SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE CHURCH DOCUMENTS ON EDUCATION
(Selected paragraphs)
Fr. Walter Moschetti (*) Introduction
The pervasiveness of media in our society and its powerful influence on our culture, means that the educational process can be reduced to the sphere of school and family.
Proper use of the media and other technical advances, not only as teaching tools, but above all, as vehicles in multiple dimensions amplifiers education is absolutely necessary.
There is a widespread perception that the media are mere pastimes, to be "consumed" in moments of leisure or entertainment. This adds to the low level of demand required for its reception, to inspire in the viewer passivity and a certain complacent conformity.
is emphasized that their knowledge is superficial, ephemeral, sensational and, not infrequently, chaotic.
All this leads to teachers, whether teachers, professors, priests or parents, to look with deep suspicion and distrust left by the media as tools and vehicles really values \u200b\u200btraining.
However, with only negative reviews are not going to break the hold increasingly powerful instruments of social communication.
Every day more numerous educators who perceive the media (and especially television) as a true "parallel school." We must discover the nature
education they have, beyond serious negative features that are currently before us. We see that, especially in third world countries, projected patterns of life and patterns of behavior that are at odds with what, as healthy as our society mean real education.
In recent times the Church has regarded the media not just as "subsidies", but as tools necessary for ministry. Thus we see that the theme is present in many Church documents on Catholic education, the work of authentic apostolate in the midst of a secular world has to deepen its meaning and rationale.
The Catholic school is an action, an instrument of evangelization. Fully enters into the salvific mission of the Church in the demands of education in the faith.
realities and circumstances of our time, put at our disposal the technical inventions wonderful gifts of God in carrying out our task of evangelization. We would be indebted to the Lord if not effectively utilizásemos these means for the apostolate.
Documents of Vatican II and Encyclicals
In the encyclical Divini Illius Magistri of Pope Pius XI on Christian Education of Youth (1929), although not referring directly to the instruments social communication, recognizes that education is necessarily social work, not lonely, and that to get a perfect education, it is extremely important to ensure that all conditions surrounding the learner, during the period of its formulation, ie, the set of all the circumstances is often called "environment", corresponds well to the intended purpose.
The document makes specific mention of the media in Chapter IV, addressing the issue of the world and its dangers, calling for careful monitoring of impious or licentious books that lead young people to moral and religious shipwreck, the the cinema and entertainment radio auditions.
"These very powerful means of disclosure which can serve, if they are picked up by sound principles, of great use for instruction and education are in many cases are subordinate to the lure of the evil passions and greed of gain. St. Augustine lamented to see the passion that drew even the Christians of his time and circus performances with dramatic vividness perversion, happily passing, his student and friend Alipio. wanderings many juveniles, because of all events for today readings without the evil, they have to mourn now, parents and educators! (Chapter VI, 2)
whereas the importance of education in human life and its increasing influence in contemporary social progress, the Second Vatican Council in 1965 released the statement Gravissimun Educationis Momentum.
After talking about the universal right to education, and Christian education in particular, to itemize the means of Christian education, said that the first is the instruction which enlightens and strengthens Christian faith encourages life with spirit of Christ, leads to a conscious and active participation in the liturgical mystery and encourages apostolic action. On to say:
"... the Church appreciates and seeks to penetrate its spirit and dignify also other means, which belong to the common heritage of mankind, and gradually help to cultivate and train the souls men, such as social media, the many cultural and sports groups, youth associations, and especially , schools (n.4)
was Evangelii Nuntiandi Apostolic Exhortation of Paul VI (1975) who explained clearly the evangelizing efforts of the Church, which drives a vital membership and community of faith that requires the explicit listing living witness to infuse gospel values \u200b\u200bculture.
Chapter IV, indicating the means of evangelization, exposes the necessary use of social media in these terms:
"Our century is characterized by social media, the first proclamation, catechesis or the further deepening of faith can not do without these means, as we have said before .
posts in the service of the Gospel, they offer the possibility of increasing almost indefinitely the area of \u200b\u200bhearing the Word of God, conveying the Gospel to millions. The Church would feel guilty before God if they did not utilize these powerful tools which human intelligence ever more perfect. With them, the Church proclaims from the housetops' the message which is the depository. They found a version modern and efficient of the pulpit. Thanks to them can speak to the masses.
However, the use of social media for evangelization presents a challenge: the evangelical message should, yes, get through them, the crowds, but still able to penetrate the consciousness, and land on the heart of every man in particular, with everything he has is unique and personal, and able to raise their favor adherence and a truly personal commitment "(n.45)
Evangelii Nuntiandi remember that the whole Church is missionary, incumbent, by divine command to go around the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. Wealth and the beauty of this evangelization is in the range of services to this unit in the same mission.
