Church was traditionally a media leader — about time they caught up

THE cynicism with which the Pope’s venture onto YouTube was greeted is ill-informed.

Moving into new communications technology isn’t an innovation for Catholicism. It’s been a constant throughout Church history.

Communication is the Christian imperative. Christ’s apostles were instructed to go and teach all nations. When he spotted a man up a tree trying to hear him, he brought him down and talked to him. When his followers tried to stop him communicating with younger people, he told them to “suffer the little children to come unto me”. The parables he told used not just the language of the people to whom he spoke, but their references, the tools of their trades, the images of their daily experiences.