Slashdot Mirror
Pope Rails Against the Internet and Transparency
tcd004 writes "At a conference on digital media at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI attacked the idea of transparency in the Internet age, warning that digital transparency exacerbates tensions between nations and within nations themselves and increases the 'dangers of ... intellectual and moral relativism,' which can lead to 'multiple forms of degradation and humiliation' of the essence of a person, and to the 'pollution of the spirit.' All in all, it seemed a pretty grim view of the wide-open communication environment being demanded by the Internet age."
I think that's what they call this, the Pope making an issue out of Internet transparency out of nowhere.
Calling out bogus battery capacity claims.
Openly transparent communication undermines power structures that rely on the opposite
That 140 character limit drives him up the wall.
Well, in all fairness, the article did leave out the Pope mentioning how the Internet will sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids...
Similar to the upcoming US election results
The problem isn't the pedo priests, it's the peoples ability to find out about them!
Seems to me he's saying it's a problem for Governments and Institutions, transparency is always good for the people. Oh yea, maybe transparency can be a problem for the Church as we learn more and more about what went on there....
So the leader of the organization with the filthiest possible secrets speaks out against transparency.
Okay, no surprise there...
The priority of the catholic church is the catholic church. Not God. Not innocent children. Not you.
see a Text Widget
I never got what the big deal was with The Pope anyways. He's just as human as you or I, so his interpretations can be just as flawed as yours or mine, yet elected by his own circle of peers, instead of by the masses that follow his orders.
I'll give him due respect as a fellow human being, one whose wisdom probably far exceeds my own in a great many things. However, I have a feeling I know a bit more on the subject of Internet Transparency than him, so I'll politely decline his advice.
The words of the Bishop of Rome about the internet, freedom, and transparency, ring very familiar.
It was this very flavor of rhetoric that came from British citizens, Muslim Jihadis, who decry that freedom is the basic sin of mankind. They yearn for Sharia law to rule their lives.
Of course, I have no problem should they choose to live their lives under Sharia law. My problem comes about when they decide that I should live my life by Sharia law, whether I want to or not. It is, they explain, good for me.
So when el Papa decided that internet freedom is not for me, my immediate reaction was, "I've heard all this before."
It never fails to astound me when Men of God not only want to live their own lives by their code of conduct, but they want me to live that way, also.
When God shows up in a burning bush, and then explains how I should live, I may decide to give it some credibility. Until then, I'll go on striving for freedom of choice for myself, and for others. They can, if they choose, live by Biblical law.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
The change is coming. Transparency can lead to "degradation and humiliation", but so can secretiveness. If you want to remain relevant, then learn to deal with it instead of trying to suppress it.
"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master." - Pravin Lal of Alpha Centauri (1999)
Back in 2001, when Ratzinger was head of the Holy Office, he implemented a policy that classified child abuse cases as pontifical secrets.
And Ratzinger is not an exception. This is business as usual for the Catholic church.
Your argument is presenting a false dichotomy, instead of handling the actual claim. I would like to point out that there are some things that are forbidden in any country in the western world (snuff films, for example), yet you won't say that anyone who claims these are dangerous (even after creating them, that is) supports "holding everything locked down tight", I hope.
In fact, all he said was that the "huge widening of the frontiers of communication" has benefits (for example - points to a more "egalitarian and pluralistic" forum) and drawbacks (for example - increases the "dangers of ... intellectual and moral relativism,"). I guess however, expecting anyone on slashdot (commentators and modders) to RTFA is a bit to much.
TFA, by the way, does not give the speech (or a translation of it) but just tiny parts of it, without any context. So even after reading it, I have no idea what he said. What I do know is that he is not an idiot, there is quite some evidence for this, and so he knows he has no chance of gaining actual direct power (becoming any sort of a tyrant).
The reporter of that article obviously had an agenda. In lieu of finding a more unbiased source, I thought it might be worthwhile to at least include a report of the same talk from the opposite side of the camp: here
It would seem from this article that the Pope is looking for us to act with a conscience while on the internet, so that the internet as a whole can be an edifying experience. That is, how we use the internet is important. Raw power must be used to good ends.
Note that I do recognize and appreciate the difficulties with defining "good", "edifying", and even the institution which provides these definitions.
Disclaimer: I'm not Catholic (I'm Orthodox -- we're not in the habit of defending the Pope). I'm just trying to provide a little balance.
