Modernising Church social teaching

Modern communication technology provides us with threats but also many opportunities. Since the clock cannot be turned back, we should adopt a strategy of making the best of opportunities available and try to reduce the threats.

Issues such as personal identity, community involvement and solidarity are all affected by modern communications, especially the internet, and so the Church's social teaching should address them. Unfortunately this is another area where technology has grown faster than Church social teaching.

To try bridge the gaps appearing in Church teaching and help it keep pace with a world that is changing so rapidly, the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences held a meeting at the Vatican earlier this month at which these and other related issues were addressed.

Margaret Archer, professor at Warwick University, UK, said that many old methods that people used to learn to take part in society - to obey, to contribute, to receive - are threatened or gone altogether. Prof. Archer noted that the primary agent of socialisation in the past was the family, led by a person's biological mother and father.

This is a model that to a significant extent is disappearing. Statistics show that only about half of the West's population now grows up with both parents at home.

Another very significant aspect in people's lives was their specific culture, whether it was a nationality or a religion. But, as Prof. Archer explained, people increasingly do not feel bound by those identities. For many, religion has now become a question of pick and mix. The supermarket mentality is taking over our attitude to religion. Moreover, the importance of nationality is on the decrease for many people.

The above processes can lead to a certain form of anonymity which is exacerbated by the fact that today people are living longer. This longer life, lived away from the traditional forms of communal and family life, is translated into a more solitary form of existence.

Prof. Archer said that "here virtual communities could help. Youtube and Facebook may not be appropriate for people over 55, but we can develop communities for them. ...We cannot compare virtual reality to what we grew up with if we had two parents, but that reality no longer exists for most people. ...Virtual communities cannot replace the traditional family, but can it fill some of the space?" she asked.

This is perhaps a rhetorical question. More people are saying they find companionship and solace in these virtual communities that are increasingly filling in the gaps left wide open by the traditional family's decreased importance. They are flexible communities. Then help people meet, socialise and share many things through the internet.

Projects like the Wikipedia internet encyclopedia are the result of a computer culture that encourages people to participate, work together and make their products available in a form anyone can use and access. Even if we wanted to, we cannot turn the clock back. A nostalgic attitude to life does not help anyone.

Michel Bauwens, a Belgian philosopher and theorist specialising in 'peer-to-peer' internet collaboration, said "peer-to-peer work is an exemplar of subsidiarity because each person participates to the degree he or she wants, but to translate that into solidarity is an issue that still needs to be developed".

Regarding the increase in the level of anonymity witnessed in our culture. Prof. Archer said "Solidarity is the huge problem left behind by modernity.

"There is a huge deficit of solidarity", but increasing connections between and among people is probably the first step toward addressing the problem.