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Even The Pope Knows To Blog

I think, no matter your religion, if Pope Benedict XVI says something important, everyone listens.  Over the weekend And the 82 year old shockingly sent out a message to most specifically Catholic priests over the weekend saying they must no longer just have a website sharing the word of God, but they also need to blog and use social media. 

A few years ago, the 265th Pope of the Catholic Church started to embrass social media with his own YouTube channel, and most recently released both a Facebook and iPhone app. 

Over the weekend, the Pope said in a message that the future is going to hold some challenges for priests because of the change in online conversation.  Meaning priests are going to have to more than just have someone maintain their website. 

“The spread of multimedia communications and its rich “menu of options” might make us think it sufficient simply to be present on the Web, or to see it only as a space to be filled. Yet priests can rightly be expected to be present in the world of digital communications as faithful witnesses to the Gospel, exercising their proper role as leaders of communities which increasingly express themselves with the different “voices” provided by the digital marketplace. Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis.”

The Pope is being praised by many for his push for social media in the digital age.  It seems the only real “hype” he hasn’t touched is Twitter.  Although he may seem a bit “old” for the microblogging website, he’s still 22 years younger than Ivy Bean, who is said to be the world’s oldest Twitter user.  However, his actions mean he does understand that keeping up with the times to help spread the message another way, even after centuries of certain ways and traditions.