Thursday, March 10, 2011

Pope continues to be a trailblazer in using media

Pope Benedict XVI will answer questions on television from the public for a special program by RAI, an Italian station. The three questions will be on Jesus, and the answers will be pre-recorded. It will air on Good Friday at 3pm. This is a papal first. This coincides with Benedict's release of the second volume on his book on the life of Jesus called Jesus of Nazareth. The book recently captured headlines when the pope reiterated the Church's teaching that Jews as a whole are not responsible for deicide.

It's really wonderful that the pope is continuing to embrace new media. The Vatican has a Youtube channel and the Vatican.va website is a giant portal to all things Catholic, which is updated daily in many languages. The pope has continuously pledged for people to use new media to spread evangelization. I think though the pope must be careful to not try too hard to adapt to all media. Quotes, clips, and other forms of media can be distorted or taken out of context. An air of reverence must be maintained.

I think this is a great step overall.

For more on the story, see below:

Pope Benedict to answer Italian TV viewers' questions in papal first | World news | The Guardian

To purchase Benedict's new volume of his book Jesus of Nazareth, click the link below:

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