Archbishop Celli on new communication technology
How to speak of God
in 140 characters
It is clear that there are some people on the net who are in turmoil. Despite
the fact that it has not been officially presented, the news of the Benedict
XVI's next tweet is circling the globe. The “140 character” social network
Twitter is about once again to welcome the Pope. The first time the Pope tweeted
was in June 2011 when he launched the Vatican
portal
www.news.va. Now we must wait a week or two before the Holy Father will take up
tweeting again. “The initiative”, Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, President of
the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, said, “comes from the Pope's
desire to utilize all opportunities for communication which technology offers
and are characteristic in the world today”. The Archbishop explained further:
“Just yesterday at the General Audience, the Pope once again demonstrated his
desire to be able to speak of God to all people through every possible means. He
recalled the fundamental importance of communication for the transmission of the
faith. He spoke about God's method to communicate, the method of humility by
which God did not hesitate to make himself one of us. He spoke about Jesus,
communicator who addressed the people of his time, using their own language”.
Then Archbishop Celli made a meaningful clarification: “The Pope, entering the
world of digital communications, is acting in an original way in the history of
the Church. In a certain sense he explained this yesterday speaking to the
faithful in the Paul VI Audience Hall when, referring to the Letter to the
Corinthians, he quoted the Apostle Paul: '...when I came to you, brethren, I did
not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom...'.
It is precisely in this that the meaning of the Pope's presence on Twitter –
that world of microblogging, of modern, quick, immediate communication,
unforgiving in its allowance of 140 characters with which you must say
everything – is rooted”.
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