Demonstrating its understanding of communications in the new millennium, the Vatican set out its "Catholic view of the Internet" on Thursday in an effort to bring "moral wisdom" to what it considers a "marvelous technological instrument."
In a document called "Ethics in Internet," one of two documents unveiled Thursday, the Catholic church said the Internet has the potential to bring much good to the world, but that "harm also can be done by its improper use. Which it will be, good or harm, is largely a matter of choice -- a choice to whose making the church brings two elements of great importance: her commitment to the dignity of the human person and her long tradition of moral wisdom."
The church also said that it wishes to play a greater role in spreading the gospels through the Internet.
"Pope Paul VI said the church 'would feel guilty before the Lord' if it failed to use the media for evangelization," the Vatican said in "The Church and the Internet," the other document released on Thursday.
"Pope John Paul II has ... declared that it is not enough to use the media simply to spread the Christian message and the church's authentic teaching. It is also necessary to integrate that message into the 'new culture' created by modern communications," wrote John P. Foley, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.
Foley also quotes the Pope as saying, "Consider ... the positive capacities of the Internet to carry religious information and teaching beyond all barriers and frontiers. Such a wide audience would have been beyond the wildest imaginings of those who preached the Gospel before us.... Catholics should not be afraid to throw open the doors of social communications to Christ, so that his good news may be heard from the housetops of the world."
In its two briefs, the church shows a remarkable understanding of the Internet and its many uses. Its generally positive view of the technology is only slightly tempered by its wariness of what it considers misuse and by other areas of concern.
The main area of concern, the Vatican said, is the "digital divide," which the church calls a "form of discrimination."
Quoting the Pope, Foley wrote: "As the new global economy takes shape, the church is concerned 'that the winner in this process will be humanity as a whole' and not just 'a wealthy elite that controls science, technology and the planet's resources'; this is to say that the church desires 'a globalization which will be at the service of the whole person and of all people.'"
The church is also worried that the Internet, along with the rest of Western media, is drowning the globe in messages of "Western secular culture" -- messages which may cause harm "to people and societies (which are) in many cases ill-prepared to evaluate and cope with it," Foley wrote.
And of course, the church is concerned with the "complex" issue of free speech on the Internet.
The Church strongly supports "the free exchange of ideas," the document states, and deplores "attempts by public authorities to block access to information -- on the Internet or in other media of social communication -- because they find it threatening or embarrassing to them, to manipulate the public by propaganda and disinformation, or to impede legitimate freedom of expression and opinion."
But the church also finds fault with the Internet's embrace of libertarianism. "The ideology of radical libertarianism is both mistaken and harmful," the Vatican said. "The error lies in exalting freedom 'to such an extent that it becomes an absolute, which would then be the source of values.... In this way the inescapable claims of truth disappear.'"
In order to tame the Internet, then, it ought to be regulated, the Vatican said, but "industry self-regulation is best."
The Vatican has, in recent months, made a number of pronouncements regarding the Internet. Last June, the church said that Catholics could not use the Internet to take confession. Confession "must always take place within the sacramental context of a personal encounter," Foley told the Catholic News Agency.
Last month, it was revealed that a group of Vatican elders are looking for a patron saint for the Internet.
David Early, a spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said it's not unusual for the church to look for such opportunities in new technologies.
"From the beginning of radio and the beginning of broadcasting in general, the church has embraced and taken advantage of broadcasting. There have been public pronouncements from the Pope as far back as 1936," he said, referring to a document from Pope Pious XI on motion pictures.
"What the church tries to do is to spell out their value as a means of building the common good on the value of mass communications."
