Pope urges humanization of digital media

(April 24, 2010) The media in today’s digital world can be humanizing factors not only when they increase the possibilities in communicating and informing, but above all when they are geared towards a vision of the person and the common good that reflects true universal values. Pope Benedict XVI made the observation on Saturday in an address to participants in a conference organized by the Italian bishops on the theme, “Digital Witnesses.” The Pope observed that, besides showing “an open vocation, egalitarian and pluralist by nature, the web also opens a new chasm – the digital divide. It divides the included from the excluded and adds to other gaps that currently divide nations from one another and within themselves”. He spoke of the increasing danger of homogenisation and control, of moral and intellectual relativism, which is already evident in the lack of critical thinking, in the manipulation of truth, in the many forms of degradation and humiliation of the intimacy of the person.” Then there is a "pollution of the spirit that…prevents us from greeting and looking at one another. Such a situation, the Pope said can be redeemed by the shining face of Christ. In order that media become humanizing factors they must focus on promoting the dignity of persons and peoples, clearly inspired by charity, and must be placed at the service of truth, goodness and natural and supernatural brotherhood.