Fr. Frank Pavone
International Director
Priests for Life
It is with good reason that many have voiced concerns about the morally
offensive material so easily accessible on the Internet. The ease with which
children can access this material is a particularly serious aspect of the
problem, although its availability to adults is also a matter of grave moral
concern. Those making efforts toward solutions to these problems deserve praise
and support.
But there is another dimension to this situation which should not escape our
notice.
It is just as easy for people who have a wholesome message to put that
message onto the Internet as it is for those who have a pornographic message.
When we speak of the Internet, we are not dealing with the kind of hurdles or
financial restrictions that get in the way of putting a program on network
television. For very minimal costs, any individual or group can establish a web
site…and it can be as large as you want! Everyone is on equal footing. Many
excellent Catholic, Christian, and pro-life websites are up and running right
now.
Nor are they difficult to maintain. Priests for Life, for example,
established its website three years ago, and I am able to add to it and maintain
it right from my own desk. (The address is http://www.priestsforlife.org ).
Here's the point: If there is so much filth on the Internet, the question we
need to ask is not simply What's the matter with them (those who post and use
such material),
but more fundamentally, What's the matter with us? Why are we not
flooding the Internet with so much good material that the offensive material is,
by comparison, a mere fraction?
It is not the Internet as such that is the problem. Like so many
things in our world, the Internet is a gift from God which can be used to
accomplish great good, or can be abused in the service of vice. There is an old
Latin proverb, Abusus non tollit usum, which means that the abuse of
something does not preclude its legitimate use. We can go a step further and say
that the failure to adequately use a new tool for evangelization leaves
the field open for others to use it to bad purposes.
I urge all Christians and people of good will to become more familiar with
this vast new means of communication. So many values that are crucial to the
Church can be promoted: closer human communication, including among family
members that do not get to see one another; better appreciation of different
cultures, now as close as the click of a button--and not only by text, but with
music, audio, and video clips; advancement of human knowledge and research by
easy access to source materials which would be much more difficult and
time-consuming to find than they are now thanks to the search mechanisms
available on the Internet.
Above all, of course, is the communication of the Gospel. The Eternal Word
needs to go everywhere that human words can go. Let us not be afraid or hesitant
to do precisely that with the Internet!
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