Do you realize that as you read this column you are involved in
something changing the Church in ways that were impossible to imagine
just a few years ago?
According to the head of Google, Eric
Schmidt, seven billion of us, up from two billion right now, will be
accessing the internet , mostly by hand held devices – smart phone and
tablets - inside five years.
What is really new about what web access will be for the coming
generation is how it will enable them to interact directly with others
who share common concerns – social media platforms. It is the medium
that will enable interactivity on a scale never known in human
evolution.
As the last pope put it, the web is the new gathering place or assembly point – the agora.
It is the place where messages can be transmitted.
To participate in it
requires a changed mindset for Church leaders who are used to being
listened to. Social media is now the tool for listening to the heartbeat
of the Church. Miss it and you are just ignored.
And paradoxically, its capacity to provoke change is highest in
closed societies that delude themselves into the belief that they can
control the flow of information and contain interaction. Frustrations
are highest among people who are blocked from what they want to do.
What difference will it make to Catholics and the Church’s operations
when more than two thirds of the planet’s population is interacting in
cyberspace?
What we are witnessing is the exponential growth in the capacity
of ordinary individuals – up to seven billion of them – to share a
technology for information distribution and interaction. This is not
only a technical change but the trigger to a cultural change that has
always been the Trojan Horse in the advent of the web – the power of
interactivity and the democratizing of access to information and the
formation of opinion.
Cultural change is what makes or breaks the Church’s ability to
proclaim the Gospel in compelling and persuasive ways. And our record
isn’t great on that score.
It took 150 years for Vatican authorities to wake up to the invention
of printing by Gutenberg. It was Luther who saw its potential,
translated the Bible from Latin into national languages and put the Word
of God into the hands of anyone who could read it. From this and for
other reasons, the Protestant reformation flowed.
In Asia, one of the continents where the Catholic Church is growing,
we are familiar with the impact of cultural change and its relevance to
the mission of the Church.
The Church’s mission to proclaim and display the message of Jesus has
never done so well as it has since the end of the colonial era in the
middle of the last century. Becoming their own nations, Asian societies
and their Catholic Churches have not had to carry the burden of being
seen as a European import. Many have taken on shapes and languages and
customs proper to the people of each country and nationality.
But now, by 2018, the communications landscape of Asia will be
transformed by what the net can offer through cheap smartphones and
tablets. Interactivity will so impact Asia that previously
hierarchically structured and centrally controlled nations and cultures
will be under an attack, the likes of which they have never faced before
– from within.
The most immediate and obvious opportunity for the Church is to take
seriously the Vatican II notion of the Church as the People of God and
not define the Church beginning with the hierarchy.
Whether you like it or not and whether it’s an improvement or a
deformation, the web means everyone has the opportunity to pose as an
authority, to propose their campaign, to unite or divide communities and
nations. The capacity to publish and interact and win and persuade
whole populations is now in the hands of anyone who wants to grasp it –
for good or for ill.
Miss this change in style and substance to the culture created by the web and the Church will do itself lasting damage.
Of course, virtual interaction is no substitute for actual,
face-to-face encounter in the Church’s life. Just as you might make
friends online, no one develops real relationships unless they can
actually meet and learn about someone else in the flesh. Even online
dating goes nowhere until there are real meetings. It’s the same with
the Church.
But coming generations of Catholics will not take the word of
authorities just because they’re authorities. The next generation of
leadership of the Church will need to be skilled in offering invitations
and being persuasive, rather than believing compliance with their
directives will come simply by virtue of their office.
However, there’s an upside. With so many Catholics online in Asia,
what connected people to parishes in the past (sodalities, prayer
groups, social service outreach, administration, schools and many more)
will have another layer to them – continuous virtual and interactive
connection.
A French historian, Charles Peguy, said early last century of the
Church that at the turn of each age, “she arrives a little late and a
little breathless.” This time, what can be done with the changes in
cyberspace are only restricted by the way we limit the possibilities.
