The word of God without the right "Tags", does not reach the youngest - this is certain - as, perhaps, without knowing the social networks Latin alone, is not enough to make the Gospel understood by those who spend their time on Tik Tok, Youtube or Facebook and then here is a specific "course" directed to ecclesiastical personnel, to learn how the world of the web and its branches works, putting in the chair one of the leading experts in communication and "social media reputation", Giò Talente: this is the Lectio Magistralis that will take place at the Pontifical Urbaniana University. It is not the first course for nuns and priests of its kind, and comes a few weeks after a controversy - ended badly instead - born around the initiative of the cloistered nuns of a convent who - anticipating the official academic initiatives - had begun to post messages and photos of their monastery on Facebook.


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Sister in prayer

Uisg: "The digital space is a place of mission""
"We are used to seeing social media as a means of distraction, debate or political propaganda, but they can also be used as a means of spreading love, peace and brotherhood – Giò Talente tells La Stampa – we must study the most effective way to get the right message across". The UISG - International Union of Superiors General - in collaboration with the Pontifical Urbaniana University and the Church Organizations, encourages the "formation of religious and laity at the service of communication for religious life", so Patrizia Morgante, head of
communication UISG.
"We know that today, in Italy, many realities of consecrated life have institutional profiles online, but few have a person or a team that takes care of the contents and style of digital communication - continues Morgante - we must consider the digital space as a place of mission and therefore prepare Missionaries from a technical and human point of view.

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The Bible - Holy Bible

The experiment of a "digital pastoral" To collaborate in the development of the contents of the course, for an experimentation of "
digital pastoral", is the Center for Pastoral Orientation (the Cop). According to the bishop president, Domenico Sigalini: "It is a question of rethinking the mission of the Church, its action, in an unprecedented cultural context, where online and offline are no longer complementary dimensions, and where technology becomes more and more environment".

The cloistered convent "too social" And while the path of modernization in the field of Church communication goes on, two weeks ago the "no to Facebook and markets"
by the Vatican, to the 13 nuns of the (cloistered) Monastery of Pienza, in Tuscany, who had begun to take care of a Facebook profile. An initiative that had led to the suspension of Mother Superior.


The nuns had begun to put online photos of the rooms for the reception of the pleasant place in the Tuscan hills, and promote a small "market" with candles - produced by the Benedictine nuns - put up for sale: a media exposure considered strictly by the Vatican, decided to replace the religious at the head of the convent.

In 2019 the invitation via social media to young people "from 18 to 38 years"
The point seems to be the fact that even under the cloistered regime (which prohibits any form of contact with the outside), the sisters have created a Facebook page through which they have opened to forms of hospitality inside the convent: in 2019, moreover, an invitation via social media was also published, Aimed at young women "aged 18 to 38", to "live a new experience and share our daily life", all "at no cost: we will take care of everything".


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Sister in monastery

The
announcement of the replacement of the mother superior came on February 13, by decree of the "Vatican Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life": some time before an apostolic delegate had been sent to Val d'Orcia from Rome, with the task of closely verifying the work of the nuns.

Who, however, had expressed their dissent to the replacement of Mother Superior.