Last week the Vatican Dicastery for Communication issued a document called Towards Full Presence. A Pastoral Reflection on Engagement with Social Media. The Prefect of the Congregation, Paolo Ruffini, said that social media is invaluable for being present in today’s rapidly evolving world. However, it’s not about gaining followers or ‘likes,’ but working toward a better world. The Document’s aim is to promote a common reflection on the involvement of Christians in social media, which have increasingly become part of people’s lives.

Inspired by the parable of the Good Samaritan, the document offers an opportunity to begin a shared reflection on how to promote a culture of being “loving neighbours” in the digital world. The aim of the document is to start from the Gospel, Ruini said, and to offer “a theological and pastoral perspective on how to deal with technology that is changing.” Social media should not “nourish hate speech, fake news, deepfakes,” but “nourish the truth, love and compassion.” The most important thing “is to be aware that we can also say that in the history of humanity, always there is evil. And for us believers, there is the devil that is working always in the way that the history develops.” Technology is not something that “should invent us”; instead, we must “negotiate the rules and the algorithms” to “share and work toward the common good,” which he lamented, “we too often forget.”

You can read the document on the Vatican website.