THE ROMAN Catholic Church has once again revealed how in touch it is with modern times by calling for a ban on Facebook-like social notworking sites. The Cei (Italian Episcopal Conference) slammed social networks a day after opening a site of its own. Apparently the fear is that people who use social networking sites will turn into individuals who will start to think for themselves.
Archbishop Pompili hit out about what he called "networked individualism" which he said creates people who "terminate links with the surrounding area". We guess the Archbishop thinks that the only people who are supposed to live in such unhealthy isolation and "live in the world but [...] not of it" are monks and nuns.
He warned that relationships formed online were not real. Well, not as real in the same way as such important things like an invisible gods, angels, virgin births and Papal infallibility.
Facebook and its ilk create an "online egocentrism" and are responsible for drying up of real relationships, he said. Although asking a celibate priest about relationships is like asking a vegan about the best type of meat feast pizza to buy.
The chairman of the Cei, Bishop Mariano Crociata said that the Internet varies between "elation and mistrust" and it is time to find a middle way. He didn't say what that middle way was, however banging on the evils of Facebook does not strike us as particularly balanced.
All this is ironic when the church has released its own Vatican social notworking site which is designed to stick its priests a "little closer to the faithful".If the church fears people will become individuals by using social networking sites then surely it is sending its own faithful to hell and sticking demons on its friends list.
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(Source: TI)