Pope Benedict Calls on Catholic Church to Embrace New Technology

CNET.com reports that Pope Benedict XVI has called on priests in the Catholic Church to embrace technology, particularly social media sites including Twitter and Facebook, as a tool to communicate with followers. In a message for the Catholic Church’s 2010 World Day for Social Communications, Pope Benedict encouraged the ministry to use new technologies to preach the gospel and interact with church members.

“Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, Web sites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization, and catechesis,” said Pope Benedict in his message.

Along with having a main Web site, the Vatican also has launched a Facebook application, YouTube videos and an iPhone app.