Excessive use of mobile phones and the internet can put people at risk of losing their souls, the Vatican warned yesterday.Father Federico Lombardi, the Pope’s spokesman, said constant din from modern gadgets was a 'grave threat' to the cultivation of the spiritual dimension of a person’s life.
He said that modern advances in technology had made the world so noisy and hectic that many people were now in danger of allowing their souls to perish.
'In the age of the mobile phone and the internet it is probably more difficult than before to protect silence and to nourish the interior dimension of life,' he said. 'It is difficult but necessary.'
The Jesuit priest said that without a spiritual life 'you will lose your soul'.
'Today this is a very grave threat, and it is the most irreparable misfortune,' he said, adding that if the spiritual dimension of a person was not guarded and nourished or it could 'become barren to the point of drying up and, indeed, dying'.
Father Lombardi, the director of the Vatican press office, made his remarks on Octavia Dies, a weekly Vatican television programme.
He was seeking to emphasise the necessity and value of the cloistered religious life, especially in the modern world.
“Reflection, meditation, contemplation are as necessary as breathing,” he said.
“For believers, in this dime nsion prayer, dialogue with God is developed, life in the spirit, which is more important that physical life itself. Jesus told us not to fear those who can kill the body as much as the one who can destroy our soul.
“What is true for the individual person, is true for the community of the Church, true for humanity," he said.
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(Source: DMC)