The internet is not Pope Benedict's natural metier. So his World Day of Social Communications address last week allowed readers to see how an elderly, intelligent man might reflect on the massive changes in social communication. He was characteristically perceptive in his focus on large questions.
He recognised the importance of the internet for expanding human communication. He measured its value by the extent to which it enhances and deepens human relationships, and was even-handed in his assessment of the advantages and risks it offers.
He urged Christians to take it seriously, and stressed the importance of embodying Gospel values in both the truth that is communicated and in the way in which it is communicated.
The document is interesting for what it reveals of the author as well as of the topic. Benedict retails large theories about the significance of the internet, but the scholar in him refers to them as 'an ever more commonly held opinion'. He prudently reserves judgment on areas outside his expertise.
From Plato's day, older people have seen new ways of communication as a problem primarily for the young. As a result the anxieties they express about new technologies are often more about the development of young people than about the technologies themselves. The fact that 12-year-olds used to play Monopoly for ten hours a day was not an indictment of Monopoly.
Benedict also associates social networking with the young. But his tone is not elegaic. He trusts in their freedom to use it well.
Most striking in his address is his unequivocal endorsement of the internet's possibilities for expanding and deepening human communication. The internet is to be embraced and shaped in such a way that it realises its full possibilities. So, while allowing that the Gospel will challenge some of the ways of thinking that are typical of the web, he encourages Christians to go for it:
'I would like then to invite Christians, confidently and with an informed and responsible creativity, to join the network of relationships which the digital era has made possible. This is not simply to satisfy the desire to be present, but because this network is an integral part of human life. The web is contributing to the development of new and more complex intellectual and spiritual horizons, new forms of shared awareness.'
Endorsements don't come much stronger than this.
The address invites the reader to ask further questions that it does not treat itself.