The Pontifical Council for Social Communications met in plenary assembly at the Vatican from 19-21 September 2013 to discuss the theme: The Internet and the Church.
President of the dicastery, Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, declared: “To understand the reasons for this choice of theme, it is necessary to take a small step backward to Benedict XVI who, in his last Message for World Communications Day spoke at length about the Internet, giving it a positive assessment and expressing the hope that the Church would be a profoundly evangelizing presence online.
A Church that must walk alongside the people of today needs to be close to them in order to do this. Communications presupposes an ecclesiology of meeting, closeness, dialogue, sharing and profound sympathy for human beings in the sense of suffering with them, sharing their emotions….”