Pope Says Internet Is A 'Gift From God' For Dialogue Between Different Faiths

Even though Internet has a dangerous tendency to isolate people from their friends and family, it is also a "gift from God" that facilitates communication, Pope Francis said in a statement released Thursday.

Francis made the observations in a message about Catholic Church communications, meditating on the marvels and perils of the digital era and what that means for the faithful going out into the world and interacting with people of different faiths and backgrounds, the Associated Press reported.

While engaging in dialogue with people from other faiths, Catholics shouldn't be arrogant in insisting that they alone possess the truth, Francis said n comments that will likely rile the more conservative wing of the church.

"To (have a) dialogue means to believe that the 'other' has something worthwhile to say, and to entertain his or her point of view and perspective," Francis wrote. "Engaging in dialogue does not mean renouncing our own ideas and traditions, but the pretense that they alone are valid and absolute."

"Fullness of the means of salvation," a message that has long been taken to mean that only Catholics can find salvation, is held by the Catholic Church, according to church teaching distilled by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the AP reported.

Church teaching also holds that eternal salvation can be attained by those who seek God but don't know about Jesus.

According to the AP, "Pope Benedict XVI was a strong proponent of engaging in interreligious dialogue, but Francis has offered a softer approach in his sermons and gestures. In one famous off-the-cuff homily, he suggested that even atheists can find salvation. He also riled some conservatives when he washed the feet of two Muslims during the Holy Thursday re-enactment of Christ washing the feet of his apostles."

The message was merely a reflection, "not a conciliar or dogmatic text," Archbishop Claudio Mario Celli, the head of the Vatican's social communications office, said. He didn't believe it to be an official policy statement on interreligious dialogue by Francis.

The same "providential" way Pope John XXIII shook up the church in launching the Second Vatican Council, Francis is also shaking things up, he said.

"We are realizing that there are sensations of, I wouldn't say difficulty, but of discomfort sometimes in certain circles," he said. "I think step by step we must rediscover a sense of the path, of what the pope wants to tell us."

People from different cultural and traditional backgrounds can be encountered and shown solidarity through the "immense possibilities" of the Internet, Francis said.

"This is something truly good, a gift from God," he wrote. But he warned: "The desire for digital connectivity can have the effect of isolating us from our neighbors, from those closest to us."

He called for communications in the digital era to be like "a balm which relieves pain and a fine wine which gladdens hearts" and for the church's message to not be one of bombarding others with Christian dogma, the AP reported.

"May the light we bring to others not be the result of cosmetics or special effects, but rather of our being loving and merciful neighbors to those wounded and left on the side of the road," he said.

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