The Catholic Defender: A Digital Missionary with a world wide Mission

Benedict XVI and the transmission of the faith in the digital age

From Vatican News

Benedict XVI was also the first Pope to have sent text messages (to the young people at the WYD in Sydney), to dialogue with astronauts on the International Space Station, to answer questions on TV on Good Friday (in 2011), and to write an editorial in the Financial Times at Christmas the next year focusing on the engagement of Christians in today's world.

Benedict XVI was the first Pontiff to meet with victims of sexual abuse by members of the clergy, an act of great significance and communicative power in which Ratzinger put listening at the center.

His manner of listening—witnessed in meetings during international travels—shied from the spotlight and was marked by availability and empathy, both essential conditions to undertake the process of conversion of the heart which Pope Francis has pursued with conviction and which formed the basis of the February 2019 Summit on the Protection of Minors.

Although criticism has not been lacking from certain media outlets regarding some of his decisions, Benedict XVI always maintained a positive attitude toward the world of information and communication.

His conversation with German journalist Peter Seewald gave birth to Light of the World, a book that touches on all the most sensitive issues of his pontificate, even on the subject of his resignation.

Evangelizing the ‘digital continent’

Benedict XVI was the first Pope to confront the bursting onto the scene of social media, which profoundly reshaped the global communicative context precisely in the years of his pontificate.

No less than five of his eight messages for the World Communications Days are dedicated to this unprecedented digital areopagus. Together they constitute a kind of compendium of the Church's Magisterium on this new reality which has changed not only the way we communicate but also the way we relate to others.

Benedict XVI immediately grasped the meaning of the social-media revolution, which is not so much a means to be used as an environment to be inhabited. He therefore coined the term "digital continent" for social media, saying that, like geographical ones, the digital continent requires the commitment of the faithful—particularly the laity, in line with Inter Mirifica—to evangelize this new mission territory.

The late Pope Emeritus also understood that the false distinction between virtual and real must be overcome, since what is shared, and interacted with, on the new platforms has concrete consequences on people's daily lives.