something and then he would have something better to say to people in Africa.
Does that count as Catholic-bashing?
> Do you honestly think some nasty comments at a priest's blog is somehow going to usher in a glorious new era of atheism? Seriously?
All the religious people whining about the so-called "new atheist movement" seem to think so. A few prominent atheists publish books at the same time, and suddenly we're on the warpath. What has actually changed is the internet, which isn't controlled by television producers and newspaper editors. Religion has no leverage where people aren't afraid of offending customers or voters.
http://www.masstimes.org/
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Did you know the rate of child molestation among priests is at least more than 400% of that of the overall population? Even the Church's own Archbishop Tomasi puts the rate of sexual abusers among priests at 5% "over the past 50 years" although he does assure us that "this figure was comparable with that of other groups and denominations". Remember, Tomasi represents a group that worked to cover up this abuse for half a century and does so still today. The highest rate ever alleged by the overall population (according to civilian statistics, not the church's) is about 0.4%. Most researchers put the overall number at closer to 0.2%. Most lay researchers put the rate of abuse among priests at closer to 7.5% which would be more than 10 times the overall rate.
You can call it trolling or flamebaiting all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that priests bugger children a lot more than the rest of us.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I think we should try and move away from actions in the past. Sure we should forget some of the horrors, but considering most of the ills in this world is caused by people living in intolerance of a bygone age.
Yes the roman Catholic Church did a lot of wrong in the past, but they ARE changing. Remember, current believers who still swear by the 6000 year old earth are NOT catholics (it was a catholic priest who indeed first theorized the Big Bang) .
I am not a catholic myself, I am a Hindu Humanist. But my wife is Roman Catholic. I do occasionally visit a church, and she visits a temple. We have our own beliefs, yet we share ours with each other. We are both scientists, and do rationalize beliefs based on science, and need for humanity, and common sense. Yet we do have a faith.
When we go to church/temple, we are not looked down upon.. never. In fact, we receive a lot of respect for our attitude and reasoned thinking.
And more important we get along JUST fine.
Have a nice day!