c. 1999 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ While acknowledging the Internet has been used by some, including pedophiles,”for evil purposes,”the Vatican is urging the Roman Catholic Church to adopt the technology to better meet the challenge of spreading the gospel to an increasingly de-Christianized world.

In an 80-page paper,”Towards A Pastoral Approach To Culture,”the Pontifical Council for Culture stressed both the risks posed by the Internet and its”immense potential”to help the church in its evangelical mission.”A great deal is at stake,”the council said.”How can we not be present and use information networks, whose screens are at the heart of people’s homes, to implant the values of the Gospel there.” Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the council, said the document grew out of requests from bishops throughout the world for guidance on”the evangelization of cultures and the inculturation of the gospel.” Inculturation is the process of adapting Catholic liturgy and institutions to an existing pre-Christian culture.”Today, as the gospel gradually comes into contact with cultural worlds which once lay beyond Christian influence, there are new tasks of inculturation,”the document said.”At the same time, some traditionally Christian cultures or cultures imbued with thousand-year-old religious traditions are being shattered.”Thus, it is not only a question of grafting the faith onto these cultures, but also of revitalizing a de-Christianized world whose only Christian references are of a cultural nature,”it said.”On the threshold of the third millennium, the church throughout the world is faced with new cultural situations, new fields of evangelization.” The council said that to meet this challenge the church must integrate its message into”the new culture created by modern communications.” This new culture, it said, arises in part”from the very fact that there exist new ways of communicating, with new languages, new techniques and a new psychology.”The advent of the information society is a real cultural revolution,”it said.

Poupard, speaking at a Vatican news conference Tuesday (June 1), said communication is fundamental to”a pastorate of culture.”He said that to evangelize, Catholics now need to speak two languages _”the language of social communications and the language of the Gospel.” But the document was also critical of the Internet, calling it”the most startling innovation in communications technology.””Like any other new technology, the Internet involves risks which have become tragically clear in cases where it has been used for evil purposes, and this calls for constant vigilance and reliable information,”it said.

Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, archbishop of Milan and a member of the council, described the Internet as an instrument and said that like any instrument it”can be used badly as in pedophilia”or for the good of mankind.”It is not simply a question of moral use of the Internet,”the document said,”but also of the radically new consequences it brings: a loss of the intrinsic value of items of information, an undifferentiated uniformity in messages which are reduced to pure information, a lack of responsible feedback and a certain discouragement of interpersonal relations.”But, without doubt, the Internet’s immense potential can be enormously helpful in spreading the Good News,”it said.”This has already been proved by various promising initiatives the church has taken.” The Vatican has its own web site at http://www.Vatican.VA and has established an intranet for communications between and among Rome and bishops conferences throughout the world. The Vatican’s Central Committee for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 makes extensive use of its own Web site at http://www.jubil2000.org both for organizational purposes and to provide information to Holy Year pilgrims.

The document said that the influence of the mass media and the Internet are making culture global with both good and bad effects.

It cited a”powerful trend towards uniformity”and warned that”the merchants of violence and cheap sex, omnipresent in video cassettes and films as well as on television and the Internet, risk prevailing over the educators.” The council advised the church to”pay particular attention”to print, radio and television journalists.”The questions they ask are sometimes embarrassing or disappointing, especially when they in no way correspond to the message we have to get across, but these disconcerting questions are often asked by most of our contemporaries,”it said.

The council urged training to help the church communicate better with journalists and make itself better reported. It advised courses on communications in seminaries and religious communities and encouragement to young Catholic lay people to make their careers in the mass media.

The document also recommended the development of dialogue with scientists in the fields of technology, bioethics and ecology. The church’s historic role as”advocate and protectress of culture and art,”it said,”is as relevant as ever, especially in the fields of architecture, iconography and religious music.”DEA END POLK