"But then, the silence was broken. Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, took his turn at the microphone. "The situation in which we are living is extremely exacting, and we are asked to be absolutely truthful and credible," he said. The last couple of months have been very difficult, he went on, with so many questions being raised about things that happened long ago. But he said, "This is the time for truth, transparency and credibility. Secrecy and discretion are not values that are in fashion at the moment. We must be in a condition of having nothing to hide." The crowd applauded."
The Pope did NOT say that. That quote (Time for truth) was the Vatican spokesman.
FTA: ... intellectual and moral relativism," which can lead to "multiple forms of degradation and humiliation" of the essence of a person, and to the "pollution of the spirit." All in all, it seemed a pretty grim view of the wide open communication parameters being demanded by the Internet age."
""The times in which we living knows a huge widening of the frontiers of communication," he said (according to our Italian fixer/producer) and the new media of this new age points to a more "egalitarian and pluralistic" forum. But, he went on to say, it also opens a new hole, the "digital divide" between haves and have-nots. Even more ominous, he said, it exacerbates tensions between nations and within nations themselves. And it increases the "dangers of
"Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy
First off, I get the joke. Technically he was in the Luftwaffe as part of an AA crew, members of the Luftwaffe, Wermacht and Kreigsmarine were absolved of involvement with the Nazi government (with exceptions for those who personally committed war crimes) by the allies as most of them were ordinary Germans unlike the Waffen SS (one had to be a Nazi in order to join the SS). Being a member of the Hitler Youth was something that was kind of mandatory after 1939.
I dislike the Church but I insist on being accurate. If anything, people should bash him for being a deserter but then again that would not have been uncommon at the time. I'm sure there is a Hitler parody for this out there though.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The Catholic Church lost their moral authority a long time ago. The Pope has a lot of nerve doing a moral statement about the Internet while being a former Hilter Youth and a pedophile.
Please people, let us not drop to their standards of rhetoric filled, evidence lacking, accusatory ranting. Please take shots at the Pope for the many things that are valid to take shots at him for and not just rail randomly with repeats of less defensible sentiments.
I don't hold the Hitler Youth thing against most of the Hitler Youth, old Ratty included. My impression is that if you lived in certain areas and were of the right age at the time you either joined or you and your family were ostracised, bullied to buggery, or worse. So lets be reasonable go a little easy on that one.
There is no evidence that he himself is a pedophile. If you throw that accusation around with not good evidence you look no better than any other ranting nutter (such as his holy nutness himself). There is from what I've read plenty of good evidence that he has in the past been very influential in certain cover ups (or been very very blind and stupid while they went on around him) - there are more than enough shots we can take pertaining to that evidence without needing to resort to less substantiated rhetoric.
You can make the Cult of the Vatican look foolish (or, in fact, criminal) without stooping to their level. Please prove you are better than they by doing so.
NOTE: I have nothing against Christians with a Catholic upbringing in general, much as I may pity them. My problem is with the Catholic hierarchy (from local clergy right to the top) and it is these officials (those that have done wrong, those that have protected those that have done wrong, and those that have sat idly by and allowed wrong to be done and covered up, and those who despite all the evidence are not actively doing anything to try right the situation by getting the truth released) which I refer to as "the Cult of the Vatican". I appreciate that "the Cult of the Vatican" may be a phrase that could cause offence to those officials and I would like to point out, for the avoidance of doubt, that any such offence caused is entirely 100% intentional.
TFA, by the way, does not give the speech (or a translation of it) but just tiny parts of it, without any context. So even after reading it, I have no idea what he said.
Aside from his followers, who cares what he said? He's the Pope. That makes him an expert in exactly what real world concern?
Benedict is an expert in Catholic dogma, period. Excepting grade school, he has no education outside of Catholic doctrine and theology, and his entire professional life has revolved around promulgating Catholic doctrine. His opinion on practically anything else is at best worth no more than any randomly selected unskilled worker with access to the television and newspapers.
If I was Catholic, I would of course be interested in what he says -- I'd effectively be obligated to. Otherwise, even for other Christian denominations, there isn't the least reason to care that he exists, much less what he has to say, with the possible exception of law enforcement agencies investigating the increasingly notorious sex crimes committed by his underlings.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
It's not the abuses anyone is complaining about, it's the cover ups. Sure, every profession is going to have people who piss on the ethical standards of that profession, and there's no reason a religious profession would somehow dodge that.
