The Archbishop of Malta Pawl Cremona is calling on young people to use the Internet, through chatrooms and websites such as hi5, to widen the Church’s message on the internet.In a clear move to take the church into the ‘digital age’, making it more attractive to young people who feel detached from the traditional “sermons”, Archbishop Cremona is asking young people to build a ‘catholic community’ on the Internet.
Asked by maltastar.com about his invitation to youth to relay the Catholic message on the Internet, Archbishop Cremona said: “The proposal I am putting forward is aimed at young people who spend hours on end communicating on Internet everyday. I am asking young Catholics to take ten to fifteen minutes of their time and tell God: ‘I will dedicate this time to pass on Your message’.”
“This can take the form of sharing a spiritual experience with others, or send quotations from the Holy Scriptures to each other, or even use chatrooms to build a ‘Catholic Community’ on the Internet,” said Mgr Cremona.
Archbishop Cremona has been meeting hundreds of young people in the last weeks, celebrating youth masses around the island, asking them to take up Jesus’ invitation to his disciples to ‘go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature’.
He says that this message is still relevant to every Catholic and that this applies also for Catholics who can reach other people through the Internet.
“Internet today is like another ‘world’, like ‘another country’,” the Archbishop told maltastar.com. “Who knows, maybe a tree will grow out of the seed I am sowing today,” he said.
This e-newspaper is informed that various youth Catholic groups are already taking up the Archbishop’s invitation and launched hi5 profiles, websites and are also using virtual chatrooms to “pass on Christ’s message on the Internet.”
Why not Church on ‘Second Life’?
Asked by maltastar.com about the Church’s drive to have a voice on the Internet, technology journalist Martin Debattista said: “The spirit is right, but having a website and sending e-mails quoting from the Holy Scriptures is not really ‘cool’, that’s the Internet of the 1990s. The Church needs to step up its participation in the so-called ‘Web 2.0’ interactive elements such as social networks and, why not, virtual worlds like Second Life. That way a whole forest, and not just a tree, grows up.”
Asked by maltastar.com about the Church’s drive to have a voice on the Internet, technology journalist Martin Debattista said: “The spirit is right, but having a website and sending e-mails quoting from the Holy Scriptures is not really ‘cool’, that’s the Internet of the 1990s. The Church needs to step up its participation in the so-called ‘Web 2.0’ interactive elements such as social networks and, why not, virtual worlds like Second Life. That way a whole forest, and not just a tree, grows up.”
“I do not fully agree [with the Archbishop] that Internet is ‘another world’. I think it is our world, at least a virtual world that springs out of our real world, with real people and real lives interacting virtually. Having said that, I think the Maltese Church has tried over the years to have a presence on Internet, but it needs to do more,” said Martin Debattista.
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