Web Savvy Pope = Web Savvy Church

The Pope is asking priests to become more web savvy! So what does that mean? Is he going to be issuing iPhones to all the Catholic Priests? Well maybe not… but it looks like he’s suggesting something like that.

In his message for the Catholic Church’s 2010 World Day for Social Communications he told people people that church communities have traditionally relied on modern media to open the lines of communication. And as the culture changes, the church needs to use the latest technologies, especially if it wants to reach younger people.

- Lance Whitney

This is a pretty big step for the Catholic church as well as for Christians of every denomination. For the Catholic church, a church that is thought to be deeply rooted in tradition and older ways of thinking, to see the Pope suggest the use of modern media as a form of communication to reach the younger generation is a really big thing!

“Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, Web sites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization, and catechesis,” said Pope Benedict in his message

He went on to say that,

“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,” said Pope Benedict. “This will not only enliven their pastoral outreach, but also will give a ’soul’ to the fabric of communications that makes up the Web.”

I think that this is the most important thing that everybody who is using the web for ministry needs to keep in mind. That we can be incredible programmers and the best code writers but unless we have a closeness to Christ… we won’t really be ministering God’s word, we’re just ministering our own words. This is something that I struggle with all the time and I’m intentionally trying to do a better job of staying Christ the center point in my life. As church workers our primary job, no matter what our position in the church is, is to bring people closer to Christ. Everything else is secondary to that.

[Image by: The Vatican]