Social Media and Religion
With recent news of Pope Benedict XVI commanding his priest's to venture out to social media to bring the Gospel to the masses (especially younger ones), brings quite a message to the world of the power of Social Media.
To get you caught up if you haven't read about this yet, here is a excerpt of what the Pope said regarding this commandment:
“The spread of multimedia communications and its rich ‘menu of options’ might make us think it sufficient simply to be present on the Web, or to see it only as a space to be filled. Yet priests can rightly be expected to be present in the world of digital communications as faithful witnesses to the Gospel, exercising their proper role as leaders of communities which increasingly express themselves with the different ‘voices’ provided by the digital marketplace. Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis.”Judging by that statement from the Pope, we can definitely see that Pope Benedict XVI is a strong proponent to social media and how it is changing the way the web and people in general work. After I read that statement I was amazed! You hear the controversy surround the social media aspect; whether you SHOULD branch out and use social media, or if you SHOULDN'T. Us web geeks know the un-surpassing advantage of using social media but what about those who dont? Then you have those who panic when they even hear the phrase "Social Media"! The Pope's statement brings quite a lesson to those who don't think social media is important these days. If it is important enough to get the Catholic Church involved, it MUST be important. This leads to me my next question....
