• Home
  • Diocese
  • Bishop Burns
  • Synod
  • Columnists
  • Revista Catolica
  • Pope Francis
  • Subscribe
The Texas Catholic
The Texas Catholic

Dallas, Texas

Today is Wednesday, May 18, 2022
  • Home
  • Diocese
  • Bishop Burns
  • Synod
  • Columnists
  • Revista Catolica
  • Pope Francis
  • Subscribe
  • Follow
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
Home
Uncategorized

Pope offers tips to youth for living in digital world

Monday, June 8, 2015

Pope Francis greets young people during a meeting with them at the diocesan John Paul II Youth Center in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, June 6. The pope made a one-day visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina to encourage a minority Catholic community in the faith and to foster dialogue and peace in a nation still largely divided along ethnic lines. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Pope Francis greets young people during a meeting with them at the diocesan John Paul II Youth Center in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, June 6. The pope made a one-day visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina to encourage a minority Catholic community in the faith and to foster dialogue and peace in a nation still largely divided along ethnic lines. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Whether you still stick to books or magazines or get everything online, Pope Francis said all media should encourage and edify — not enslave.

“Back in my day — the Stone Age — when a book was good, you read it; when the book was bad for you, you chucked it,” he told hundreds of youth in Sarajevo June 6.

The pope ended his one-day visit to the capital of this Balkan nation meeting with young people of different religions and ethnicities who volunteer together with the archdiocesan St. John Paul II Center. He set aside his prepared text and told the young people he would rather take some questions.

One young man said he read that the pope had stopped watching TV a long time ago, and wanted to know what led him to making that choice.

The pope said he decided back in the middle of 1990 to stop because “one night I felt that this was not doing me good, it was alienating me” and he decided to give it up.

He did not give up on movies, however.

When he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, he would go the archdiocesan television station to watch a recorded film he had picked out, which didn’t have the same isolating effect on him, he said.

“Obviously, I am from the Stone Age, I’m ancient!”

Times have changed, he said, and “image” has become all important.

But even in this “age of the image,” people should follow the same standards that ruled back “in the age of books: choose the things that are good for me,” he said.

Those who produce or distribute content, like television stations, have the responsibility of choosing programs that strengthen values, that help people grow and prepare for life, “that build up society, that move us forward, not drag us down.”

Viewers have the responsibility of choosing what’s good, and changing the channel where there is “filth” and things that “make me become vulgar.”

While the quality of content is a concern, it is also critical to limit the amount of time one is tied to the screen, he said.

If “you live glued to the computer and become a slave to the computer, you lose your freedom. And if you look for obscene programs on the computer, you lose your dignity,” he said.

Later, in response to a journalist’s question on the papal plane from Sarajevo back to Rome, the pope said the online or virtual world is a reality “that we cannot ignore; we have to lead it along a good path” and help humanity progress.

“But when this leads you away from everyday life, family life, social life, and also sports, the arts and we stay glued to the computer, this is a psychological illness,” he said.

Negative content, he said, includes pornography and content that is “empty” or devoid of values, like programs that encourage relativism, hedonism and consumerism.

“We know that consumerism is a cancer on society, relativism is a cancer on society, and I will speak about this in the next encyclical” on the environment, to be released June 18.

The pope said some parents do not allow their children to have a computer in their own room, but keep it in a common living space. “These are some little tips that parents find” to deal with the problem of unsuitable content, he said.

  • Tags
  • Pope Francis
Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Pinterest
Next article The responsibility of wealth
Previous article VIDEO: Memorial Day 2015

Related Posts

Father Dankasa: 'I don't believe in Lent...' Columnists
Friday, March 11, 2022

Father Dankasa: 'I don't believe in Lent...'

Mi primera  vez en el  confesionario Revista Catolica
Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Mi primera vez en el confesionario

Sinodalidad en la Iglesia Revista Catolica
Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Sinodalidad en la Iglesia

Texas Catholic Classics

A look at the five Dallas law enforcement officers who gave their lives while protecting citizens during a mass shooting in downtown Dallas in July 2016.

 

How a child with special needs inspired a high school volleyball team, community and a family who heeded God’s call to protect life.

 

After a young runner collapsed at a Dallas marathon, grace and providence unfolded for those involved in the valiant effort to help her.

   

In the summer of 2016, 50 students and 25 chaperones from Dallas Catholic high schools traveled to Nicaragua for a 10-day mission trip.

 

Early on a November morning, Kenndrick Mendieta bounded from the gym at Cristo Rey Dallas College Prep toward the campus’ athletic fields as clouds lifted on a fresh new day.

 

Subscribe

Get the award-winning Texas Catholic delivered to your door. Use the menu below to subscribe now.


Subscription length




 

Photo Gallery

Click here to find your favorite Texas Catholic photographs.

The Texas Catholic Newspaper

Catholic Diocese of Dallas
Michael Gresham, Editor

3725 Blackburn Street
Dallas, Texas 75219
(214) 379-2800

Our Affiliated Sites

Texas Catholic Youth

Revista Católica

Legal and Other

Contact us

Terms of service

Privacy policy

Site map

Site powered by TexasCatholicMedia

© 2013-2019 The Texas Catholic Publishing Company. All rights reserved.