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Italian version
 Internet
and new media increasingly are agora of the Gospel message. Internet and
new media, in fact, are becoming a constitutive and considerable element
of today's society. The Church, always been an "expert in humanity", is
not indifferent to these changes, aware of the risks of using
traditional media as of huge positive potentiality of new media and
internet. We asked a few questions on the subject to Professor Michele
Sorice, professor of Political Communication and Sociology of
Communication at the Faculty of Political Science at LUISS "Guido Carli",
where he directs the
Center for Media and
Communication Studies "Massimo Baldini".
He is also a member of Advisory Board of Media and Politics Group
of the Political Studies Association of the UK. He is also the
coordinator, together with Professor Philip Schlesinger, of an European
network for research on public service and directs the International
research center Political Communication Lab . He teaches as a
guest professor of Political Communication and Political
Science at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
What new ways to adjust the spread of Catholic
principles to new media?
"The Church has a long and important tradition of
communication. The Gospel message is a big announcement, in effect, and
the ecclesial realities used the same media since their appearing by. It
is no coincidence that the Vatican Radio appears as early as 1930 and
even the first experiments in radio should be the commitment of a priest
of Porto Alegre (Brazil), p. Roberto Landell de Moura, who experienced
the potential of electromagnetic waves and managed to convey more than
just electrical signals even before Marconi. In short, the media have
always been one of the privileged areas of Church’s care. Even the
documents of the Magisterium recognizes the role of the media a great
social importance; from Inter Mirifica to the pastoral letter by
Cardinal Martini, "The flap of the coat," to many statements of John
Paul II and Benedict XVI's messages for several days of social
communications.
Just Pope Benedict has shown us how to use properly
the media: the transparency of the emission source and its credibility
first, and then an attitude of openness and inclusion, of course, denies
any fear. Here, one of the problems we sometimes have is that you
perceive the media as a danger; in the past people were afraid of
television (and even before the film and radio) now fears the internet
and especially social networks. This attitude would be profoundly wrong,
as well as ineffective. The media - and even the new media - are
inhabited by people, with their load of defects and potential and, if
desired, with their sins and their sanctity.
In other words, the first way to adjust the spread of
Catholic principles to the media is the presence: an attentive,
critical, conscious presence, but free from fears and preconceptions
waste; and the second is the style of the opening: not media and content
only for Catholics but significant presence of Catholics, and the third
way is the recognition of the media’s power but also their potential,
which means, among other things, a commitment to acquire skills on the
language and methods of communication; the fourth can be traced in the
style of dialogue. This latter aspect is very important because it
should be the distinctive feature of the community of believers (but not
only, of course): dialogue not as mere interlocution, but as a word that
is in the middle, where everyone can access, but that no one owns. This
is the logic -at least in theory- underlying the communicative dynamics
of the so-called Web 2.0, social communication, which ensures social
access and promotes civic participation. It is no coincidence that the
theme of the dialogue has been at the heart of Cardinal Bagnasco in his
speech at the meeting of the CEI in April 2010, "Testimoni digitali"
(Digital Witnesses), and in the message of Benedict XVI for the XLIV Day
of Social Communications.
In several
recent articles published in "La Civiltà Cattolica" Father Antonio
Spadaro uses the term cyberteologia as an intelligence of faith in
network time. What do you think? What are possible adjustments to be
upheld in the pastoral?
"Father Spadaro
is one of the most significant personalities of the Church's reflection
on digital media. His feeling to these issues is known: not by chance he
has a very followed Facebook profile and is very active in the network.
In short, he is a witness of openness to the world’s attitude that a
Catholic should have using the media. The concept of cyberteologia goes
in this direction of openness and contamination. On the other hand, a
theology not breaking into the practice of faith is pure intellectual
exercise and is therefore useless, only serving as the academic
computing.
Father Spadaro
‘s idea, which I fully share, is to give space to the understanding of
faith in time of the network. In a recent post, just published on his
website - cyberteologia.it- Father
Spadaro recalled the conclusions reached by the conference of the Church
of Santiago of Chile and communication, "determined fight against
digital exclusion of people, studying on the map of the connectivity of
the Church where there are communities that do not have access to
culture and the exchange via Internet." Here, I think the cyberteologia
has great potentiality and, moreover, fits perfectly into the
communication’s culture as dialogue and openness to the world, as we
talked about before.
Increasingly we
are confronted with the culture and spirituality’s problem that sees the
Catholic world reluctant to adapt and meet the new demands. In your view
of such essential elements, the Church could successfully carry out this
challenge, especially from her area?
I believe that the opposition between culture and
spirituality is the result of an ancient legacy that wants the Church as
opposed to the world, the body separated from the spirit, faith always
and inevitably opposed to reason. As if Monophysite heresy were never
died. In reality there is no gap between culture and spirituality, as
there's no such gap between historical dimension and tension to the
transcendent. The mystery of the Incarnation tells us just that.
