Three cheers for the internet, says Pope

After all the criticism, much of it quite intemperate, which has been heaped upon him, you would expect that Benedict XVI would be quite negative about the media. On the contrary, he went on a good ideas offensive this week, declaring that the internet was a great force for good. “The Internet could in this way become a kind of ‘Court of the Gentiles’, where ‘there is also a space for those who have not yet come to know God’,” he told participants in an Italian conference on “digital witnesses”.

I exhort all media professionals not to tire of nourishing in their heart that passion for man that draws ever closer to the languages he speaks and to his true face. You will be helped in this by a solid theological formation and above all a deep and joyful passion for God, fed by a constant dialogue with the Lord... As I thank you for the service you give to the Church and therefore to the cause of man, I exhort you to walk the roads of the digital continent, animated by the courage of the Holy Spirit. Our confidence is not uncritically placed in any instrument of technology. Our strength lies in being Church, believing community, able to bear witness to all the perennial newness of the Risen One, with a life that blooms in fullness in the measure that it opens up, enters into relation, gives itself gratuitously.