The church is also known as Santa Maria del Carmelo. This side altar is dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

As I write, an energetic, enthusiastic and VERY cold EWTN crew is setting things up in Washington D.C. for tomorrow’s March for Life that marks the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize abortion. These photos were taken by our very own John Kuklinski, who wrote to his warmer colleagues asking for prayers because of the cold weather. So say an AVE today for these intrepid souls – and all the souls who have come to D.C. for this March!

The Pope app is now live! You can install this free app today on your iPhone, iPad or iPod – Android coming soon to a phone or tablet near you! It is truly amazing – you’ll be riveted by the contents! So APPly yourself and learn more about the Pope, the Church, the faith!

BENEDICT XVI: DIGITAL MEDIA NEED “GENTLE VOICE OF REASON”

Pope Benedict, the first Pope to use Twitter, knows full well that the digital era of social communications is here to stay, and he wants to play an important role. Not only does he tweet in nine languages, including Latin, with over 2.5 million followers, he has some serious advice to offer users of the various social networks which, he said, “are helping to create a new ‘agora’, an open public square in which people share ideas, information and opinions, and in which new relationships and forms of community can come into being.”

His core message was this: the digital media need the “gentle voice of reason” as they teach, inform, dialogue, debate, and evangelize.

In his 2013 Message for the 47th World Communications Day, entitled “Social Networks: portals of truth and faith; new spaces for evangelization,” he said, “These spaces, when engaged in a wise and balanced way, help to foster forms of dialogue and debate which, if conducted respectfully and with concern for privacy, responsibility and truthfulness, can reinforce the bonds of unity between individuals and effectively promote the harmony of the human family.”

World Communications Day will be celebrated on May 12 this year.

In using these networks, said the Pope, people build relationships, make friends, seek answers to questions, are entertained, find intellectual stimulation and share knowledge.

He warned that often “the significance and effectiveness of the various forms of expression appear to be determined more by their popularity than by their intrinsic importance and value. Popularity, for its part, is often linked to celebrity or to strategies of persuasion rather than to the logic of argumentation. At times the gentle voice of reason can be overwhelmed by the din of excessive information and it fails to attract attention which is given instead to those who express themselves in a more persuasive manner.”

Benedict XVI urged users of social media to commit to “the value of dialogue, reasoned debate and logical argumentation” and to strive “to cultivate forms of discourse and expression which appeal to the noblest aspirations of those engaged in the communication process. Dialogue and debate can also flourish and grow when we converse with and take seriously people whose ideas are different from our own.”

The Pope said, “the challenge facing social networks is how to be truly inclusive: thus they will benefit from the full participation of believers who desire to share the message of Jesus and the values of human dignity which his teaching promotes. Believers are increasingly aware that, unless the Good News is made known also in the digital world, it may be absent in the experience of many people for whom this existential space is important. The digital environment is not a parallel or purely virtual world, but is part of the daily experience of many people, especially the young.”

The Holy Father noted that, “the written word is often accompanied by images and sounds,” and said, “that Christian tradition has always been rich in signs and symbols.”

Believers must not only share they faith and joy,” said the Pope. They must be witnesses. One way to do so is “to give oneself to others by patiently and respectfully engaging their questions and their doubts as they advance in their search for the truth and the meaning of human existence.”

Pope Benedict underscores that, “social networks, as well as being a means of evangelization, can also be a factor in human development. As an example, in some geographical and cultural contexts where Christians feel isolated, social networks can reinforce their sense of real unity with the worldwide community of believers. The networks facilitate the sharing of spiritual and liturgical resources, helping people to pray with a greater sense of closeness to those who share the same faith.”

The Pope’s Message is always released on the January 24 feast of St. Francis De Sales, patron of Catholic journalists.

U.S. CATHOLICS AND THE DIGITAL WORLD

Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli and Msgr. Paul Tighe, respectively president and secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications this morning presented the Pope’s message for the 47th World Communications Day.

Among the many interesting data and statistics provided during the press conference were some telling facts about media use by Catholics in the United States that came out of a study by CARA, Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. The entire report can be accessed here: http://www.usccb.org/about/communications/upload/Catholic_New_Media_Use_in_United_States_2012.pdf

However, I’d like to offer some of the salient information and 2 graphs used today at the press conference that came from the first pages of this report.

Regarding the first graph that you see below, the report says: The adult Catholic population is nearly evenly divided by those aware of the Church’s presence online and those who are not aware of this. The figure on the next page shows how visible adult Catholics feel the Church is online with about a quarter (24 percent) indicating “somewhat” or “very” visible, another quarter saying it is “only a little” or “not very” visible (23 percent), and more than half (53 percent) being unaware of any significant presence.

The report then says: “Among those who do not regularly visit a Catholic-related website of any kind (55 percent of respondents), the reason for not doing so cited most frequently was simply a lack of interest (43 percent), followed by not being religious or Catholic enough (14 percent), and that visiting sites was not necessary (13 percent).

U.S. adult Catholics are relying less on the secular media for information about the Church and are not confident in the secular media’s reliability. … Only 38 percent of adult Catholics consider a secular newspaper of magazine to be a “somewhat” or “very” reliable source about the Church. Sixty-three percent of respondents who follow Catholic blogs agree “somewhat” or “strongly” that they do so to get a balance from secular news sources.”

The CARA report also states: “… Unlike secular news there are not many alternative sources for Church news and official statements and teachings other than those produced by the Church. Many Catholics are not abandoning Church print publications the way they may be discarding of secular newspaper subscriptions. By far the most widely used Catholic news and information source is the parish bulletin. Forty-one percent of adult Catholics reports regular use of this (print or online). This is equivalent to 23.9 million individuals. Seventeen percent report regular use of their diocesan newspaper or magazine. This is equivalent to 9.9 million individuals.5 Significantly more Catholics use one or both of these sources than anything related to the Catholic Church that is exclusively available online.

“Television also remains as an important source for Catholics. It is the primary source of news (61 percent selected it as such) and is also the most trusted for providing accurate and truthful information (not shown in the figure below; 49 percent of respondents selected it as their most trusted source).”

Another very interesting graph relates media use to frequency of Mass:

ROME TO RENAME SQUARE FOR POPE JOHN PAUL II

An article in the online edition of “Wanted in Rome” reported today that Rome’s city assembly has approved a decision to rename part of Piazza S. Giovanni in Laterano after Blessed John Paul II. The area in front of the diocese of Rome’s vicariate buildings, alongside Basilica S. Giovanni in Laterano, is to be called Largo Giovanni Paolo II.

It continues: “The news follows a year of discussions between the city and the Cardinal Vicar Agostino Vallini to find a suitable location. An inauguration date is expected soon for the square whose full title will be ‘Largo Giovanni Paolo II - Karol Josef Wojtyla - Pontefice 1978-2005 - beatificato 1 maggio 2011’.

”Paying tribute to the late Polish pontiff, the mayor of Rome Gianni Alemanno said "John Paul II was not only an exceptional pope, a man of peace and a communicator of extraordinary strength, but he was a man of faith who, with his faith, changed the face of the 20th century.”

”Last November the controversial five-meter bronze statue of John Paul II in front of Termini station was re-inaugurated following the ‘completion’ of the original work. When it was first unveiled in May 2011 the statue received widespread criticism from the public, the city and the Vatican, and its sculptor Oliviero Rainaldi was tasked with re-working the original.

”Eight years after the pope’s death, postcards and calendars of the popular figure are still on sale in tourist shops across Rome.”

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