INTERNET GIANTS TO MEET EUROPE'S BISHOPS
INTERNET GIANTS TO MEET EUROPE'S BISHOPS
(ANSA) - Vatican City, November 9 - Bishops from across Europe are to be immersed in the fast-moving, instant world of the Web generation this week, with a four-day conference on Internet communications and the Catholic Church.
Representatives from social networking site Facebook, search engine giant Google, video-sharing site YouTube, microblogging Twitter-rival Identi.ca, and the collaborative online encyclopaedia Wikipedia will be among those attending the event.
Organized by the Vatican's 'communications ministry', the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, the conference will focus on a range of popular websites, communication tools and security-related issues.
Representatives from Internet giants, churchmen in charge of social communications at Europe's various bishops' organizations and online security specialists will meet to share ideas.
The aim is to explore the impact of the Internet on the Catholic Church's mission and look at ways of using online interactive tools to spread a Christian message, a statement by the pontifical council explained.
Web representatives will hold workshops educating the bishops on how the sites are used, while a sociologist will explain the role of the new media in the lives of the young.
''The web generation is without a doubt the generation whose lives are most widely affected both positively and negatively by the Internet,'' said the statement.
A young Swiss hacker and a representative from Interpol's cybercrime unit will talk the bishops through online security risks.
''The world of hackers is a separate, parallel culture that is mostly ignored by the Church but not by fans of information technology,'' the pontifical council noted.
The conference, which runs from Thursday through to Sunday, is the latest in a series of moves by the Church to engage with modern technology.
Websites have long played an important role in helping the Church spread its message, while snippets from the pope's homilies and speeches have been available via text message since 2003.
But Pope Benedict XVI - who uses an iPod, a state-of-the-art laptop and has been seen chatting publicly on a cellphone - has made this a particularly important issue.
In a recent meeting with members of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, the German pontiff said it was critical that new technology and new attitudes toward communications were used to help promote the Church's message.
He said technological developments were not only bringing about changes in TV, radio and Internet but were ''gradually generating a kind of global communications system'' in which all media are used together and users participate in generating content.
But Benedict has also warned about the potential dangers of untrammelled online growth and the new media.
Of particular concern to the pope are ''programmes, films and video games which in the name of entertainment exalt violence and trivialise human sexuality''.
He has also warned that the media world is being dominated by a few hugely powerful multinational conglomerates.
