This news item should be of interest to anyone reading this: the Vatican may issue a document on the New Media.

From CNS:

The Vatican is considering the preparation of a major document on new media and their implications for the church’s communications strategy.

Bishops from 82 countries began a five-day meeting in Rome March 9 to discuss modern media and the new culture of communications that has arisen in recent years. The seminar was sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

Archbishop Claudio Celli, president of the pontifical council, said the purpose of the seminar was to review with bishops the changing communications scene and see how the church should respond to the challenges and opportunities.

The pontifical council, in a plenary meeting in late October, will then decide whether to go ahead with a new document on the subject, he said.

The modern church’s communications strategy has been based primarily on the Second Vatican Council’s 1963 decree “Inter Mirifica” on the instruments of social communications, and on the pontifical council’s 1991 pastoral instruction, “Aetatis Novae” (“At the Dawn of a New Era”).

Archbishop Celli said that since 1991 “a lot of water has gone under the bridge. New media are posing new questions, new interests and new pastoral necessities.”

He said it was important for the church to understand that it’s not just new technological tools that have arisen, but a whole new attitude toward communication based largely on interactivity and dialogue.

“The church today cannot only give information — which is certainly useful, but we cannot limit ourselves to that,” Archbishop Celli said.

I wonder if Benedict will get a Facebook page…