Text a Friend and Go To Hell

[Stuart Cosgrove]

In an article published in the Telegraph's Digital Life section the Vatican has called into question the spiritual value of mobile phones - I kid you not.

Two competing views the Catholic church has long and often dishonourbale history opposing social progress, but it is also and equally true that technologies can coarsen the culture, and maybe even the 'soul' - opinions please. Trigger Happy TV's loud-caller character being just one among many modern examples.

I'd welcome Ivan Pope's opinion?

Extract: Father Federico Lombardi, the Pope’s spokesman, said that without a spiritual life, people risked losing their souls.

“In the age of the cell phone and the internet it is probably more difficult than before to protect silence and to nourish the interior dimension of life,” Father Lombardi told the Vatican television show Octavia Dies. “It is difficult but necessary.”

[Stuart Cosgrove]

What is the potential for user-generated spiritual experiences as an alternative to mass?

Unlike ugc the catholic mass has a well-established model for monetising connet - the collection plate.

[Madeleine Goddard]

Il Pappa refers to the internet

The internet offers a greater potential for spiritual experiences than old media. Artists and creative people are posting visual images through which we can transcend mundanity into spirituality. Some photos on 38 minutes can do this.

The internet can be a creative place with creative, spiritual experiences.

What is the potential for user-generated spiritual experiences as an alternative to mass?

As for mobile phones, lets be clear guys, they have a more earthly value. SMS is the language of assignations for domestics and earthly pleasures.

[Stuart Cosgrove]

Pax vobiscum

[Fraser Edwards]

Are they not just saying that time for silence and reflection is important and it's harder than ever when you are connected all the time? Later in the article it goes on to talk about the Pope sending text messages at a youth event.

I agree that technology can nourish or coarsen equally but it's the application and use not the technology itself that is the issue.