Referring to the laity in particular, as agents of evangelization, teaches
"Their own field of evangelizing activity is the vast and complicated world of politics, of social, economics, and culture, of sciences and the arts, of international life, the mass media and other realities which are open to evangelization, such as love, family, education of children and adolescents, professional work, suffering, etc. " (Chapter VI n.70).
In all these environments humanity the Church is to bring the Good News and its influence transforming from within, making it new humanity.
In 1979, Catechesi Tradendae, the Apostolic Exhortation of John Paul II on catechesis in our time, talks about the transmission of the contents of faith with suitable teaching methods. Methods and languages \u200b\u200bthat are truly means for communicating the whole Word of God.
Addressing the issue of methods and means of catechesis, begins by noting that from the oral teaching of the apostles catechesis has not ceased to look for ways and means best suited to its mission. Pope Affirms
:
"I come spontaneously thought the great potential of social media and group media: television, radio, newspapers, CDs, tapes, all audio-visual. Efforts in these areas are of such scope that can encourage the greatest hope. Experience shows, for example, the effect of a teaching radio or television, when it combines a high aesthetic level and rigorous fidelity to the Magisterium. The Church now has many opportunities to address these problems, including global conferences of social communication, without the need to expand on it here, despite its importance "(Chapter VI n.46). Documents
Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education
was in line with the Council's Declaration Gravissium Educattionis, the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education stated in its document CATHOLIC SCHOOL (1977) a reflection on it, seeing it every day is acquiring greater importance in the Church.
Catholic school states that falls squarely within the saving mission of the Church, especially in the demand for education in the faith. Attempts to root the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the consciousness and lives of young people, taking into account the cultural constraints of today. From here you define your project education.
Nothing in the document an explicit reference to social media, but can read between the lines refer to them when, for example, speaks of cultural pluralism, expressed especially through the mass media, soundboard culture. The educational effort will be in this multicultural reality the formation of strong personalities, capable of resisting the debilitating relativism, and living up to Christian demands.
The document recognizes that the educational activities of the Catholic school, which tends to achieve a synthesis between faith and culture and between faith and life, is developed along with other educational institutions, there are also many other social areas which are, in many ways, a source of information and cultural participation.
"Faced with this 'parallel school', imposes the active presence of the school, through a systematic and critical education, prepare young people to self-control that enable them to make free and conscious choices from messages that have social media. It is necessary to teach them to bring such critical messages to a personal opinion, to arrange them in good synthesis and integrate them into their human and Christian culture. " (N.48)
out in 1982 Lay Catholics document WITNESS OF FAITH IN THE SCHOOL, noting the call the apostolate of the laity who must order, according to God's temporal affairs, considering especially the role of evangelizing the educator.
Referring to the irreplaceable social role of the school, said:
"The growing importance of environment and social communication instruments, with their contradictory and sometimes harmful influences, the continuous expansion of cultural context, the increasingly comprehensive and necessary preparation for professional life, day by day more diversified and specialized, and therefore progressive inability of families to cope alone with all these serious problems and needs, makes it increasingly necessary to school " (Chapter 1 n.13)
In the second chapter of the teacher mentions the need for ongoing attention to socio-cultural, economic and political development of the school, both the immediate neighborhood or area where the school is located, and the regional and national context, "often through the media, exert as much or more influence on it. Just the fact that tracking Instant global, national and international will provide the information needed to leave the passage of the current training needs of their students and try to prepare for the future world he senses "(n.35)
The Educational Guidance in Human Love (1983) -Sex education guidelines, after noting some fundamental principles of the Christian concept of sexuality, Chapter II focuses on three points to discuss education accountability for the use of social communication tools:
"In the Presently the instruments of social communication, with its sweeping emergence and power of suggestion, have on young people and children in general and especially the field of sex education, a continuous and conditioning work master key information and much more incisive than that proper to the family.
John Paul II has described the situation in which children come to meet against the instruments of social communication: 'Fascinated and private defense against the world and to adults, children are naturally disposed to accept what is offered, whether for good or bad ... Children are attracted to the 'small screen' and the 'big screen': follow all the gestures that appear in them and perceive, before or better than any other person, the resulting emotions and feelings. "
should be noted also that the same technological change is less easy to make timely the necessary control. Hence the urgency, even a straight line towards sex education that recipients, especially the young, should be used to moderate and disciplined in the use of these instruments, and put further effort to fully understand what is heard, seen and read; dialogue with educators and experts in the field and learn to govern Straight trial.
In defense of children's rights in this field, Juan Pablo II stimulates the consciousness of all Christians responsible, in particular parents and operators of social media, not to hide under the pretext of neutrality or respect for the spontaneous development of the child, which is really disturbing behavior disinterest. Civil authorities have
peculiar duties in this area because of the common good, which requires that a legal regulation of social communication tools protect public morality, in particular the world of youth, especially in regard to magazines, film, radio, television programs, exhibitions , entertainment and advertising. "(nn.66-68)
The Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education, launched in 1986 the document: GUIDELINES ON THE TRAINING OF FUTURE PRIESTS FOR THE USE OF THE INSTRUMENTS OF SOCIAL COMMUNICATION.
" The always influence wider and deeper than in recent decades are putting the tools of social communication in almost all respects, sectors and relations of society, creating in it new problems, has led to the Magisterium to multiply the teachings and standards for protection and profit, not only of the faithful and all people of good will, but also from those in the world today, are called to the ministerial priesthood. In accordance with these official guidelines of the Church, this congregation also, since 1970, provided in the fundamentalist Ratio institutionis sacerdotalis-after providing general information on the problems of social communication tools, which were formed in the future Seminars priests for the proper use of the same, with the threefold purpose: "to can fend for themselves and form the faithful with regard to the media, and use them effectively in the ministry "and the following year, the Pastoral Instruction Communio et Progressio emphasized this program, noting:" For they are not completely removed from the realities of life and unprepared to assume the apostolic task of future priests and religious, during their training in seminaries and colleges, have to study the influence of these media on human society and technique of their use. This preparation is an integral part of their training. "(Intr. n. 4)
In 1988 the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education, provides guidance for reflection and review of the RELIGIOUS DIMENSION OF EDUCATION IN THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL. Speaking
there, of young people to the religious dimension of life refers to the large number of Catholic schools that are in those parts of the world that currently produce profound changes in attitude and life: urban and industrialized areas.
"... It is characterized by the widespread availability of consumer goods, many opportunities to study complex systems of communication. Young people are in contact with the 'mass media' from the early years of his life. Listen to opinions of all kinds. They early reports of everything. " (N.8)
then points to the lack of benchmarks religious and moral. Miscellaneous documents on education
The MESSAGE TO CATHOLIC SCHOOLS Episcopal Commission on Education (Buenos Aires, 1968) is the salvific mission of the Catholic school and its consequences for the educational ministry, noting that the pair that opens as befits the current progress, educate its students to efficiently achieve the good of the land and prepare to serve the spread of the Kingdom of God, so that with the exercise of an exemplary and apostolic life, are as the saving leaven of Christian spirit entering the mentality and customs laws and structures of the human community.
Without making explicit reference to the media, they would be included in the technique which must be judged in light of recent times:
"If our education wants to be vital and deep must be illuminated by the eschatological reality of Christ and lead to personal and final encounter with him (...) All our educational projects and future in perspective. The world of learning, work, art is judged in the light of the End Times. " (P 2 pto.3)
MEDELLIN's paper (1968) in the chapter on education, specifying the characteristics of education in Latin America, presented as a new concern unsystematic education increasingly important, "social media, youth movements and it contributes to the creation of a certain popular culture and the increased desire for change" (n. 5)
Medellín claims that American education is called upon to respond to the challenge of the present and future, for our continent, to free our fellow men easements cultural, social, economic and political barriers to our development.
The Declaration of the Argentine Episcopate April 1969, the bishops stated:
"The Argentine Bishops considers it necessary Catholic educational institutions to reach the peripheral and marginal, without abandoning the existing works, with special facilities for children and adolescents, that access to all levels of education is paved to the economically backward classes, which are meets and in many cases to be exemplary and worthy of praise, and to pay special attention to the haphazard education through mass media, youth movements and how much to contribute to the creation of a certain popular culture
Paragraphs relating to education, the Puebla document (1979), after recalling that for the Church to educate the man is part member of her evangelizing mission in an observation of the situation, with these expressions:
"The educational work is developed between us in a situation of socio-cultural change, characterized by secularization of culture, influenced by mass media and marked by quantitative economic development ... "(n.1014)
" The growing demand for education of various kinds also raises new challenges to the Church, not only in the field of mainstream education (colleges and universities), but also in other : adult education, distance education, non-formal, unsystematic, closely linked to the remarkable development modern means of social communication and finally the vast potential of lifelong learning "(n.1018)
As pastoral needs in the field of education points to the need" to promote popular education (informal education) to revitalize our culture popular, encouraging trials through the image and sound creatively make manifest the deep Christian values \u200b\u200band symbols of American culture "(n.1047)
On June 2, 1980, Pope John Paul II in a speech to the UNESCO addressed the issue of social media:
"This sovereignty which exists and which has its roots in the culture of the nation and society, the primacy of the family in the educational and, finally, the personal dignity of every human being must remain the fundamental criterion in the way of addressing this important problem for humanity today is the problem of media (information linked to them and also what is called 'mass culture'). Because these media are the media 'social' communication, are not means of domination over others, both by political power brokers, as the financial powers that impose their agenda and their model. Should take into account the culture of the nation and its history. Must respect the responsibility family in the field of education. Should take into account the good of man, his dignity. Can not be subjected to the criterion of interest, for the sensational or immediate success, but, taking into account the demands of ethics, should serve life building a 'more human'. "(N.16)
In texts on the educational theme of the document NATIONAL CHURCH AND COMMUNITY (1981), then to raise the educational problems present in the culture and identify the educational work of the school, as the most important educational institution, is supported by very strong fundamentals, right of all men to Education which includes the right to education of the whole person (integral formation). "These hallmarks of education in the thinking of the Church, which here seems to remember, to be seen today, in addition, as part of a society characterized by the plurality of ideas, values, ways of thinking and opinion" (n. 157) The document
EDUCATION AND LIFE PROJECT Episcopal Catechesis Team (1985) addresses the issue of education by considering the most effective way for the renewal of serious and profound social and political life.
The document recalls that in addition to school, family, pastors, psychologists, social workers, etc., "No less responsible education must, in fact, agents of social media, who also heads the document for its growing impact on people's cultural climate and, above all, his influence-shaping the minds and hearts of future generations. "(3, pto.7)
Chapter I, "The truth about man, the image guidance of education" talks about the task of teaching as an effort to help people to achieve their fullest, starting from an adequate conception of man as a community of people. "Clarify and justify this picture is all the more urgent and essential for education in today's world because, through various means of cultural impact, heavily promoted models attractive, but that distance people from their being and their essential task. Such conceptions of man become in handling education of different sign, or offer you the positivistic view that man close to transcendence, reduce it to categories of efficiency and profitability, and offered only a goal of self pleasure and power. " (n.1)
Among the aims of education raised in the document, identifies goals of maturity that are the identity and sense of man. Among others, points out:
"Correspondingly, it is essential to have the frame of reference consistent worldview in light of that clear and straight convictions arising regarding the meaning, value and use of power possessions, money, fame, success, sex, entertainment, advertising, media, etc.. "(n.34)
Education and Life Project says that education that suppresses the trial critic, who does not raise a healthy critical sense that is true education, but trainer, domestication and abuse of dominance of one over another, and "to warn new situation created by advances in science and technology that put on the table of public debate concerning issues of human life on which you can not say with so much light as they do many social media, far from having an educational purpose, indiscriminately sown more fallacious ideas about contraception, abortion, euthanasia and suicide "(cf. n.45)
When the document is a review and reconsideration of the Argentina Catholic school in the national context, recognizes the positive efforts of renewal in line of Vatican II that has been made, and invites further, especially in some important points. One of them:
"Developing knowledgeable group of mass media to enhance their educational opportunity"
Among the options and priorities identified in the Chapter 3, it is recognized to Catholic education as one that has to enlighten the laity in their specific responsibilities. "In up to them to effect the transformation of social structures prevailing love and justice among all men according to God's plan. The laity who must carry the spirit of the Gospel to the political, economic, labor, etc. "(Cf. n. 168)
Conclusion In this paper I hope to have presented the most significant paragraphs on the reality of the media social documents of the Magisterium of the Church on education.
some time, the Church is aware of the powerful social impact of the instruments of communication, often understood as "parallel school". From there it can not be discounted to talk about education. First are the teachers who should be aware that today's students have developed much more visual interest than those of a few years ago and are much more aware of the ideas and extra-family events and after school. The children and young people today are shaped by the media, they feel strong predilection for the image, so linear, so fragmentary, so existential, so right away ... and hardly tolerate traditional classroom setting, very hierarchical, formalistic and falsely intellectualized. It is essential to keep this in mind when thinking about an educational project in school.
is necessary to reach mutual cooperation overcoming the conflict and complementarity between education and social media. The school is the institution that could exploit the huge opportunities that provide social media. If we examined the source of knowledge of children and youth, we see that neither the family nor the school would come out victorious.
The media have entered into open competition with the school and the traditional family and have to make that competition in mutual collaboration.
On the other hand, it is very unfortunate that the media have not learned not to assume that role educator.
I am aware that the issue deserves greater breadth and depth. But I found enough elements proposed in this paper, in terms of an overview and starting point for analysis, discussion and further reflection on the relationship between education and social media. Bibliography used
-CONSUDEC: "Documents of the Magisterium of the Church on Catholic Education," editorial Claretian, Buenos Aires, 1990.
-ORSINI-IRIARTE: "Reality and the Media", Ediciones Dabar, Mexico, 1994.
-CELAM: "Towards a theology of communication", DECOS-CELAM, 1998.
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