The thing is, if a doctor violates the Hippocratic oath, he loses his medical license. A corrupt lawyer gets disbarred. A fraudulent scientist gets publicly shamed and unable to get money for future research. Jobs with less on the line usually just result in the offender being fired. Whatever the job is though, when someone is corrupt, they're generally removed, and when that fails to happen, the company they work for is punished instead.
With the catholic church, they covered up the pedophilia for decades, and now that they can't hide it any more, do they at least finally apologize, vow to fix it, and start making good on that promise by immediately kicking the most obvious offenders out of the clergy and turning them over the cops? Nope, they instead whine that that transparency of the internet is bad, because it makes their wrongdoing public. That isn't bad PR, that's a systemic failure of the morals they claim to uphold.
THIS is why so few still have any respect for them. Failing to discover abuse is one thing, but being fully aware of it and actively hiding it is when they very much cross the line between "good profession with the occasional douchebag" to "group that actively promotes evil behavior."
Similarly, you can look at the police in the US. Does anyone complain that there's a few evil, unethical cops? Of course not - sometimes you really can't weed them out until they majorly screw up... except they don't. They're "doing administrative work until an investigation can be thoroughly completed." Translation: We're keeping him off the street until the media focuses on something else, then pretending this never happened. Unsurprisingly, public opinion of the police is quite low - doesn't matter that the majority of cops are indeed good people, the system they work for actively promotes evil by refusing to punish the corrupt members of their organization.
Most of the discussion on this thread is way off base. Here [zenit.org] is the text of the speech that the Pope actually gave. It wasn't exactly a major address. He gave the closing speech at a conference entitled "Digital Witnesses: Faces and Languages in the Cross-Media Age," sponsored by the Italian bishops. So, he is giving a polite little address to a conference with a particular theme.
<summary>
It's actually pretty boiler-plate non-controversial stuff (at least coming from a Catholic prelate). Media outlets are rapidly expanding. The Internet has an "open vocation, with an egalitarian and pluralistic tendency." But, due to the "digital divide," which creates new categories of inclusion and exclusion and new sources of division, not all can participate. Moreover, disembodied and impersonal communication presents a new outlet for dehumanization in the culture. Often, one can observe on the Internet a dynamic "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."
What is needed in such a situation? The Pope suggests (in a nod to the theme of the conference) "a return to faces." New media, when used rightly, can actually become a humanizing force in the culture. In order to do this, people involved in media work need to proceed from a more profound vision. Media workers should see their profession as something more than communicating information. They should see it as communicating humane values based on thoughtful reflection on the nature of the human person and the common good. This means that they should "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."
If media workers do this, then far from being a dehumanizing venture, the "epochal journey" that we have begun will be "rich and fertile with new opportunities." "Without fear we want to set out upon the digital sea embracing the unrestricted navigation with the same passion that for 2,000 years has steered the barque of the Church. More than with technical resources, although necessary, we want to qualify ourselves dwelling in this universe too with a believing heart, that contributes to giving a soul to the uninterrupted communicational flow of the Internet."
This should especially be the task of Christians. "The task of every believer who works in the media is that of 'opening the door to new forms of encounter, maintaining the quality of human interaction, and showing concern for individuals and their genuine spiritual needs. They can thus help the men and women of our digital age to sense the Lord's presence.'"
</summary>
There have been a lot of particularly clueless reporters covering the Church over the last month, and this one is no exception. She breathlessly reports that the Pope did not talk about clerical sex abuse at a conference on the role of Christians on the Internet. Why is that surprising? Note also that the Pope's speech did not mention anything about transparency one way or the other. For the very simple reason that it wasn't a speech on that topic! What is so difficult about this to understand? The mention of "transparency" came up when the Vatican press secretary made some off-the-cuff remarks about how we need more of it, not less! Which brings me to the summary by tcd004. He misread the headline. (Did he read the article?) The Pope didn't talk about transparency. The press secretary did, and he didn't attack it--he called for more of it.
I'm sure it's already been said by others, but there are approx. 600 comments already. I just have to note that the Internet provides a means for people to educate themselves and openly communicate with others. Education and communication are two things an organization like the Catholic Church fears the most. They came into their power through fear and ignorance. They can't tell people what is right and wrong when those people have the means to make their own decisions.
:)
I have to wonder: How many pedophile priests have been outed thanks to the Internet? How many people have left the Church because they have discovered other spiritual paths (including the many other paths of Christianity) thanks to the Internet. The bottom line is the Pope is scared. His Church may have to start selling some of their gold and property in order to survive this century.
This may hurt my Slashdot karma, but my real Karma is more important.