Spiritual Search Urged for Catholic Internet

Those searching for spiritual enlightenment may soon be able to search the internet for guidance if the Roman Catholic church follows the advice of a French bishop, who urged the Church to: leave its ghetto and recognise the importance and reach of the internet.

Despite a claim to be omnipresent, God is as yet relatively underexposed on the web, prompting Monsignor Jean-Michel Di Falco, the Bishop of Gap, France, to add:

By not being present on the web, you cut yourself off from a large part of people's lives. Pope, cardinals, bishops, priests, lay people - with the internet we enter a marketplace, a free and spontaneous space where everything is said about everything, where everyone can debate everything."

Even though Monsignor Di Falco almost undid his good work by referring to the web as 'planet internet' - the kind of remark that shows a speaker is as out of step with current trends as a geography teacher at a sixth-form disco - his thoughts seem even more sensible when you consider a simple web search on British Bishop Richard Williamson could have spared the church some embarrassment.

The Monsignor's request does not seem to have fallen on deaf ears as The European Episcopal Commission for Media, a Swiss-based Vatican agency, has invited representatives from Facebook, Google, YouTube and Wikipedia to this year's meeting. It might not be long before @God has even more followers than @stephenfry.

Neil Willis is a former freelancer with experience in the charity and consumer sectors, business to business publishing and national newspapers. He now works for an international news digest.

http://themediablog.typepad.com/the-media-blog/2009/11/church-urged-to-convert-to-internet.html