“The Church has to be present on the digital continent to spread the light of the
Gospel of Christ, or someone else will”, says Mar Munoz-Visoso, Communications
officer for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).
Munoz
was part of a USCCB delegation to a conference on the "Church and digital culture:
new horizons for the Church's mission" organized by the Council of Latin American
Episcopal Conferences or CELAM that was held this week in Santiago, Chile.
One
of the main aims of the meeting was to study how the Church can be pro-active on the
‘digital continent’, in the light of Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 Aparecida Document.
.In his 2007 trip to Brazil for the 5th Conference of bishops from across
the sub-continent, the Holy Father had called on the Church leaders to stem the Churches’
decline there, a trend that has seen millions of Catholics joining Pentecostal groups
or simply stop going to church. He also suggested some ways of reversing the trend:
"It is true that one can detect a certain weakening of Christian life in society
overall," said Pope Benedict, "and of participation in the life of the Catholic Church,
due to secularism, hedonism, indifferentism and proselytism by numerous sects, animist
religions and new pseudo-religious phenomena."
"This being a continent of baptized
Christians, it is time to overcome the notable absence — in the political sphere,
in the world of the media and in the universities — of the voices and initiatives
of Catholic leaders with strong personalities and generous dedication, who are coherent
in their ethical and religious convictions," he concluded.
Taking him at his
word, this week the Latin American Bishops invited experts from the world of new technologies,
theologians, Church leaders and Catholics active in the media to Chile to take the
first steps to over come this absence.
Pope Benedict XVI was represented by
Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.
Munoz says “the Latino and Hispanic community are becoming an increasingly important
part of the life of the Church in the US, so we really need to make sure we understand
what is going on in their Church and that we speak their language”. Listen: