Cardinal Tobin: Explore genuine connections in the age of social media

My dear sisters and brothers in Christ, 

Synodality begins with attentive listening and respectful dialogue, but its ultimate goal is encounter, the kind of personal engagement that leads to mutual understanding, trust and the ability to join hands as sisters and brothers who are members of the one family of God. Ultimately, synodality should lead us to a face-to-face encounter with our Lord Jesus Christ precisely because we recognize him in the faces of everyone we meet—those who are closest to us as well as strangers, even enemies.  

A recent statement by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication entitled “Towards Full Presence: A Pastoral Reflection on Engagement with Social Media” (see below) describes how this kind of personal encounter can happen in today’s digital age. While warning of the sometimes-grave dangers that can be found on social media, the Vatican’s statement deliberately seeks to identify the high ground, the ways that these new and increasingly impactful forms of communication can lead to genuine encounters between and among thoughtful and spiritually motivated people.  

According to this statement, genuine encounters begin with listening and awareness: 

The disciple who has encountered the merciful gaze of Christ has experienced something else. He or she knows that communicating well begins with listening and an awareness that another person is before me. Listening and awareness aim to foster encounter and to overcome existing obstacles, including the obstacle of indifference. Listening in this manner is an essential step in engaging others; it is a first indispensable ingredient for communication and a condition for genuine dialogue (Towards Full Presence, #25). 

Listening, and awareness of the fact that we are engaged in conversations or dialogue with others, fosters personal encounter and is essential to human interaction. This is in sharp contrast to the kind of belligerent name-calling and hostile, often vulgar, accusations that we too often find today on nearly all social media platforms.  

The Vatican’s statement uses Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25–27) to illustrate what a genuine encounter looks like: 

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the man who was beaten and left to die was helped by the least expected person: in Jesus’ time, the Jewish and Samaritan peoples were often at odds. If anything, hostility would have been the expected behavior. The Samaritan, however, did not see that beaten man as an “other,” but simply as someone who needed help. He felt compassion, putting himself in the other’s shoes; and gave of himself, his time, and his resources to listen to and accompany someone he encountered (Towards Full Presence, #26). 

As the statement observes, “The Gospel of Luke does not include any dialogue between the two men” (Towards Full Presence, #28). In fact, the only words that are recorded in this Gospel passage are the instructions that the compassionate Samaritan gives to the innkeeper. Nowhere do we read angry accusations against the robbers or bitter criticisms of the priest and Levite who were indifferent to their fellow countryman’s suffering. We see only the loving care that one human being gives to another.  

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