Pope asks Bloggers to Give Internet a Soul

The need to give the Internet a soul and humanize the dynamics of the digital world was at the heart of Pope Benedict XVI’s message Saturday to participants in a conference on modern means of mass communication.

Promoted by the Italian Bishops Conference, “Digital Witness” draws together experts in information technology, social networking, web journalism and blogging to focus on the language we use and the way we communicate as Christians in the online society.

Pope Benedict told participants that the task of every believer who works in media, is to ensure the “quality of human contact, guaranteeing attention to people and their spiritual needs”. “This is increasingly urgent in today’s world”, he said, at a time when Internet appears to have a “basically egalitarian” vocation, but at the same time, “marks a new divide", the "digital divide" that "separates the included from the excluded"

"The dangers of homologation and control, of intellectual and moral relativism are also increasing, as already recognizable in the decline of critical spirit, in truth reduced to a game of opinions, in the many forms of degradation and humiliation of the intimacy of the person"

Thus said the Pope we see, a "spiritual pollution" that brings us to no longer "look one another in the face”. So we must “overcome those collective dynamics that risk reducing people to "soulless bodies, objects of exchange and consumption”. The media must become a “humanizing factor”, focused "on promoting the dignity of persons and peoples". Only then, will "the epochal times we are experiencing be rich and fertile in new opportunities":

"Without fear we must set sail on the digital sea facing into the deep with the same passion that has governed the ship of the Church for two thousand years. Rather than for, albeit necessary, technical resources, we want to qualify ourselves by living in the digital world with a believer’s heart, helping to give a soul to the Internet’s incessant flow of communication".


WAY TO GO SUBO...

SUSAN BOYLE has been chosen to sing for the Pope during his visit to Scotland later this year.

Catholic Church leaders asked the Britain's Got Talent star to perform in front of the 150,000 crowd expected to greet the Pontiff at an outdoor mass.

She will sing before the papal address and may also perform during the mass in Glasgow's Bellahouston Park.

A senior church source said: "Susan has agreed to sing and everyone is delighted. It is a done deal.

"There are still some of the finer details to be ironed out but it has been approved by the highest echelons in the Vatican.

"Susan has described it as a dream come true and it will be an extra attraction for everyone attending."

Singing sensation SuBo, 49, of Blackburn, West Lothian, shot to fame after her performances on last year's Britain's Got Talent.

But before then the shy spinster's main singing experience was at Our Lady Of Lourdes church in the town where she has worshipped since she was a child.

It is not yet known what Susan, who declined to comment yesterday, will sing at the papal visit in September.

A spokesman for the Catholic Church said: "We would be delighted if Susan Boyle was to perform on the day at Bellahouston Park. She is top of our wish list."

London-based events managers WRG have been hired to organise the details of the visit.

Yesterday, they referred all calls about SuBo to the Catholic Church.

Pope Benedict XVI will visit Edinburgh and Glasgow at the start of a four-day tour of the UK from September 16-19.

It is nearly three decades since the last papal visit to Scotland, when Pope John Paul II celebrated mass at Bellahouston Park on June 1, 1982, in front of 300,000 worshippers.

Susan has also signed a book deal to recount her extraordinary story.

Her autobiography - The Woman I Was Born To Be - will be published in the autumn.

Since her appearances on BGT, where she narrowly lost to dance act Diversity in the final, Susan has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show in the US and had a huge hit with her debut album.

I Dreamed A Dream was released last November and became the biggestselling debut album by a female vocalist and the biggest selling album of 2009.

It has sold over 10 million copies.