Post by sweet soul on Jan 19, 2009 12:04:30 GMT
Pope to get his own Google channel
Vatican is to announce details of the channel later this week, as the Pope attempts to engage with new media technology.
In its latest move to engage with new media technology, the Vatican is to announce details at the end of this week for a joint venture with Google to give Pope Benedict XVI his own channel.
The Vatican said texts and video footage of the Pope's speeches supplied by Vatican radio and television would be posted directly onto the channel.
Details will be given on Friday at a news conference on "New Technologies, New Relationships: Promoting a Culture of Respect, Dialogue and Friendship" by Claudio Maria Celli, head of the Vatican department of Social Communications, and Henrique de Castro, Managing Director of Media Solutions for Google.
The Vatican launched its own website under the late John Paul II in 1995, powered by three computers named Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, after the archangels. Vatican Radio and the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, also have their own websites.
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However the Jesuit magazine, Civilta Cattolica, warned that the web holds dangers as well as benefits, noting that Internet social networking sites such as Facebook were no substitute for human contact.
Writing in the magazine Father Antonio Spadaro, who belongs to Facebook, said the site "incarnates a utopia: that of always staying close to those people we care about in one way or another, and of getting to know others who are compatible with us".
"Like every Internet reality that directly involves human life, desires, tensions and relationships, Facebook is also a place where faith and religiosity are expressed and have their relevance," he said.
The presence of priests on Facebook was "not irrelevant," and Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, the Archbishop of Naples, had swiftly accumulated Facebook's maximum of 5,000 friends.
But there was a serious risk of people being isolated at their computers for hours on end, Father Spadaro warned. People were tempted to "collect" friends.
Moreover, Facebook offered a temptation to users to construct an identity to make them seem "more acceptable, pleasant, even desirable - including sexually."
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5541876.ece
Vatican is to announce details of the channel later this week, as the Pope attempts to engage with new media technology.
In its latest move to engage with new media technology, the Vatican is to announce details at the end of this week for a joint venture with Google to give Pope Benedict XVI his own channel.
The Vatican said texts and video footage of the Pope's speeches supplied by Vatican radio and television would be posted directly onto the channel.
Details will be given on Friday at a news conference on "New Technologies, New Relationships: Promoting a Culture of Respect, Dialogue and Friendship" by Claudio Maria Celli, head of the Vatican department of Social Communications, and Henrique de Castro, Managing Director of Media Solutions for Google.
The Vatican launched its own website under the late John Paul II in 1995, powered by three computers named Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, after the archangels. Vatican Radio and the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, also have their own websites.
Related Links
Pope accused of "turning the clock back"
Atheist bus poster campaign moves to Genoa
Vatican to exhibit art at the Venice Biennale
However the Jesuit magazine, Civilta Cattolica, warned that the web holds dangers as well as benefits, noting that Internet social networking sites such as Facebook were no substitute for human contact.
Writing in the magazine Father Antonio Spadaro, who belongs to Facebook, said the site "incarnates a utopia: that of always staying close to those people we care about in one way or another, and of getting to know others who are compatible with us".
"Like every Internet reality that directly involves human life, desires, tensions and relationships, Facebook is also a place where faith and religiosity are expressed and have their relevance," he said.
The presence of priests on Facebook was "not irrelevant," and Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, the Archbishop of Naples, had swiftly accumulated Facebook's maximum of 5,000 friends.
But there was a serious risk of people being isolated at their computers for hours on end, Father Spadaro warned. People were tempted to "collect" friends.
Moreover, Facebook offered a temptation to users to construct an identity to make them seem "more acceptable, pleasant, even desirable - including sexually."
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5541876.ece