A part of the Catholic world lives
often as irreconcilable the relationship between digital culture and
territory. In reality they are closely linked: each of us is both an
inhabitant of physical space and the user of symbolic places (but by no
unreal) as those of the network. The one leads to another. My "contact"
in a social network are often part of my daily life or could be.
Virtual, on the other hand, it does not mean "fake" or "unreal" but
simply what is not yet present, but may occur. From this point of view,
the opposition between real and virtual is conceptually incorrect, it is
also socially dangerous because it suggests to think to the human person
as the sum of separate parts and not to those who live the experience of
living in a time (in thousands of possibilities that are offered by
technology and social networks). Here, it seems to me that on this point
in the Church there are still fears that generate unjustified
irresponsible behavior, such as closing the world, with the fear of
being contaminated by "virtual" (as wrong meaning we said) often risking
to deny the real, and then our brothers and sisters.
I see, with a little of sadness,
that often closing attitudes precisely is from a part of the laity,
sometimes unable to follow many excellent examples that come from
priests and nuns.
I believe that the Church must make
the effort to open up even more to the world, accepting without fear the
challenge of communication. The alleged dangers of the network, for
example, are the same as we have always found in the streets or in many
other experiences, changing the ways but there are dangers. However, the
opportunities remain, even increasing: cyberteologia.it with many other
peripheral and central realities are concrete examples of planning
intervention.
How, in your
opinion, consecrated men and women should live and accept this
challenge?
Like all believers. With the understanding of faith.
First you need to acquire skills, not only technical but also - and
above - theoretical. It 's important that you know the operation’s
rules, the "policies" and cultures of communication. And then, of
course, they enter without fear in the world of new communication. We
are in the world but not of the world. We often forget one
of the parties, and instead one without the other does not make sense.
What space
keeping in the years in the seminary?
This is a very serious problem, which should open a
debate articulated within the ecclesial community, a subject on which
the Bishops should help us, trying possible answers with all believers.
Surely in the seminaries are
failing trails of study that help to understand the complexity and the
importance of communication. Importance that is not only social and
political, but it concerns primarily the formation of future religious’
personality. It 'a problem that also affects the formation of
university: often young priests and young nuns are send to study in
Catholic universities, pushing for early return to their home dioceses.
The motivation is noble: we need them near people. But the risk is to
encourage young people to acquire a thoughtless training, some
rudiments, easy to use in everyday life but a more and more scarce
cultural formation, a more and more light critical height.
A decline in the cultural formation of young priests
(not all, of course) is unfortunately evident, those of us who also
teaches at the Pontifical universities looks very clearly the
phenomenon.
In this situation, the risk is that
you leave some areas of study which have been the great achievement of
the Vatican Council II: the social sciences, the phenomena of
communication, the analysis of the relationship between individuals and
communities. Not only these areas of research should not be abandoned
but should be enhanced, also entering into the seminary.
Under what
conditions the so-called "new media" can profitably be integrated with
traditional media in order to promote diffusion of Catholic principles,
particularly among the young people?
The new media are already de facto integrated
with traditional media. The convergence processes are now at very
advanced levels and also the phenomena of the "cross-media storytelling"
form part of our daily lives.
Once again the central issue is not about technology
but the use we make of it. Entering into the network, for example, means
both to be in social media, starting a blog using a twitter profile to
provide information or offer brief reflections but also create a "buzz"
(the "chatter" on the net, which are often trivial, but often dynamics
of opinion are constructed) on television programs or the press’ way of
information. In short, we should stop thinking about the individual
"average" but to think in systemic terms: there is a public space
through the media where are circulating uninterrupted flows of
information and pieces of social imaginary. We must enter into this
stream, not to direct it, but to bring credible witnesses. Avoiding
logic of judges and taking on the attitude of the listener. The
principles and values pass
through the credibility of the source, trustee relationship that we can
establish with the people, the presence of fellow travelers.
And it is
possible to stimulate interest in the Catholic principles through a
tablet? How?
But of course. Father Spadaro makes it for a long
time, and not just he. We can use "applications" and maybe suggest new
ones, we can use the weapon of curiosity to encourage young people to
discover a message of joy (which is, of joy, not sad and deadly as it is
sometimes seen in some parishes ...).
A personal anecdote, if I may. Some time ago I was in
a church, I took my iPhone and I started using the application iBreviary,
with which you can follow the liturgy of the hours. An elderly lady
looked at me with horror and pain: she may have thought "here is the
usual time wasters who uses the church to send text messages or worse."
She could not know the applications for smartphones and perhaps from her
point of view she could be right. More recently I took to using a
tablet. I know young people who, after having seen it, have like it and
then they download iBreviary, the Bible and so on. From the game to the
Interest, up to the prayer.
Perhaps there are still those who will make a face
seeing these young people praying with the tablet but the important
thing is that there are these young people.
If he were writing today the
"Prologue", maybe John would use a multimedia text, and distributes it
on Youtube. The power of that text should be always the same: because it
is not the support to make a difference but the ability of said things
to produce meaning. Christian values
can
now use a tablet as in the past used the scrolls: first of all, however,
there is always the credibility and serene strength of those who
testify. 
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